Survivor Philippines - Part 2/3 (The Good) - Malapascua Island, Kalanggaman Islet

The best part about Malapascua Island, wasn't the waters, or the sand, it was what happens when dusk breaks - an undocumented intertidal walk that tops Singapore's very own Semakau Landfill. In terms of the clarify of the waters, there weren't very clear compared to Cambodia's Saracen Bay. It was rather "dirty" too, with sea ferns washing up the shore.

Also, the shore was very rocky, making swimming difficult. Especially the promised private beach of Tepanee Beach Resort. The waters there were much better, looked picturesque in photos, but not feasible when it came to relaxing along the beach or swimming it. The rocks were razorblade-like, it was a test of true grit waddling into the waters, fighting the strong currents (cos the resort is on the tip of the island, therefore the waves tend to be stronger) just to experience a bit of paradise.

If you ask me, it wasn't worth it. I came across Ocean Vida resort, and found it to be one of the best places to stay because your room will be facing Bounty Beach itself, unlike Tepanee Beach Resort which was so exclusive, even the pick up boat that dropped us off, the boat that belonged to the 3Js had to dock quite far out in the waters. We had to get our feets wet before we came onshore, to our resort.

Tepanee Beach Resort was #1 in Tripadvisor a few months back, only to be taken over by Ocean Vida recently, and its only fitting. While I didn't stay in Ocean Vida to assess how good it was, Tepanee Beach Resort shouldn't even be #2 in Tripadvisor. The bad hookups and the bad conditions of the rooms which they provided is a recipe for disaster... instead of boosting Malapascua tourism, it only serves to dampen it otherwise. I shall elaborate more on my accommodation reviews because this post is reserved for the good stuff.

The intertidal walk was a walk to remember, seeing locals searching for sea cucumbers and cockles, and waddling the shallow waters onto patches of raised grounds littered with seagrass, the marine biodiversity was "orgasmic". I don't wanna sound crude or rude here but it was such a euphoric experience that it made travelling 3.5 hours by plane, 3 hours by car and 45 mins by boat well worth it.

We saw hermit crabs, crabs, sea slugs, many different types and schools of fishes, sea plants, starfishes, even our favourite Knobbly sea star, sea urchins and many others unknown marine life good enough to take up an entire 2 hours. Even when the sun set, we weren't done yet, I wasn't done yet. Even though we wanted to go for another round of intertidal walk the next day, we were unable to because by the time we got back from Kelanggaman, the skies were already too dim to be able to spot anything.

We were out on one of the seagrass patches when this guy came up to us and asked if we wanted to sign up for the group tour to Kalanggaman. Because there were so many of them approaching us, I kinda mixed them up, the "good" and the "bad". I had kinda promised this 3 others folks that I'll sign up with them after considering and was what I wanted to do that evening but was caught up by this other guy who's perpetually wearing his rainbow colored sunglasses. He mentioned he was JR's cousin and I thought, oh no, not again. I don't want anything to do with JR.

I tried to shoo him off but he was rather persistent. It was until I told him that I kinda promised that I would sign up with this other company, "Fun & Sun", the other 3 guys whom we saw the previous night that he kinda backed off. Before going, I asked his name, and to my disbelief, it was the same freaking guy, one of the 3 guys whom I had "promised" from "Fun & Sun". I was extremely puzzled cos the guy standing right in front of me, Rudy, didn't even realise that I was talking about him, to him. It was quite comical, but I eventually signed up with him and told him that I want nothing to do with JR.

You see, the 3Js are from "5 Brothers 6". There are a couple of other companies, but they appear to be more specialised towards thresher shark watching. Rudy is a freelance for "Fun & Sun".

Rudy promised me that I won't be boarding with JR's crew but to my disbelief, the next morning, we met the 3Js yet again, Tong, another of JR's cousin was trying to leech us over to their boat. I was insisted about it, I rejected it and said that I was with Rudy. I kept throwing his name out like an immunity idol but circumstances resulted in us having to board... JR's pump boat yet again! W.T.F. A blindside!

