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Eskaya Resort & Spa, Panglao Island, Bohol
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While at the last Scuba Show in Southern California, we were pleased to see the Philippines Department of Tourism had quite a large booth occupied by native dancers, Department of Tourism staffers, and owners of many Philippines dive resorts.
I noticed one dive resort photo book and start flipping through the pages. It was the most impressive, fanciest, most upscale dive resort I have ever seen. Next I was introduced to Richard and Phoebe Lim, owners of Eskaya Resort and Spa on Panglao Island in Bohol, Philippines.
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Now I had heard plenty about the great diving to be had on Panglao Island, and the unusual nature based activities to be had on the main Island of Bohol that Panglao is almost attached to, so we made arrangements with the Lims for us to come out and review Bohol, Panglao Island and to sample the Eskaya experience.
Bohol is a very large island, situated just east of the more well known Island of Cebu. Although one can fly into Manila, then take a flight from their to Bohol, we elected to fly into the International airport on Mactan island in Cebu.
Mactan Cebu airport is set right in the middle of a smaller island next to Cebu island proper, and adjoins via a large motor vehicle bridge. It is a breeze getting through Cebu Mactan airport, but one of the more unusual things we encountered was a request for a really large money deposit with Customs for our HD video production equipment. I had never encountered this flying into Manila. I did speak with the Customs supervisor, and they said their concern was people flying in with expensive equipment, and selling it without paying import duties. I found it odd they didn’t care about our $15,000 worth of dive gear. I did recall the fees were in the $300-$400 range, but they did say they can accept a credit card as a deposit, which is refunded upon departure.
After they asked who we were, they elected to waive the hefty deposit requirement. Do contact Customs in advance and see what the formalities are, but I suspect they are infrequently enforced unless they know you have expensive electronics, but you don’t want to be the one traveler caught by surprise. My concern is these fees may be an impediment to dive tourism, especially those of us with expensive imaging equipment, whose images and HD videos ultimately promote tourism to the Philippines.
But all in all, the extra 15 minutes dealing with that issue STILL resulted in less time getting out of the airport than crowds at Los Angeles International.
Once out of Cebu airport, taxis are waiting close at hand. Now a word about taxis in many countries. Whatever you do, agree in advance with the taxi driver before you get in that he has a meter, and will be using the meter. Some will say yes to both, then proceed to not turn on the meter. Do not fall for it. Another stunt they pull is if they begrudgingly agree to use the meter, some will try to charge you extra for your baggage, but they will not pull this stunt on you till you arrive at your final destination. My favorite lame excuse they offer up is that my bags are heavy, to which I reply, If you carried them all on your back, it would make a difference, but cars have wheels that roll”.
So start off by asking if they have a meter, and if they say yes, then let them know if they are honest with the meter, you will reward them with a bigger tip for their honesty, and follow through with it. It costs about 200-250 pesos to get from the Cebu Mactan airport to Cebu City. That is only about $4-$6 USD! And remember, this is easy for Westerners to pay, so give a good reward tip for their honesty, these guys are just trying to feed their families, and we can afford to tip well.
You can elect to be taken straight to the ferry terminal. All the taxi drivers know where it is. You can either let Eskaya do all the planning for you, or you can wing it like I do. I figure if we can figure out how to get somewhere new, ANYONE can get there!
Getting around in the Philippines is normally easier for me to figure out than doing so in the U.S.!
As you can see below, the air conditioned ferry terminals are large and uncrowded, and most are playing older but well know American movies on the flat panel TV's.
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Which ferry terminal you go to depends on which ferry you take to get to Bohol, which somewhat depends on what time of the day it is. The terminals are never really crowded, and everyone who works there speaks English, as English is mandatory in all Philippines schools. The Country speaks English better than most inhabitants of Los Angeles!
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The above ferry terminal is the one in Tagbilaran, Bohol, and as you can see, they all have food courts, and some even have massage concessionaires where often times blind people are employed. Give it a go, it might be 1/10th the cost of what it would be in the U.S.! It is even worth arriving too early!
The 3 main ferries are the Oceanjet, the Weesam and the Supercat. I have found the Oceanjet and especially the Supercat to be the newest and cleanest. Their schedules are available online by clicking on the respective names.
The Supercat has a “business class” section which is on the upper floor of their speedy boat, which we elected to try. The seats on the bottom or top deck were similar-all nice. When you get in, take your seat near the flat panel TV screens they always have some American major movie theater shows on. Now I never ever get motion sick, but I have to admit I was forced to watch the remake of Charlies Angels, and it was as close to being nauseous as I have ever been, even the locals were laughing at how bad it was, and considering how much they like American movies, that says a lot!
