LETS TALK TRAVELLING: Swimming with Whale Sharks and the Kawasan Falls

I arrived in Cebu after getting a flight from Puerto Princesa. I originally hadn’t planned to spend any time in Cebu City but a friend of mine had found a trip we could do which takes you to do whale shark swimming in Oslob as well as seeing the Kawasan waterfalls near Moalboal. I was planning on visiting Moalboal and Oslob to do both those things so it saved me a lot of time and meant I could travel to Siquijor island now instead!

So we were picked up at 3.30am as we needed to be in the water with the whale sharks by 6am and it was around a 2 and a half hour drive from Cebu to Oslob! It was going to be a long day! When we arrived in Oslob it was so busy - the one and only thing to do there is to swim with the whale sharks so everyone was awake as early as we were! We only got 30 minutes in the water with the whale sharks which went so quickly and wasn’t long enough really but they really were amazing and such gentle animals. A part of me to start with felt a bit nervous getting in the water but that soon passed. A boat went past feeling them and you were able to swim along side to get up really close with them, but unfortunately the whole set up was awful. They definitely shouldn’t have been feeling the whale sharks and there was around 20+ boats in the water with people swimming around trying to get a photo. A complete tourist trap! Also my photos are awful as my underwater case didn’t work so then photos below are screenshots from a video.

Anyway next we stoped at the Tumalog Falls not far from Oslob. Due to it not being rainy reason the waterfall didn’t have much water but it was still beautiful to see. Even after a hurrendous uphill climb to get there!

After lunch and an hour/ish drive we arrived at the Kawasan Falls. They are probably the largest and most popular waterfalls in the Philippines so of course it was busy but as we arrived around lunch time conveniently everyone else was having lunch meaning we had some of the lagoons all to ourselves - perfect! There was 4 different levels to the Falls and my favourite definitely was the 4th level. We were quite lucky because not many people really know the Falls continue all the way to the top and you need a guide to go all the way there (which we did!) - it was definitely the most beautiful. We spent around 2 hours at the Kawasan Falls doing some cliff jumping and swimming around in the blue lagoons.