Samal Island, Philippines - March 6, 2008
Made it to Samal Island the LONG way. The Lonely Planet guide for the Philippines is abysmal. You can tell they writers of the book don't like the Philippines at all, and the information is always very outdated even with the most recent editions. Samal Island was no exception. They only have a couple 'resorts' listed to Samal Island (despite there are probably 50 resorts or more there). The prices are out of whack, and so is the information with getting there.
We chose 'Paradise Resort' as it sounded affordable compared to the most famous resort which is $125+ a night. Paradise was suppose to be a small fraction of that, but it didn't turn out to be so. First we went to the ferry terminal listed in the book, where we hopped on some bus that goes across by ferry. Of course the bus actually goes from the city, so it was ridiculous to take the taxi to the ferry terminal. Then on the other side, the bus went to opposite direction we needed to go, so we took a trike (motorcyle-like taxi with three wheels). They charged 100 pesos (for something which most trikes would charge 20 pesos). Then we had more fees when we arrived at the resort, and of course any affordable room was not available, so we HAD to rent the room for $US80/night. This was so much higher than we needed, it made me wish we'd just gone all out with the very famous expensive resort instead, but we didn't, we just suckered it up and took this very expensive resort room. ON the plus side, the cottage was very nice.
Later we learned all the things that were wrong. First off, all the locals pay local fees to just stay in the resort during the daytime hours then head back to Davao in the evening. This just costs $2. In addition, there are ferries that take you directly from Paradise Resort to Davao City (takes like 10 minutes). So ideally it would be best to go back to Davao in the evening and catch a movie in the cinema or eat normal-priced dinners. At Paradise, all of the food was way overpriced, and then everything was completely shut down by 9pm, and by 10pm, you couldn't even go anywhere to buy a water much less anything else. The only people around the beach were other foreigners who were also suckered into the highest priced rooms. The next morning, my wife overheard the clerk telling other foreigners they only had the highest-priced rooms, but when a Filipino couple came in, they gave them the option/choice of what they wanted. In other words, it was a nice resort, but I just felt I was swindled all along by the trike driver, the resort, and the fact it's all shut down so early at night you can't even buy water. Also the food available is overpriced. Next time, I'd prefer to just do what the locals do. That is take the cheap ten minute ferry across directly, pay the day fee, and bring some picnic foods to eat or whatever and just enjoy the beach - as it quite nice. But it's really only good for the day, and then quickly get back to Davao when things start to close and just relax in a normal-priced hotel with normal-priced foods.
Continued journal entries in the Philippines:
March 8, 2008
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