But... but... Rudy did come on board the boat to apologise and explain to me that he was cropped up with this other group of tourists (think that was what he said cos his English wasn't very good) therefore he was unable to join us... ok, he's forgiven.

Thankfully, there were like about 15 other passengers on board which made the "cornering-pressure" con ineffective in that situation.

There was this other big group of Japanese which also stayed at Tepanee Beach Resort who joined us as well. I saw the guy giving some money to the cheater-pack and Tong pocketed it rather sneakily, which by then I realised they were gonna be ripped off. We didn't mingle with them much only until later that evening but the communication barrier wasn't conducive for exposing the cheat-pack.

When we reached Kalanggaman Islet, it was truly beautiful. The sand dunes though covered with water looked like a golden route to an island paradise.

Though the waters looked turquoisely inviting, the snorkelling site of the islet was so rocky we gave up halfway and decided to swim at the sandier portion. Even the sandier portion was rock-riddened. The only way to prevent his toes from hitting the rocks or landing onto some pokier ones, was to go further out into the ocean, which was kinda intimidating for us without a life jacket.

We were not strong swimmers because we don't swim often, and the tides were rather menacing. After lunch, we headed to the other side of the island where we saw yet another mini-beach. We were told not to swim there due to the strong currents. We had to walk through this palm-like plantation, well cleared for walking where we came across a half-completed altar, crossing birds (think they were quails), and a solitary tree at the extreme end of the islet.

We did a crazy number of jump shots at our "private beach", before heading back to the main site where the sand dune was. It wasn't only until later that we found out Kalanggaman Islet, meant somewhat like a bird, with the sand dunes representing the wings on each side, but the sand dune on the other side of the islet was destroyed during a recent massive typhoon, Typhoon Haiyan during last November (2013).

On the islet, JR came up to me and asked if I wanted to join his alliance (get him for the pick up back to Cebu; he told me all I had to do was to inform Tepanee that I want his services), I mean of course why in the world would I do that? So I told him that my vote goes to Rudy, that I had already signed up with him. And lo and behold... he actually had the cheek to "lecture" me about how Tepanee would be angry about my decision and that I should have stuck with Tepanee and requested for the "beloved" 3Js to be part of our "trusted" alliance. I got a bit irritated then and told him off but asking "Is there a problem?" To which, he finally backed off and to which the alliance was forever severed... 

When the tides finally receded, we headed out to the sand dunes, by then some parts were already out of water. However, while it looked super gorgeous, it was an ordeal to walk on. The sand wasn't the powdery kind, but comprised of coral debris. But it was well worth enduring the pain to take what many would call a "postcard perfect virgin island".

We had befriended a local couple from Manila, Sarah and Paulo whom we eventually carpooled to Cebu/Mactan Island the next day. Sarah's a chef working with Jollibee (their local fast food chain specialising in Burgers and Wings), so she recommended many local delights, which my dear managed to write down in her notebook and told us there was this highly rated Italian restaurant by the name of Angelica which was near our resort. Little did we know that that restaurant was actually right at the foot of our resort, less than 2 metres away from our receptionist!

The food there was ggggooooodddd. Delish! My dear tried the best Chocolate Banana Shake (to quote her), while I tried the chewiest Squid Ink Pasta ever. I'm a fan of chewy stuff so the squid ink pasta, though not the most delicious, was highly memorable.

Together with Sarah and Paulo from Manila

The carpool to my next Resort destination in Mactan Island was 4,500pesos, while the 2 of us initially had to pay 3,500pesos for the private car. We made the deal with Rudy, though persistent, seemed like an honest chap. He was one of the 2 persons whom I think I could really trust on Malapascua Island, the other being Yogi from "Fun & Sun". Remember the 3 persons I told you about from Fun & Sun, there was Rudy, Yogi and Michael. Michael was yet another cousin of JR I think. See? They're all related.

