Malapascua is small island just north of Cebu. Good diving, amazing beautiful beach - much better than the world-famous, but now too spoiled, Boracay beach.

Getting there is really quite hard work. Small native pump-boats run from the end of the road, Cebu-City bus terminal, at a very small place called Maya. Many taxi drivers will be willing to take you there, direct from Cebu City, but it's so little known, that not many of the local taxi drivers really know the right way to go! The bus takes 4+ hours from Cebu City.

When you finally reach Maya, there's no pier, so expect to get your feet wet! Last pump boat leaves at 5pm. Later than that - you must pay lots for a special boat trip.(PhP1500+ or negotiate with the captain!)

Dano Beach resort is at the far end of the white beach. Bungalows cost Php 1,200 - which is not a lot UK£12 / US$25 but service was appaling. I requested a chair to sit on, on the verandah, and was bluntly told none were available. Simple plastic chairs can easily be purchased locally for less than Php200. I tore a hole in my new shorts sitting on a homemade table of nailed bamboo strips as there was nothing else to sit down on.

In the morning the resort's water pump stopped and wasn't fixed, so no way to wash; the beach resort owners just shrugged and said to wash in the sea.

A few bigger resort places on Malapasqua have better facilities at maybe double the nightly price. Try Blue Water or Cocobana if you want to stay here. Ging-gings is a good place to eat. Greedy local owners have been overbuilding on the beach (which is public, govement-owned property) and a lot of illegal constructions have been marked with big painted red Xs to signal their demolition, if less than 30 metres from the high-tide line.

Will this really go ahead, or will the often lazy and corrupt Philippine bureauracy allow one of the world's finest beaches to be destroyed by greed and over-development?

www.malapascua-island.com

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