Cebu, Philippines

After our 2 day epic journey to Cebu from Boracay (see previous post) we finally made it to our mediocre pension (hotel) in Mactan (also Lapu Lapu city). We stayed at Ace pension across from the Gaisano Mactan Mall as it was the cheapest place we could find online for the island. We still paid $55 a night and our friend Audra was forced to sleep on a cot. We paid only $11 each to stay on the 1,000 times better island of Boracay. Mactan is real built up with resorts which drives the price of everything up. These prices increased our drive to find cheap, local foods. Every morning we ate a delicious mango for about fifty cents each (85-100 pesos per kilo and 4 mangos per kilo) and some bread. 

The next afternoon we went in quest of a resort that would let us use their beach and pool facilities for a decent price. We hopped on a Jeepney (local bus) for 12 pesos and were dropped  off near the resorts on the south side at the Maribago stop. We walked a bit, inquired at a few places and finally found a great place for 600 pesos each. We spent the day getting our moneys worth, 7 hours of pool, beach, pool, rinse repeat. Once the sun had set, we headed back to Ace.

Once we got back and the girls had procured their lotion to quence the sunburns they had acquired that day, we happened on a man selling balut on the street. Balut is a hard-boiled fertilized duck egg. Ours was aged about 18 days. It costed 17 pesos each. It was dry and chewy and kind of good. There were different textures throughout the egg which was weird, but once you got past it, it was rather tasty. We drew a crowd of Philippinos who seemed entertained at how much of a production we were making out of tasting our first balut. Whatever, it's not everyday you eat your first fetus. For some reason, they only sell balut at night. We had heard about it and were glad we had the chance to try it our last night in the Philippines. 

The Philippines is such a nice, cheap, friendly and exciting place. I strongly encourage everyone to check it out. The people and the food both far exceeded my expectations. I was blown away. I hope I have the chance to go back someday and explore more. I'd love to go to Palawan as we heard great things and I could definitely see more of Manila and Boracay. If resorts and swimming with whale sharks are not in your budget, you can probably skip Cebu. 

Next stop Singapore.