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All 3 main ferries charge about 750 pesos per person to take you from Cebu to Tagbilaran in Bohol. I think weighing bags is rather silly, as airplanes consume more fuel when heavier, but ships don’t really. Anyway, baggage fees can be in the 200 pesos per bag range when loaded with heavy dive gear. Our video production gear bags and my rebreather bag are always about 75 lbs each, times 4. But 750 pesos is about $16, so don’t sweat it!
All fast ferries have snacks and drinks on board as well as restrooms. I think the Supercats business class is nice while traveling during the day as you can look out at the beautiful seas.
Arrival is at the ferry terminal in Tagbilaran. Hang out on the dock next to the boat and wait for your luggage. On the way out, be sure to carefully throw your peso coins to the kids and mothers on little hand made bangka boats, all of whom seem to have the ferry schedules built into their circadian rhythms!
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Once out of the ferry terminal as seen above right, there is a white building to your left that has all sorts of cool printed info on all the nature based tour destinations on Bohol. This is the Visitor Center. Grab the stuff- it is interesting and will come in handy later, and the staffers are really helpful.
The new Eskaya air conditioned van will be waiting to pick you up right at the ferry terminal. From the City of Tagbilaran, it takes about 45 minutes of driving to Eskaya.
On the way, you are welcome to ask the driver to stop for cool drinks along the way. Eventually you will come to the entrance to Eskaya, where desk attendants will wave the driver in. Down a crushed limestone path you will be taken till your arrival and the turn about in front of the reception office.
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Arrival At Eskaya Resort & Spa
Here we were greeted by the office staff who immediately place umbrellas over our head to shade us, then gave is a floral necklaces as expat South African Bollie the resort manager personally greeted us along with staff.
Up the short steps we went into a really classy looking office reception area. All bags were taken to the room for us, and when it was ready, a staffer escorted us with an umbrella to keep us out of the sun again. The only problem I had with the umbrella thing is the staffer that takes you to your room is usually a woman, and where I come from, a gentleman always opens the door for and holds the umbrella for the lady. I usually prevailed, but for women staffers who refused to let me hold the umbrella for her, we reached a sort of diplomatic detente by both of us holding the umbrella for each other.
Each private room is more like a small private, exclusive residence. Eskaya calls them “Balai’s”. We were taken in for the tour, and oh wow, I could not believe where we were going to get to stay!
Let me back up for a moment and say that I have been in some of the fanciest, most exclusive hotel rooms around. Yet when I travel to the tropics, I don’t want to feel like I am in a gaudy Las Vegas hotel room. I want to feel like I am in the Enchanted Tiki Hut at Disneyland, yet with all the modern amenities. Eskaya has that down perfect, and more.
On the Balai steps is a place for umbrellas and shoes, and once in the door, you are on a natural polished wood floor that has a custom wooden cabinet for your hang up style clothes. The Eskaya staffer opened the hanging closet door, to which a light automatically opened up to reveal brand new, lush white robes. Turning around, there is a desk with a granite countertop that has drawers, charging jacks, and an iPhone charging dock. Turning into the main living quarters is a huge bed with the finest, most luxurious new white linens I have ever seen. In front of the bed is another custom local wood cabinet with a mini-bar style fridge packed full of all the goodies. Above that is more electrical outlets, and a nice 40” flat panel HD TV, along with a PlayStation 3 and DVD player.
We won't show you all yet, but just wait till you see the HD video coming soon that includes a complete Balai tour.
I noticed the nice chairs and table next the bed, with a welcome card on it along with fresh cold fruit. That was a really nice touch!
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Passing that, we were taken through a room door to what can best be described as a luxurious semi-outdoor bathroom. A huge fancy European double vanity counter with contemporary German made faucets is against one wall. To one side is the tiled toilet nook, to the other is a huge tiled European style shower with room for 4.
Behind all that is a large, 2 person tiled-in American made jacuzzi tub with seemingly more jets than the U.S. Air Force. Behind that, and at the back of the grounds was a tropical shower set into a bamboo wall, with a bamboo tube used as the shower water fall, and even a bamboo tube handle that operates the cool fresh water that falls to your feet on a smooth black stone natural outdoor ground. Imagine taking an outdoor shower in the buff under a tropical “Swiss Family Robinson” style bamboo waterfall shower in complete privacy. How cool is that?!
Next we were taken back into the room, and out through the large slider patio doors. This leads to a huge wooden decking platform with new lounges and lounge padding, then to a stunning large private pool. The private pool shown below was deep enough so you could swim, but still stand up with your head just above the water if you were inclined. The water temperature was perfect, just enough to cool off in, yet warm enough you could stay in for hours.