Well he didn't seem such a bad person compared to the notorious JR, the "Fun & Sun" guys seemed more decent in comparison to "5 Brothers 6". So if you're making a trip down to Malapascua, you can try contacting Rudy, whose contact can be seen below. I believe the "Fun & Sun" guys would be able to give you a better value-for-money experience than the 3Js cheat-pack.

Contact: Rudy Rosales - 09194857441

Rudy on the left, his boss on the right

More intertidal walk photos:

  

 

 

More Kalanggaman Islet photos:

  

  

 JR to the left, Jo-Jo to the back, Tong to the right, Japanese beach hunk in the middle ^^

Survivor Philippines - Part 1/3 (The Bad) - Malapascua Island

While I didn't win a million bucks, I did lose close to 3,000 pesos, around S$90.

My colleague had informed me of Tiger Airways 1-for-1 air tickets to a few destinations earlier this year, I believe was in March. The promotion was opened only for about a week or so, so we had to make a decision quick. We were choosing between Boracay and Cebu, both destinations in the Philippines, but decided to settle for Cebu because it seemed from online sources that Cebu was more laid-back compared to Boracay. Boracay had more nightlife but there was this particular island, Malapascua Island which seemed like a paradise worth traveling to... And it was closer to Cebu than Boracay, less commercialized, more gorgeous. Well at least that was what my research promised. 

The Philippines is comprised of many islands and from what we heard from, Palawan and Coron Islands are beach paradises as well. 

I had arranged for a pickup from Mactan International Airport and trusted the resort to give competitive rates, furthermore I believed it to be a safer option. I was wrong, terribly wrong on both accounts.

Not only did we "willingly" overpaid by about S$30-40, they subjected us to the "wolves" of Malapascua Island, the 3Js whom so happily cornered us on their boat into agreeing to pay for their "personalised" tours.

When we first reached what we thought was Maya Port, it was like no other ports we've seen. There wasn't a platform leading out to sea where their boats docked, instead, there was just a breakwater leading out, where our personal pump boat was waiting for us.  The pump boat is their traditional Philippines fishing boat, fortified and stabilised by bamboo poles at the sides. When we alighted at the "port", drop off point to be more accurate, we were approached by a few locals, one carried the luggages for us, another "welcoming" us and leading us to our boat.

After boarding, we were told we had to tip the guy (illegal porter) who carried our luggages, while at the start, they told us to hand over our luggages to this guy cos they said it's dangerous to be carrying it by ourselves while walking over the rocky breakwater to our boat.

With a lack of a better word, I shall call it Cheat 1. Ka-chink, cheat 1 clocked. I asked how much the tip was to be, they said "Up to me", with 4 pairs of local eyes glaring at my hands when I took out the smallest change I could find... 50 pesos (which is a lot, that I learned only after the trip).

Not long after we left the "port", ok, perhaps I shall explain the inverted commas with the port before carrying on. We signed up for a group Kalanggaman Islet trip the following day, and the boat docked at some bustling port. After speaking to a local couple, we realised that was the official Maya Port. Our so called "port" was fake, so fake that the "demand" for luggage carrying was created to rip tourists of their small change. Maya port had passenger-friendly routes to actually board and alight a pump boat, not like the fake-port which required us to walk a rocky path to our boat.

I'm not sure if it was because Tepanee Beach Resort have a private beach, and the fake-port was of a closer proximity to it, but regardless, no matter how I look at it, if it's true, then they were merely trying to save petrol, and not just that, they ripped us off of tips that we had no choice but to give.

Cheat 2, coming up. While on board, the "co-ordinator" tried to psycho us into getting their service the next day, repeatedly telling us that they offered the best rates on the island. We get to have a personal boat to bring us to 4 tourists hotspots around the island. They quoted us 1,000 pesos per pax, which kinda seem reasonable at that time, but realised later the next day that the market rate was 800 pesos (quoted to locals).

Well, it's actually not that bad rite? 200 pesos? But they said we had to pay extra for lunch, 1,000pesos total, and they would buy us 1kg of fish, chicken, coke, sprite drinks etc. Since the tour was supposed to end around noon, we thought why not? So total damage, 3000 pesos. I think the 800 pesos quoted to the locals were inclusive of food already.

