Sima Cold Spring Badian Cebu

Just a couple of meters away from the town market of Badian is a cold spring the locals hang out or swim.  One should follow a foot path, so people wouldn't notice it and there are no signs whatsoever that tells you there is something there. It is natural fresh spring under several huge acacia trees that looks like centuries old. However no one that we asked know exactly how old those trees were.  The spring is adjacent to the lagoon that leads to the sea. It is called Sima. No one knows how it was called by that. 

The locals from long time ago constructed huge stones around the spring to make it look like a huge swimming pool, I think it’s brilliant.  There is actually two of it, one is deep around 10 – 15 meters and the other is shallow, we didn’t try the shallow one as there were ladies washing clothes inside it.  I guess it’s free water.  There were some school kids swimming, we figured they were practicing with their coach for a swimming competition. We were told those kids always top the regionals, I guess because they have this great resources to practice from.

The spring is fresh water not salty water, no one can tell us where the water comes from but they said it’s been there since they were born so no one knows.  It was really cool but the water is very cold, the locals said that they only swim there during noon time when it is hot so they don’t feel the chill of having to swim in cold water.

After swimming we ate our roasted chicken and bread, it tasted as good if not better than the one we had in Moalboal.  We were happy campers.

And we are in Badian, Cebu

When we arrived the town of Badian we headed to the town market, we know that we can perhaps interact with more locals and get information where to go and what to do.  The market was bigger than most markets we saw in the previous towns and it is a bit modernized compared to the others.  It indicates that the town is more developed.

We bought some fruits and explored the market a bit.  The vegetables and meat looks really fresh. We saw an area with some roasted chicken for sale and we chose the one with many people lining up to buy.  For sure the locals prefer it than others so we thought perhaps it’s the best one in town.

 We got some bread too and we were hoping it is as good as the one we had in Moalboal – fingers crossed.  Then we asked around some of the “trisikad“ drivers that we saw. Trisikad is a 3-wheel bicycle that locals use as public transport within a short distance.

So the trisikad drivers gave us some recommendations where to go.  We love to go where locals go, instead of where tourists go.  It is more fun to mingle with locals and get to know the place better.

When visiting a place, do you go where the locals go or you go where the tourists go? 

On the road to the South

Today we decided that we dive very early and hope we encounter a hammerhead shark if they still exists in the area, and then after the dive we would get back on the road and explore more places further South of Cebu.  The sky was a little gloomy today, so visibility underwater is not as clear as yesterday, and it rained when we head back to shore and we DIDN’T SEE HAMMERHEADS!!!

The next town to us was Alcantara but there was nothing special about the place to visit, well if they do then it is not advertised, or we just haven't heard about it yet. The town after that is Badian - this is a famous town for its waterfalls, a golf course and a nice resort island 20 mins away from the main land. The waterfalls is one of the best in the country.  I actually visit this place whenever I am in town. 

It would be another hour or less on the road from Moalboal until we reach Badian.  The mobile signal was on and off as we drove.  The good thing was that we had two different telecom network that we subscribed to, and when one is down the other is the strongest.  I guess this is to avoid competition.  

I can’t complain much.   The only issue I have is the internet signal that I have in this part of Cebu, it goes on and off along with the network that I subscribed with.  But when this happens I go back to playing something on my phone and no it is not flappy bird and it’s not plants vs zombies either.

Flavour of the road - home made ice cream

It is funny how this term came across.  We were sitting by the road side eating pizza on a small cafeteria in moalboal opposite the church when suddenly there was a peddler pushing a cart with what we could make out a steel cylinder can.

image by pixabay

There was bell ringing from the peddler and suddenly most of the kids ran up to him and they all shouted “ice cream”.  So, they all called out to the roadside for it.  The guy pushed the cart to their direction and yeah indeed it was ice cream - what seems to look like a huge cylinder barrel.    

My companions were really curious what it looked like so we approached them. Amazing he had about 4 different flavours in the same barrel. I remember when I was younger the peddlers only sell one flavour.

We all decided to get 4 different flavours and then sat back in the car with our ice cream.  It still tasted like how it was when I was young except that there are more varieties now. One of us said we should call it “flavour of the road” and everyone laugh.  It does makes sense though.  It’s a homemade ice cream and sold by peddler on the road, hence the name. 

The taste is great, you should try it. Although it is not guaranteed that you wont get a bad stomach from it, so this is not recommended for those with sensitive tummy. 

Buying a land in Moalboal Cebu

For the lack of activities in the resort where we stayed at and perhaps some drunken conversations we tossed in the idea of buying a beach lot in Moalboal so we could have a dive center one day in the Philippines and then we could dive every day, if this makes any sense at all.  But It was not a bad drunken idea so we thought why not asked around.

One of the dive masters that took us diving told us that most beach lots in Moalboal are not available anymore. Majority of which are owned by foreigners he referred to as Americans, but we already figured that when the locals say American it means foreigners and this applies to any foreigner with whit skin.

He also added that if there are lands for sale we have to be very careful since the agents in the area or the owner sometimes would sell it twice or more times to different people.  Most of the land in the town is only a declaration documents this means that the lands doesn’t have a title.  Actually I don’t know the difference but he said that it is a long process to have a title for a land in Philippines.

He said that there is a huge parcel of land in Moalboal that is having dispute in court since there are more people that now showed up and claimed their land despite that it was sold to foreign investors.  So he told us to be very careful about it.  Not that we have the money to buy but it is good to know.  Sometimes crazy dreams come true.

Changing Foreign Currency in Moalboal

I always thought that anywhere you are in Cebu it would be easy to exchange money, means changing your foreign currency into Peso.  My travel partner and I didn’t change much when we left the city.  

When we got to Moalboal most places that we come across including the resort that we stayed at charged 3% more if we settle in credit card, considering that there is 5 of us that are travelling that means the expenses that we incur will be 5 times as much, so if you do the maths 3% is a lot.

So, we decided to exchange our foreign currencies, however we were disappointed to find out that the exchange rate is 1 Peso lesser than in the city for USDollars and in some places P 0.50 lesser for Euro.  We had to go to a couple of exchange centers to get a good rate but it was never good enough I guess.  Then we had to blame each other for not thinking ahead or for not finding it out before.  But we are already here so perhaps useful information for the future whenever that is.

So if you are heading to the southern Cebu, I would suggest you make sure you change your foreign currency in the city for better exchange rate.