Malapascua Island

Tri-cycle ride

Heading to the ferry on Bantayan Island. Some of the easiest modes of transportation in the Phillipines are Tricycles or Tri-motos (habal habal).

Bangka to Malapascua

After the ferry ride back to Cebu Island I needed to get to the port town of Maya to catch a Bangka (local boat) to the Island of Malapascua. This consisted of a short Tri-moto ride to the main intersection where I hopped on a local bus to the port town.

The drivers of these Bangkas are know as the Maya Pirates as they have a horrible reputation for scamming tourists by significantly over charging. I was well prepared and new of all the scams they try. One scam is they will tell you there are no boats going (not enough people) so they will make a special trip (1500php). After you get on and pay, all of a sudden they will load all the locals (100php) and the boat is full. There is know way in hell you will get your money back. This is the exact thing they tried with myself and two Chinese tourists. He tried to tell me that the next boat was for only locals. I called the guy out on his bullshit and told him I was aware of his scam. I said I will wait and board with all the locals who are standing around and that the going rate is 100php.

It is times like these that I also get ticked off at the naive 2 week tourist who just throws money at these guys without questioning them and doing any prior research. It is these two week tourists that feed this corruption because they are just plain stupid and have more money than brains.