When we stayed in this resort, some of the rooms were still under construction, but I'm sure it's finished by now. The architecture is modern, but there are no recreational facilities save from the small pool. There are apartment-type and villa-type rooms facing either the pool area or the beach. The restaurant/bar is at the front of the resort and can be passed by on the way to the small reception (or something like that) area. Our air-con room was at the second level of the apartment-type rooms, and good enough for the price that we paid for it (P2,550/night). It comes with a mini-bar, TV, double-bed, closet, and hot & cold shower. A nice tub would've been nice too, but oh well. However, the air-con in our room was leaking, and they weren't able to fix it because their technician wasn't available. It wasn't that bad though, because we still managed to sleep well. There's also a balcony with a view of the pool and part of the resto which, unfortunately, was blocking the view of the beach. But there are a couple of rooms facing the beach complete with big balconies. Just imagine the rates :D Staff service is efficient enough, and they catered to our every whim most of the time :D One bummer though: whenever we ate at the resto, we had to wait for an HOUR before the meal is served! So I would suggest eating somewhere else because there are plenty of restos along the beach to choose from. On the other hand, the food was okay :) Aside from sleeping and swimming in the mini-pool, the resort also offers other activities such as island-hopping, dolphin-watching, and a tour of the Bohol Island sights. Not really necessary if you can strike a deal with the local boat operators or tour guides for your sight-seeing for a leser price. All in all, we had a good experience during our stay. If you happen to be looking for accommodations in Alona Beach, do check it out, but make sure the air-con in your room isn't leaking ;)

Ocean Jet had sailed into a rather nice harbour in Tagbilaran City. The whole trip just took an hour and 30 mins.!  I love the fastcrafts of the Visayas.  Unlike at the Dumaguete pier, the dock we arrived in was rather organized and very clean, and seemed to have been made just for fastcrafts.  I was accosted immediately as soon as I left the departure gate by several tricycle drivers.  One of them was very young, but aggressive enough to give me a deal.  I wanted to get to the bus terminal Dao, but he convinced me instead to let him drive me all the way to Alona Beach on Panglao Island.  This turned out to be a good choice, since the beach was at the other end of the island, quite far, and not very accessible to public transportation.  I could still push it, but not at the hour I arrived (late afternoon), and bringing with me my backpack.

I quickly learned that if one stays in Panglao Island, it's better to organize all your tours from there.  That is if there's a whole group of you then it would be more convenient and cost-efficient.  Just getting out of there would cost you another PhP 200.  Even Boracay is more accessible and cheaper!  There is so much choice in transportation: taxi, multi-cab, van, tricycle and motorbike, all ready to give you a deal, but boy are they expensive.  They've formed a coop of sorts to keep the price competitive, but I really miss the availability of public commutes elsewhere.  At Alona, they offer all the tours you can make, both on land (Chocolate Hills, Loboc, etc), and on water (Balicasag for diving/snorkeling, Pamilacan for dolphin watching, etc.).

The trike got me as far as the road met the the beach road, which was at the Alona Kew Hotel (again expensive!).  Henry, the driver, gave me his cellphone number. That's another thing that they do here, they make it easy for you to contact them just in case you would want a deal for a tour. 

I asked at the tourist center where I could find cheap places.  The cheapest they could give me was PhP 800 for a room! So I started asking around, past the tourist center I got to Ging-ging's Sari-Sari store, and when I asked there, this little kid quoted me a lower price.  They had a fan room (with bath), he said, and he'd throw in cable TV too. I decided to have a look.  The rooms (only 2), were about 40-50 meters from the beach, at the end of a sidestreet next to Kamalig restaurant.  A ref and a stove came with the room too,  but getting them to operate would cost more.   The place would really be great for long-staying guests.  Since it was tidy and well-maintained enough, I decided to stay.  Afterwards, I also found a cheap place to eat, Trudie's, which was a good thing.  But for breakfast, I could stick to Ging-Ging's which also served it, because it was 10 pesos cheaper.

Only after I'd parked my bags, I could finally truly enjoy the beach.  The beach was as white as I hoped to expect, though just half as long as Boracay's.  My first impression of the place was that it was overpriced, but I started to think I was wrong.

I spent most of my stay just the way I envisioned it: lying on my sarong on the beach and reading a book until I lost my shade from the sun by mid-morning.  I also did some swimming of course, but only as far as 5 meters from the beach, because it was the time of the year for seagrass, which grew just where the water started to get deep.  Since it was the high tide, the water got deep pretty fast.

East of Alona Kew, the prices were outrageously expensive, especially for one person, which made me happy in my choice in lodging.  But west, where I had not been the night before, was Bohol Divers Club which had recently gone into expansion, so they had garden fan rooms (with bath) that cost much less than where I was!  The rooms were reserved however, but I could return in the afternoon to see if they weren't taken.  I re-considered my choice.  Mine was owned by a local Boholano family, so I was helping out the local community at least.  Plus it had cable so I had my CSI fix (and oddly enough Fashion TV).  So it was fine.  But I'd definitely go to Bohol Divers when I get back.

Ging-Ging's was where I'd take my breakfasts, which was slightly less expensive than the cheapest restaurant on the beach -- Trudie's.  I spent quite a lot of time over breakfast having fun talking to the kids, who minded the store most of the time I was there.  There was enterprising Lou, and Analyza, who at 13 could already ride a motorbike, and her mom would send her to nearest town on Panglao on errands.  Not to Tagbilaran, though, where she would be apprehended by the police.  The kids were minding the the store during the summer, but in June they'd be back in school.

I was often approached by touts offering snorkeling and boating trips to Balicasag and Pamilacan.  Alona was also diver's central.  Most of the resorts offered diving and you'd get quite a discount on your room if you dive with them.  But in this divers' and eco-tourist haven, I was hampered by my budget.  I'd gone over quite a fair bit already.  It was also too expensive to rent boats for just one person, so I decided to just enjoy the beach.

