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Cebu to Ormoc Lite Shipping

Lite Shipping – Cebu City to Ormoc
Lite Shipping has a daily 11am ferry from Cebu to Ormoc. (except Fridays). The fare is 350 pesos per person and 850 for a motorbike. It arrives around 5:30 pm depending upon the weather.

The boat returns from Leyte at 10 pm. There are bunks to sleep on and the [...]

Cebu in January

Cebu in January
I stayed for a week in Cebu City visiting friends, and getting some things cleared up with my visa at the immigration office in Mandaue. It was an uneventful week.
Preparations for the Sinulog festival were in full swing. It is the biggest holiday of the year in Cebu and signals the end of [...]

Freediving Instruction in Cebu

Freediving instructor Wolfgang
White Beach – Moalboal – Cebu – Philippines
I met with freediving instructor Wolfgang Dafert, at Club Serena at White Beach to get some information about diving. He seems like a first class operator with a lot of experience and has a passion about freediving that is energizing.
The whole concept of going down and [...]

Tagged: Moalboal, Scuba

Cebu Puppy Mill

Cebu Puppy Mill
Enterprising vendors have set up a puppy mill on the cross over by the Robinson Mall near the Fuente Osmena in Cebu. These guys put a new twist on using this high volume location for business.
Almost every day there are animal vendors there hawking puppies. Some of these pups are handsome but a [...]

SM Mall Cebu

SM Mall Cebu
Ayala Mall and SM Mall are the 2 most popular malls in Cebu City.
Two of my favorite stores there are Habagat and Ace Hardware.
I got a 14 inch color tv at the appliance center for 4,200 pesos last week. I am staying in Samar and its hard to shop over there.
You will have [...]

Jungle karaoke

Jungle Karaoke
“If there is electricity there will be Karaoke”.
This seems to be true anywhere in the Philippines.
While riding the back trails of Cebu island today we ran into a rain cloud that was dumping its load right on our heads.A quick listen led us to believe that there was a karaoke just ahead around [...]

Growing Orchids in Cebu

Growing Orchids – Moalboal, Cebu
Seed pods are harvested and cured for a specific time and brought to Minglanalia near Cebu city to be cultured until they are transferred to the bottles.
The young orchid starts are grown in glass bottles with newspaper over the opening which creates the humid environment they thrive in.
When the orchids get [...]

Tagged: Moalboal

Philippine Drivers License

Getting a Philippine Drivers License
There are a few different schools of thought on this one.
Some foreigners do it the standard way which requires a lot of waiting in lines.
Others use the services of a fixer to speed things up a bit.
There is a mandatory drug test but an actual road test is not required [...]

Buying a motorbike

Buying a motorbike in the Philippines
Having your own wheels gives you a lot of freedom to get around in the Philippines. There are plenty of motorbike taxis and tricycles about but it always involves waiting for a full load before the driver departs.
At night it is more difficult to find a rides as well because [...]

Tagged: Moalboal, Motorcycle

Ripe Bananas

Ripe Bananas
Banana trees grow in small clusters and each stalk produces one bunch. When the fruit is ripe and ready to harvest the entire stalk can be cut down because it will no longer produce.
There are many varieties of eating bananas but this tree produces bananas for cooking and are bitter if you try to [...]