Bantayan Island Roam: Sandira Beach, The Ruins, OMAGIECA Mangrove Forest, and Kota Beach

Hello, travelers! It has been a long time since I last updated my travel experience here in Bantayan Island as I explore and adjust to living in this paradise that I once visited as a tourist in the month of March. You know, a lot of things just happened lately, including some legal actions I made with the agency who deployed me here on the island to work as a product consultant. So much has happened and I couldn't go into details without stressing myself again, so yes, let's just explore Bantayan Island again through this blog.

Last week, Saturday, my sister and cousin arrived at my apartment to visit me and explore Bantayan Island since that was their first time visiting the island. I was excited to receive the news that they would be arriving that day since the travel from our hometown to the island is just an hour. What went wrong was that I wasn't able to sleep the night before since I had a lot of interviews to attend to for the jobs I applied to — mostly in CET time, which is completely opposite to PHT. So yeah, I was only able to sleep one hour by Saturday morning and woke up after an hour of resting. I was 23 hours awake but I had to rise and shine since the princesses were approaching.

To jump into our trip, it was a quick summary of the places I visited last March on the island. If you were able to follow through my Bantayan Travel Series, you would have more detailed information about these places we went to last week. So basically, we went to the famous OMAGIECA Mangrove Forest or the Camp Sawi of Obo-ob town, Sandira Beach, The Ruins, and Kota Beach of Sta. Fe. We planned to go to the Blue Lagoon of Baigad but it was on the western part of the island and a day won't be enough to travel and enjoy all the places on our list. So we picked the nearest but popular ones so that they would enjoy their stay even if it was only for a day.

When we arrived at OMAGIECA, I didn't go inside with them. Instead, I rested outside the destination since there was a waiting shed made of bamboo materials outside, so I slept there while they were enjoying inside. It was a long boardwalk of mangrove forest and if I had gone inside, I think I would have fainted from being restless. Inside the mangrove forest was a long boardwalk where you can walk above the water and see many mangroves. A restaurant was also currently open inside so visitors can stop and have a gustatory experience with the island's famous dishes.

Now, visiting Bantayan won't be complete without swimming around famous beaches and walking along the famous baywalk and coastline. So what I did was guide them to Sandira Beach and Kota Beach to swim around and enjoy the calm and serene water of the island. It was unfortunately not-so-good weather last Saturday since a typhoon was coming to the country, so the beaches and weather weren't that warm like when I visited the island before. It was also low tide so the most beautiful version of the island wasn't seen that day. But still, we did enjoy swimming around the powdery white sand of these beaches and resorts, joined by some tourists we interacted with during our visit.

We also made a stop at The Ruins in Sta. Fe. And if you're wondering what's so special about an old, crumbling building, well, it has its own kind of charm that you wouldn't really understand until you're standing in front of it. The Ruins is actually what remains of a German expat's house that was destroyed by Typhoon Yolanda back in 2013, and since then it has become one of the more unexpected must-visits on the island. The structure sits right along the coastline, so the open sea view in front of it makes the whole place feel dramatic and interesting despite being, well, literally just ruins. At high tide, locals and tourists even use the nearby cliff as a jumping spot, though with it being low tide when we visited, that part was a no-go for us. Still, it was worth the stop
It was very Instagrammable and a nice change of scenery between beaches.

And that wraps up our one-day island adventure with the princesses! It wasn't the perfect weather and I was running on barely any sleep, but honestly, that's what makes the memory real and worth writing about. Bantayan always finds a way to be beautiful even on its off days, and I think that's the thing about living here now coz I get to see the island beyond the tourist version of it. Until the next update, travelers.