Since we kinda "willingly" agreed to it, I guess we can't complain about that, even though we were kinda cornered and felt pressurised on board since there were only 2 of us and 3 of them. We don't know what they would do if things got nasty. That was what instigated them to abuse the situation the next day when during the start of our private tour, one of them came up to me and told me that I had to pay an additional 300 pesos for food because they bought a lot. I mean, wtf right? They jacked up the price even during the actual day and even after the price had already been decided on.

I was analysing the situation, I mean, I wasn't given much option to insist otherwise since we haven't even started the tour! Same situation, 3 of them, 2 of us. I believe they came up with such a stunt because of an unfortunate incident that morning. I broke down my big notes into smaller ones at the receptionist, and it just so happened one of them say me doing that. Btw their names all started with Js, so I shall call them the 3Js, Jo-Jo, JR and J-sumthing (Boatman). We mixed mostly with Jo-Jo and JR.

Well everything happens for a reason. If it was so coincidental that JR saw what he saw just so that he could plot and rip us off further, then perhaps its God's way of telling me I need to get this out to the masses, expose their modus operandi so that tourists won't end up like me.

They spoke their native language, which looked like they were sneakily discussing about the money I changed that morning... and plotting of how to rip me off. At the end of the day, when all I had was 500 pesos, and I asked for change, Jo-Jo hesitated (he was torn being doing the right thing), while JR said they didn't have (straight off lowlife cheatster).

So I told them I'll get back to the resort and break down the notes further. JR used his psychological puppy tone and said "You won't even give us 200 pesos as tips?" I thought "Hell no", but decided to give in because due to the exclusivity of our interactions till then, I couldn't assess if it was "safe" to offend them.

I was right, in a way. Because I found out during the next few days during our stay there that the boat touters were all more or less related to one another. However, not all of them belonged to the "cheaters pack".

I met 2 of JR's cousins, btw JR's the scheming one, young, scheming and foolish. Which he would come to know in the next few days because after the entire incident, I told myself that I would not be cheated by him again. So much so that I unintentionally enrolled myself into playing Survivor Philippines. A local couple we met on the group tour to Kalanggaman Islet even feedback that they were so shocked to see that I know almost practically everyone on the island (that's an exaggeration of course, but I did indeed know most of the members of the cheat pack, and of course a few good, honest souls as well.)

We were also initially quoted 9,000 pesos for a private tour to Kalanggaman Islet, and after rejected the offer, JR lowered to 7,000, to which I thought to myself, "Darn, kana torked (cheated) already, should have bargained for the private island tour." Eventually, we only paid 1,000 pesos per pax (meals included) for the group tour to Kalanggaman.

As for Cheat 3, that'll have to wait for our trip to Bohol, when we're back in Mactan. *takes a deep breath to purge the anger out...*

Btw there's not much to do in Malapascua, unless you're a diver. We didn't get to see thresher sharks, which Malapascua is known for, because we had to travel far out and from what we heard, can only be seen in deeper waters. And so we spend our first full afternoon at a bar wondering what to do next, which resulted in us deciding to sign up for the Kalanggaman Islet day trip the next day. Kalanggaman Islet is a small private island near Leyte, and is best known for its extending sand dunes. That, is an islet worth going for.

The island day trip was half a day, while the Kalanggaman trip took a full day due to the 4 hours travelling time to and fro to the islet.

We were promised 4 tourists spots. 2 of which were kinda obvious, but the other 2, were rather dubious. The first site we went was a snorkelling spot, where Jo-Jo went down with us to feed the fishes. However, we were the only ones there, and if I'm not mistaken, he said that spot was the Coral Garden, which was kinda dubious. I didn't get to see much, Jo-Jo was so self-absorbed in asking me to take photos of him that he was oblivious about my dear struggling with her snorkelling mask. I was quite irritated in fact, because instead of helping, he kept asking me to look at him under water, and look at him feeding fishes, most of the bread which he took he fed them himself. He only passed a small half to me and my dear.