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The entire Balai grounds is encircled in lush bamboo and greenery, so if you want to lay out, jacuzzi, shower or swim ala St Tropez, you will have complete privacy.
If it were not for the incredible remaining Eskaya Resort grounds and fantastic natural adventure Bohol and Panglao is legendary for, you may never want to leave your Eskaya Balai, it is that spectacular.
After a refreshing shower, it was off for a tour of the rest of the resort. We were met at the front Balai doorsteps by a staffer with an umbrella, and the tour continued. The large Eskaya Spa grounds and facility was really tranquil. The entrance has a large European glass bowl centerpiece with fresh flower petals floating in it. Off to the side of the decking was a really clean Zen style pond where I was looking at interesting large stone frog sculptures on the rocks...till I noticed one move. They must have had formal training as mimes, as they were the most still frogs I have ever seen.
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The Eskaya Spa has sauna rooms, large steam showers, a huge peaceful massage room, and various facial and other body treatment facilities. And you can bet we were going to sample that later!
The dining area was really nice. Guests can elect either for a closed room with a huge table, our outdoor dining under the enclosure. Sit down and a staffer will greet you with a hot, thick mint wet towel to freshen up with. The menu has all the fine International dishes one would require, so for breakfast we choose the below classic American, smoked ham, eggs, toast and orange juice, well, and American champagne, which is coke.
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Next to this was a huge Infinity edge pool with crystal clear water as seen below. They even had a Cancun style swim up bar island with seats in the water and cold fruit, mixed and bottled drinks.
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We toured the remainder of the grounds on a self-guided tour. There are waterfalls, a hanging bridge as shown above, streams, a really clean, really large private beach, gardens, and to the North, Eskaya's new dive shop that was nearing completion. This had plenty of outdoor rinse showers, gear racks and dive and photo rinse tanks.
After returning to my room, a call to the front desk was made, and my dive gear bags were loaded up into the air conditioned Eskaya van. A quick 10 minute drive down the main road and we turned left and parked at Philippine Island Divers Divers, the dive concessionaire used by Eskaya as see below.
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There my dive gear and underwater video production equipment bags were taken.
I set up all my gear, and had pure oxygen available for my rebreather. For you rebreather divers, cylinders and lime are available from a dive shop right on Alona beach.
At Philippine Island Divers, I was introduced to the staff there, and shown the large dive site maps and asked where we wanted to dive. How about that?! I met up with my buddy and assistant cameraman Randel van Heerden out of Manila. It was nice to see an old chum and general Philippines diving co-conspirator.
I spent the next several hours setting up and checking out all my gear. I hung out with Randel for the early evening sampling the fresh seafood stands along Alona Beach. As always, the Philippines dive destination private vendors have these humongous shrimp, and Alona Beach did not disappoint! It is sort of fun haggling over the price of shrimp, as they have 2 prices, the local price and the tourist price, which they will deny all the way to the grave. Off to the barbecue at the food stand we went as they barbecued the shrimp with a butter garlic sauce. Mmmmmm.
A nice breeze blows throughout Alona beach, especially in the evenings. After dinner there, it was back off to that awesome Balai at Eskaya. Another quick cool shower, and it was right into the middle of that giant bed, and on the HD TV went, channel surfing till something was found, then an early evening worth of sleep.
The next several days we decided to take a tour of the interior of Bohol, something Eskaya will completely take care of for you.
The first order of business was checking out the Tarsiers. These little critters are the smallest primates in the world, and are quite endangered. There are 3 places you can go to see tarsiers. 2 are tourist style affairs right off the side of the road with the tarsiers on small trees in round planters. They animals are quite lethargic during the day, but in the early evening, they become quite active, I saw them leap quite far onto the outside of their main enclosure. I asked about this and was told that feral cats are about in the evenings, and the tarsiers want into their main larger enclosure because they feel safe inside.
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So off we were to the Official Bohol Tarsier Sanctuary, the one I would recommend. This is a large facility with a huge enclosure the size of a half of a football field. Guests are asked to be quiet, and a guide will take you through the enclosure and having made an early morning reconnoiter, will show guests the new resting spots the tarsiers pick each morning. You will see them, and up close enough to ouch, but don’t! Flash photography is prohibited as it is really hard on the eyes, so if you want to get the best shots, bring a tripod so your camera can handle the slower exposures of low light under large leaves fronds.
