I’m not sure why it took us this long to the to the Philippines. We have heard so many good stories from our Filipino friends as well as other travelers. We lived for a few years in Beacon Hill which is the heart of the Filipino community in Seattle. We are definitely familiar with Filipino food and a lot of the culture, but most of our Seattle neighbors and the Filipino people we worked with, didn’t ever live in the Philippines. They brought Lumpia to our potlucks at work and they told us stories of their long beach vacations but most were a couple of generations from actually living there. We needed to go see these islands first hand.
So, we are starting our Filipino adventures with Malapascua Island. Kind of a weird place to start to learn about the Philippines if you ask my American-Filipino friends. It is a small island just a bit bigger than our Stretch Island in Washington state and only has about 7000 people. But this is the type of place we love. No cars – just boats and beaches (ok, and motos)! Our traveling to these types of small remote islands the past few years have given us the guts to seek out the places that aren’t on the regular tourist path. We also need to do these type of places before our bodies are too old to carry our luggage on small ramps off boats onto these beaches. Another reason why we retired early.
Malapascua Island is a diving island. We are not divers but we love to snorkel and we did a lot of snorkeling this last week. Our hotel has roped off the bay and have a guard posted at all times to make sure nobody is standing on coral or disturbing the fish. It seemed weird to have a guard for a beach that usually only had about 5 snorkelers at a time but after seeing that fantastic coral formations that haven’t been trampled we were very appreciative. The island is famous for it’s Thresher Sharks. They liked to hang out on our beach and we were able to see several every day. We highly recommend our hotel Tepanee Beach Resort and their marine protection area.
Besides the sharks, it was fun to see lots of colorful color, starfish, and lots of different types of fish. Our days usually started with snorkeling to put us in a good island mood. I have a plastic case for my cellphone to take pics but I’m thinking it would be kind of fun to have a gopro with a waterproof case to get some better pics. But here are a few anyway.
There wasn’t much to do on the island but snorkel and take walks. So we wandered around the island several times to see how the locals lived. There was a powerplant on the island so most residents had power and most were able to get their water using primitive wells with buckets on ropes. I don’t think most of the wells were potable so most people drank bottled water. Housing wasn’t the best but everyone we talked to were very friendly and offered help to us. Most people here drive motorcycles and didn’t really understand our desire to walk everywhere. We saw many houses with a rooster or two tied out front with a string around one leg. Cockfighting must be a favorite activity on this island.
We saw free range kids everywhere. They all looked like they were having a great childhood growing up in this island with so many non electronic things to do. Kids always seemed to be having fun in the water or running around the villages. It might have been a lack of day care but the small town village atmosphere made sure that these kids couldn’t get into too much trouble even though we often didn’t see their parents close by.
This is a diving island so there were a lot of foreigners around and several beachside restaurants to keep us fed. We didn’t see too many Americans. Most of the people we met were European and a lot of the hotels and restaurants seemed to be owned by Italians. We ate a lot of good pizza from wood fired ovens. We did seek out Filipino food and were able to find some excellent examples of our favorite Filipino dishes including a lot of fish and seafood.
We endlessly enjoyed the beauty of this island. We walked around the island to find the long white sand beaches, turquoise water, that were almost deserted. Sunsets were fantastic almost every night. The Philippines are getting popular with many tourists looking for new places to discover but I think this place won’t change for a few years. The crowds still have many more beautiful islands before they find Malapascua. It is still tough to get here with a flight to Cebu, a 4-6 hour bus ride and a sketchy 1 hour ferry ride. The snorkeling, the beauty of the beaches, and the vibe of the friendly locals will bring us back.
Next stop is another Filipino Island- Bantayan!