After an amazing time in Moalboal, we continued our journey with Jules and Del to Oslob. Our trip happened to be during Holy Week (Easter), which is a significant religious event in the Philippines as it’s a very Catholic nation. Traveling on a holiday presented some challenges, such as difficulties finding a car service to take us there from Moalboal, and an influx of visitors that made the Oslob excursions more crowded and hotels more in demand. We eventually did find a ride, but he was quite reckless and even clipped someone on a scooter and kept driving! It was a high intensity drive.
We found that the vibes in Oslob were not as friendly and relaxed as in Moalboal. Oslob is significantly more touristy and some activities felt more commercialized, which gave us a slightly scammy feeling. It could have just been our specific experience with our hotel and the driver we hired during our stay, but we often had the feeling we were being ripped off. Nevertheless, we still had some enjoyable and worthwhile experiences.
Oslob is known for its whale shark watching, where tourists can swim and snorkel with these amazing creatures. However, there is a lot of controversy surrounding the fact that the fishermen hand-feed the whale sharks here to keep them in the area for tourism. This is believed to have negative impacts on their natural behavior and health. There are other places in the Philippines and neighboring countries that don’t feed the whale sharks, and allow visitors to view them in their natural habitats, so we’re hoping to experience that instead!
Rather than view the whale sharks, we opted to visit Sumilon Island, located just off the coast of Oslob. Unfortunately, Jules was feeling sick so she stayed behind as Del, Wini, and I went off on our day trip.
Originally we had planned to take a tuk-tuk to the port, but the hotel owner had pushed to get us to hire their driver. They first quoted us 200 PHP ($3.50 USD) per person, and when we turned that down, the hotel owner got the taxi driver’s wife on the phone to negotiate. We agreed to 100 PHP ($1.80 USD) per person round trip.
We had read that the boat across was 1500 PHP ($27+ USD) per boat, NOT per person, so if you could find people to split with it would be much more cost-effective. We were confused after arriving at the ports because the boats were massive and it clearly wouldn’t make sense for 3 people to take an entire boat for themselves. However, when we arrived our driver took it upon himself to help us get on a boat and wanted to charge us the full 1500 PHP. We found the pushiness of our driver to be quite off-putting.
We told him that we wanted to wait to see if we could join with other people to make it more cost-effective, and his immediate response was, “Okay, so if you don’t want to get on the boat should I just take you back to the hotel?” We went back and forth a bit and he kept stressing how sharing a boat was impossible and everyone else was already part of a tour group so we would need to pay for our own boat.
Regardless, we decided to have a “quick” breakfast at the port and wait it out to see if any other travellers were coming by. The food (a sandwich) took an hour to arrive, and during that time our driver kept coming up to us asking if we had decided to get a boat yet. We were still waiting for our food, so we kept dragging our feet, hoping that a few other travellers would come by and we could share a boat.
As we were waiting, the driver came up to us and said that he had gotten us a discount, and it would only be 1200 PHP ($22 USD) total for the boat instead of 1500 PHP ($27 USD). We were still hung up on the fact that every boat that had left the dock had at least 20 people on it, so clearly we would not be getting a private boat despite them asking us to pay the full boat fee. We politely turned him down and kept waiting.
Finally, when we finished our food, the owner of the boat company came up to us and offered us a deal – 1000 PHP ($18 USD) total for the boat tickets including the 100 PHP ($1.80 USD) Sumilon Island environmental fee. Quite honestly, we were over the weird vibes of the port so we decided that that price was good enough for us and agreed.
We took the 20-minute boat ride with about 20 other people, none of which looked to be a part of a bigger tour group. Despite the weirdness of the port, we were excited to get to the island known for its pristine white sand beaches and turquoise waters.
We were a little surprised when we took the boat across and saw that the sand bar was completely submerged and extremely crowded. It was not the massive beach we had seen pictures of. It turns out that the tides greatly shift how much is above water, and the massive typhoon (Odette) that hit the Philippines a couple of years ago also carried away some of the sand that once was there.
When we arrived, we tried to go check out another part of the island, hoping there was somewhere else to relax on a beach. However, we were told by a security guard that in order to go to the other side of the island we would have to pay 2500 PHP ($45+ USD) per person because the rest of the island is private property, owned by the Bluewater Resort, which requires an entrance fee. That was definitely not in our budget for the day, so we set our things down on a bamboo bench, got our snorkels, and went back to the overcrowded sandbar. We could see that there was gorgeous crystal-clear water not far away, so we headed in that direction.
We were stopped before we could get too far and told that if we wanted to snorkel we would have to pay a 350 PHP ($6+ USD) guide fee for the three of us to snorkel for 30-45 minutes. At this point, we were quite annoyed. However, there was literally nothing else to do on the island and we were already there, so we decided to fork over the extra couple dollars.
As soon as we got to the snorkeling area, our annoyance instantly melted away. It was the most spectacular snorkeling I’ve ever done in my life. The corals were incredible! So vibrant and alive. There were so many fish of every size, shape, and color. It was a magical experience.
We also learned that Super Typhoon Odette not only changed the sandbar, it also did significant damage to the coral reef surrounding the island. But it has recovered remarkably well thanks to the marine protection efforts, as this area is the first marine sanctuary in all of the Philippines. As annoyed as we were about the unexpected fees, we could see the benefits of keeping that area more exclusive and protected.
After snorkeling we ate our lunch which was delivered from the port. It arrived a full hour earlier than ordered, but we were ready to be off the island anyways, so we finished it and took the next boat back.
On the drive home from Sumilon port, we would be passing another famous spot in Oslob, Tumalog Waterfall. We asked our driver if we could stop by there on the way, but he quoted us an extra 200 PHP ($3.60 USD) per person when the whole drive to and from the Sumilon port was 100 PHP ($1.80 USD) per person. There was no reason a stop along the way should have tripled the total cost, so we said no. He quickly switched to 150 PHP ($2.70 USD) total, but at that point, we were over that driver and the constant additional fees, so we just told him to take us home.
Another thing we did not enjoy about Oslob was the food. The food in the Philippines in general has been a bit disappointing — everything is very fatty/oily/deep fried, and not very flavourful. However, we found Oslob to be particularly difficult to find good meals. It may have been due to it being Holy Week, so more things were closed, but everywhere we ate was quite unappetizing (avoid Wilfredo’s Pizza at all costs!)
While the vibes in Oslob were different from what we expected, we still enjoyed our time exploring the natural beauty of the area, and we recommend spending the extra money to snorkel off Sumilon Islands if you’re there. Otherwise, there are far more friendly and less tourist-trappy places to visit in the Philippines.
We said a final goodbye to Jules and Del as they began their long way back to the states, and we continued our journey via ferry to a nearby island called Panglao!