The Bohol Tarsier sanctuary has an interesting visitor area with lots of facts on the tarsiers and local animals, and a small donation is requested, like 25 pesos, which is about 50 cents in US currency. Put in a dollar, will you?! You will see plenty of HD footage of the Sanctuary and more tarsiers, so hold onto your hats.
Next it was the Loboc River tour in Loboc, Bohol. This is about a 30 minute drive from Tagbilaran or 20 minutes from the Bohol Tarsier Sanctuary.
The Loboc River and Loboc Region is a natural river that winds down from the north of Bohol. Cruises take place every hour, from lunch through the evening. During low season there may only be 1 river cruise boat, but in season, and especially on weekends, there will be up to 8 boats. Guests can wait inside the air conditioned waiting hall and watch TV, or you can tour walk along the embankment till your cruise boat departs.These boats are best described as floating pontoon houseboats with open sides and a roof. A complete buffet is in the center of each boat with dining tables all around. The food is quite good, with a good blend of local favorites and International foods.
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Once the Loboc River cruise boat gets underway, one can just jump in and get your food on your own time frame. There are usually two guys on the boat that provide the entertainment in the form of two acoustic guitars and singing. As usual, locals know the words to American classic rock songs better than Americans do, so join in the singing. I found the singers to be quite talented, and it is fun to join in the singing if you are not shy.
The boat cruises up the river. You will pass the 400 or so year old Church of San Pedro. In the evening it is all dark inside, and from the outside, the lights shining up on the old white walls cause me to remark how it would make a perfect setting for a good scary movie!
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Eskaya Resort & Spa Review Continued
The following day we planned on taking Philippine Island Divers' larger dive bangka to Balicasag Island, a 30 minute trip from the Alona beach area. Even the local kids were having an adventure too!
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As I boarded the large dive bangka, once again one of the staffer girls from Bohol Divers came running out calling my name; “Mister Dave, did you forget this?!” She must have done that at least once a day holding up a dive glove, a spare battery, or some other essential item. She was really a sweetheart for always thinking about our dive experience, and I found that personal attention quite endearing. All the staff who stayed back at the dive shop always asked us how our dive went and what we saw. We always felt like we were one of the family sitting on the table in front of the shop drinking the cold drinks they would always offer and bring us after a dive.
Balicasag has just amazing water clarity, with half a dozen popular dive sites. The whole small island is encircled by a medium sloped coral reef structure. Some sites are known for regular barracuda cleaning stations under the right tide settings. On the frontside I saw several carpet anemones that were at least a meter in diameter, they were huge! I always scull my hand near the edges so any detached portion of the anemone might well up, often revealing hiding porcelain crabs.
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The above photo is what you will see when your bangka approaches Balicasag Island.
During our mandatory 1 hour break between dives, Randel and I jumped off the bangka dive boat and swam to shore. Now we were told the island management would extract a 100 or so peso fee for coming onto the island, but that didn’t happen. We had an outdoor lunch on the island cooled by the breeze while we watched smiling students from a hotelier trade school be put through their paces.
Now we had spied this tall aluminum lighthouse structure in the center of the island, so we walked to it and it was all enclosed with wire link fencing. We asked around, and we were told it was owned by the Philippines navy, and that a detachment was on the island somewhere having lunch. We were escorted around for about for 20 minutes looking for them, and we finally were introduced to the navy Captain and his mates. We told them we were producing a Pinas dive tourism promo video, and the next thing you knew, were were invited for lunch, which we had to decline as we were already stuffed to the gills from our previous lunch, but it is just another in a long list of instances of the type of warm hospitality you can expect from total strangers who after 1 minute are your friends. Permission was granted to enter the lighthouse, and we unlocked the water tight access bulkhead at the bottom and climbed several hundred feet up inside the aluminum lighthouse structure. The view from the top tiny platform was stunning! You could see the island 360 degrees. Too bad I couldn’t swim with my large HDvideocam, but we did manage to take lots of panoramic photos from the top of the lighthouse as shown below.
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Walking back through the village, we saw little smiling wide eyed children running around naked without a care in the world...you could never let your kids do that in Los Angeles! We also saw several villagers working on the small wooden bangka shown below. You could just see the pride in the way they worked, and if you saw the craftmanship we did, you would know why. Considering they lacked table saws with laser edge guides, powered routers, planers, drum sanders, edge finishers, etc, you sure couldn’t tell from the look of their work.
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Back we eventually made it to the dive bangka for the 3rd and final dive of the day at Balicasag.
After a long days worth of diving, there is nothing better than taking an outdoor private tropical shower, then retreating to your private jacuzzi shown below for a blissful relaxing jacuzzi massage on your private Eskaya Balai grounds.
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