I was busy planning and arranging visitation schedule tried my best to fulfill the request by location offices. With all the tight schedule, spending a weekend in Cebu seems to be the most optimized contrive in between Philippines and Hong Kong. Therefore, since I will be having a weekend in Cebu, I was surfing the web for information about Cebu to find out this place is in fact a diving heaven. The more I browsed the web about Cebu’s diving, the more dilemma I was. I was contemplating among the nearby Mactan, the Thresher Shark’s paradise Malapascua or marine sanctuaries Moalboal.
I dropped Mactan because there are too many negative feedback from the material I read. It will only be good if you do Hilutung or Nalusuan island. These place they need more people to go else they will making loss if I’m the only diver. As for Malapascua, it seems to be a great place to dive where you will come across Thresher Sharks and Manta Ray like almost certain. Too bad, it was way too far for my short schedule and of course, too expensive to travel alone.
So, my final decision is Moalboal. When I tried to search for transportation information, there’s only handful of them. The easiest way is to hired a cab directly send you to the destination. However, conveniences always come with a price to pay. If you want hassle free, I would suggest you get your cab from the airport. They have standard price for it. PHP 2,800 for one way or Round Trip for PHP 5,000. I tried to ask the taxi I took around Mactan island, they were asking for PHP 3,500 one way. Frankly speaking, if you have 3 – 4 person with plenty of luggages or dive gears, this will be a very good choice of transporting.
I’m on budget and alone, therefore I was looking up and down for cheaper solution and what I did was taking the Philipino’s way. I took taxi from my hotel in Mactan to Southern Terminal ‘Citylink’ in Cebu City. From there, I squeezed myself into the v-hire (an 18 seater van) which will channel between Cebu City and Moalboal.
The red circles showing the destination of each v-hire van. (Picture is a bit dark cos I’m trying not to look like foreigner. Therefore, I only sneakingly took this with my phone)
I was lucky to be seated in front of the van with a pinay in between me and the driver. The rest have to constrict into 3 rows making 4 persons constrained arm to arm in a row. Well, what you can expect something PHP 100 for a distance of 90km? Perhaps you can pay PHP 200 acquiring spaces for 2 all by yourself. The total journey took around 2 hours 15 mins. There will be 30 mins of winding road experience starting from Carcar City (marked as red in the picture below). There are some houses along the way that will keep you busy. Oh ya… please remember, the v-hire van will only depart once the van is fully occupied. For my case, when I reached the terminal, one van just left and I have to wait in the following van for about 20 mins before it’s filled. I’m happy with the this service although same claim it is dangerous because the v-hire driver drive like F1 but mine was fine. I do feel safe.
My colleague told me they operate from 5am till 7pm. I didn’t verify this so please do not trust this 100% ya. Also, please remember not to give anyone your money at the station. Some might claim they are the agent and will ran off once you gave it to them. There will be someone collecting the fee from you in the van before it departs.
This will be the journey from Cebu City to Moalboal
Before reaching Moalboal, I saw this (picture below). How is it possible that Coke has a factory outlet in such a place? more over, what they going to sell in Coke factory outlet? expired Coke?
How could this be real? Selling expiry Coke?
After I got down from the v-hire van, I negotiated PHP 20 for a motorbike to send me to Marina Vallage 4km from the main road. Not too sure if this is too expensive. My transportation exploration was a safe one and here I am, looking at the sea at Moalboal. I was inform that there is another way to channel between this 2 places which is the public buses. I was told it is cheaper and just slightly slower than the v-hire. Well, you need to try this out and let me know because I’m not going for this option.
Moalboal at 6pm. Don’t expect some nice white sandy beaches.
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
Continuing the Discussion
-
Marine Sanctuary, Moalboal Philippines – One – Myhorng says it all
[...] during a business trip and Moalboal was where I utilized this golden opportunity. I explained how to get to Moalboal from Cebu city and now I would like to share my [...]
October 14, 201012:06 am
hahaha cocacola factory outlet? LOL
August 9, 2010 at 10:05 am