Towards late afternoon, people's favorite pastime was to stroll the beach, and at low tide so much more of it was revealed.  In the the evening, most restaurants would set tables on the beach and grill food.  This was a perfect excuse to just sit around, chat, eat and drink.  There's really no night life to speak of in Alona.  There was supposed to be live music on Friday and Saturday nights in at least a couple of bars, but I was there early in the week. 

Another favorite thing to do was to tour the island on motorbike.  You could hire one, with or without a driver.  It's quite the cheapest way to go around.  Actually, motorbikes really scare me.  They're one of the leading causes of vehicular accident, I think.  But the Visayas was overrun with motorbikes. So on my last day, I hired a habal-habal (a passenger motorbike) to Hinagdanan Cave.  I'd also packaged it with a trip back to Tagbilaran City, which turned out to be a good deal because I had to go through two hotels there before I settled down.  Gilbert, the driver, was kind enough to run below 60kph, but I was stilly wary because we didn't have any helmets on.  There used to be a city ordinance a few years back, enforcing the use of a helmet, but people just went back to their old ways after awhile.  Riding a motorbike turned out to be an amazing experience, but bring plenty of sunscreen.  When the wind is blowing through your hair and cooling your skin, you'd quite forget that the sun could burn you.  I'd recommend at least one habal-habal ride in your life.

I didn't leave for Cebu today.  I just eased into the decision, while I had breakfast at Taver's restaurant.  A big "American" breakfast consisting of 4 pcs. of toast, bacon, 2 eggs, tea and a fruit (banana).  I was also watching American Idol, laughing so hard at Sanjaya's campy intro by Ryan Seacrest.  I'd been to Cebu City before, which partly explains my reluctance.  Actually I liked being in Cebu City; it's kinda like Manila, but with "southern" charm and ease.  Plus, the taxi drivers actually give you back your change! It's just that I had been there before, so there was no thrill of discovery.  I decided, I'd just spend the day vegging out, and then go pay a visit to Bohol Bee Farm in the afternoon.  The longer I'd been traveling the more I wanted to slow down.  So, weird as my choice of place to stay was -- I mean, c'mon Tagbilaran City?! --  I still stayed.

Getting to Bohol Bee Farm would've been an exercise in frustration, but ended up being rather serendipitous for me.  First, it's really hard to get to Panglao from Tagbilaran.  It's like the transportation industry here has this conspiracy against tourists.  They don't make it easy for you to travel cheap!

I decided instead of going the usual way, calling the contact nos. I collected, and/or taking a motorbike-for-hire or taxi or trike, I would commute.  I found out from the manang at the hotel restaurant that she was also from Dauis, and thus she takes ordinary transportation.  Through her I reco I made my way by foot to Shopper's Mart then by trike to a junction where at the waiting shed I could get the elusive jeeps that make their way to Panglao Island. Getting to that junction was cheaper and took less time than going to the terminal at Dao itself.  I waited there, and I waited and waited some more.  Good thing another commuter arrived, who was from Dauis herself, and she told me that the jeeps pass at hourly intervals, but it gets to be 30 minutes by 4 p.m. as more people leave the mainland for home.  Her stop happened also to be at the bee farm.  We finally got a jeep, and were on our way.  We only paid PhP 12!  A big difference from the usual PhP 200+ peso fee. 

I was already told that I still had to walk a long way from the junction to the bee farm (900 meters in fact), but when I got to the junction, a couple also went down with me, and told me that they happened to be going to the bee farm themselves! So I got a couple of guides.  Jojo was working as a waitress there, and she was with her boyfriend Joji.  While walking the white gravel road to the farm, we discussed how I'd get back.  Jojo said that the last jeep for Tagbilaran would pass the junction at 5 p.m., which only gave me 30 minutes to have a look around.  Jojo said she'd talk to the people at the farm to see about getting me relatively cheaper transpo back.  This meant I could have dinner at the farm as planned.

So I arrived at the Bee Farm and noticed at once the farm's organic vegetable plots and its livelihood handicraft center, which also supplied the food and decor for the restaurant.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to see any beehives because bees behave badly in the afternoon, so they say.  They like to sting humans more apparently.  Apart from the restaurant and the store, the farm is also provided bed and breakast, but that was rather pricey.  Anway, the place was so charming!  I enjoyed the clifftop restaurant, and if you take a few steps down to the treehouse you'd be very near the waves and the incoming tide.  There I met Tony from Bristol, U.K., who told me that just the day before he snorkeled out into the bay and saw a couple of huge manta rays.  He loved Bee Farm, and had been there for a week.

The restaurant faced the Mindanao Sea, so I while having my early dinner, I had a clear view of Pamilacan Island and Siquijor.  As a guest, you could also stay at several lounge areas scattered around the place from the exhibit room down to the restaurant.  There were bamboo chimes everywhere, and there was a slight breeze so you'd hear them constantly.  I stayed for quite awhile after dinner, just staring into the sea. 

Getting back to Tagbilaran was another first for me.  Jojo came through, and I got a ride back on a motorbike.  I almost made my own arrangements because the woman at the front desk misunderstood me and almost gave me a van, which was double the price. I started to walk instead, when the men on motorbikes near the livelihood center noticed me, and asked was I the one that Jojo mentioned, and so they set front desk girl straight.  And i got my ride.  Riding a motorbike in the evening for the first time was thrilling, and we went rather fast this time because I didn't tell the driver to slow down (and again, with no helmet!).  There was very little traffic or light as we traveled the 12 kms., and the road stretched white before us.  I'm so glad I stayed.  And if I'd the money I'd stay at the Bee Farm!