Oh, they had also promised us life jackets but that morning, asked if we were ok to not have them because their life jackets were stolen the night before. How convenient. They eventually went over to another boat to transfer 2 ancient-looking life jackets that were... faulty... Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant... Another strike out...

The 2nd site, we docked at a shore, some beach with a "cave", where they whooped up a BBQ lunch for us. I could see the Malapascua lighthouse in the distance, about 400-600m away, and we swam there for about 20mins or so. I believe that should be at/near Guimbitayan Beach. While the waters were clear, we freaked out when we saw a jellyfish. I asked Jo-Jo about jellyfishes and he said don't worry, there isn't any. When I told him I just saw one, he looked rather taken aback and asked about its color - whether it was black or white. I said brown, which was what I saw, not trying to be funny, and he said don't worry, it's not poisonous. For all we know, whichever color we said he would have assured us it was safe...

My dear and I had all along thought all jellyfishes were poisonous, just a matter of how deadly they were. We were sceptical, so we still kept our distance from them. There weren't many, about 3 in total, but they were sparsely floating around so we had to keep an eye for them. True enough, I've just did my research and all jellyfishes are poisonous, while their stings may vary from no effect to death. I was sure the innocent looking jellyfish we saw weren't deadly, but was still capable of stinging us.

Jo-Jo even proclaimed that he was a dive master... well even if he was, he was not only an uninformed one, he was an uncaring one to say the least. I held back disclosing that I was an advanced diver even though they asked cos I wanted to see if they would take advantage of us, not sure how that would happen but I was sure disclosing too much to dishonest people would have its adverse repercussions.

The food that they "whooped" up wasn't a lot. I didn't see 1kg of chicken, what a fool they must have thought us to be. It was like 250g tops. Lotsa fish, Barracuda, perhaps close to a kg, but definitely not the chicken. They probably stash it somewhere for their own consumption later. How did I know that? Was I overthinking stuff or was it a fact? It was a fact because that was exactly what they did the next day, during our group tour. I had gone back for seconds, and found very little food left. That was when JR's cousin, Tong (new guy), came up to me, in a whispering tone, and told me that if I want more food, I can go around back (some sheltered hut away from the eating area) to get it.

...1,300pesos worth of food... yah right... 

Anyways, we also passed by this 40-foot cliff diving site, like passing through Clarke Quay's reverse bungy on a boat tour of Singapore River and calling that one of the main attractions.

The only saving grace for the island tour was the Japanese Shipwreck, or Japanese Wreck Marine Sanctuary. I thought it was lame initially, based on the pictures, cos it didn't look like a Japanese ship, and true enough, the "official" name for it didn't have the "ship" word. It was just loosely used by the locals to "con" tourists there. Still, it was quite interesting to see what looked like a 30-man sampan sunk to the bottom of the ocean. It was split into half, with both sides enclosing the marine sanctuary. We saw many divers there, and that, we were sure, was one of the tourist attractions of Malapascua Island.

The tour was supposed to last from 8am-12pm... and we ended at 11.30am. Not only did the 3Js cheat us, they also short-changed us. It was such a bad experience that I started to feel that Philippines had nothing to offer. Yes, it was that bad. That bad taste in the mouth that lingers, and lingers, and lingers.

Coupled with the boredom we experienced that afternoon... I was almost regretting going to the Philippines. Also, I was super paranoid about going there cos of some kidnappings which occurred last year. And I had thought the typhoons were the most worrying. Kidnappings and the cheaters we can't shake off... geeze.

But once I started "playing the game", everything took a turn for the better.

A Jeepney, Philippines public transport equivalent to our buses here in Singapore. Heard it cost around 18-20 pesos to ride on, you just need to flag it and ask if they're going to your destination.

A local convenience shop we frequented to buy bottled water located in the village centre.

The lagoon (Logon from Malapascua map in the previous post) to the "back" of the island which is the only way to Tepanee Beach Resort.

Thousands of camouflaged starfishes could be seen bathed in sand at the Logon.