Daanbantayan description and photos - Philippines: Cebu Island (Topic)

Daanbantayan description and photos - Philippines: Cebu Island. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The title in English is Daanbantayan.

Photo and description

Daanbantayan is a highly urbanized city in the province of Cebu. According to the 2008 census, 73 thousand people lived there. The city also includes the island of Malapascua. Every year, the colorful Haladai festival is held here in honor of the legendary founder of the city, Datu Dai. The name of the city itself comes from the words "daan", which means "old" in the local dialect, and "bantayan" was the name of the guard post from which the locals monitored the approach of the Moro pirates.

Today this small town is considered a real tourist paradise of northern Cebu. It is known for its fine white sand beaches, especially the good ones on Malapascua Island. Dive sites teeming with marine life attract hundreds of diving enthusiasts. Only here you can see a huge manta ray and fox sharks.

The city itself also has several attractions, for example, the city hall, called the Tribunal and built by the Spaniards. The first city hall was made of wood with bamboo splashes, and in 1916 a reinforced concrete building was built. Immediately after the Second World War, two wooden outbuildings were added to it - one on the south side, the other on the north. Later they were replaced by stone two-storey annexes.

Another attraction of the city is the church of Santa Rosa de Lima, built in the middle of the 19th century with the help of local residents. The church was built of brick blocks and is still in good condition, although restoration work has already been carried out inside and the original design has been changed. However, the facade of the church remained intact and retains its original appearance.

The historic site is Cape Tapilon, on which the very watchtower of Datu Dai was located, which gave the name to the city. From here, they watched the approach of the warlike Moro pirates, who often drove Datu Dai's subjects into slavery. Unfortunately, no remains of that tower have survived to this day. Today, this place is a private property.

The island of Malapascua, discovered by a Spaniard, whose ship ran aground here on Christmas Day 1520, cannot be avoided either. Due to the fact that he had to spend such an important holiday away from family and friends on a desert island, the captain of the ship named it "Mala Pasqua", which means "Bad Christmas". Since then, this name has stuck to the island, although locals still insist that the island's real name is Logon. Here in 1890 a miracle happened - the image of the Virgin Mary was found on a piece of wood. They say that the image is still growing in size. Believers from different parts of the Philippines and even from abroad come here to worship the Virgin Mary, whose image is now kept in a specially built chapel.

In the coastal waters of the island of Malapascua, there is a popular diving site Monad Shoal - at first glance, an unremarkable shallow shallow, on which there are not many corals. However, thousands of tourists are ready to fly half the world to dive with scuba diving here, because only here every day you can see amazing fox sharks at a depth of only 20 meters. Usually, fox sharks live at a depth of 350 meters, and it is not yet clear why near the island of Malapascua they rise so close to the surface. In addition to sharks, manta rays, sea eagles and hammerhead sharks are found in the waters of the Shoal Monads.

50 minutes by boat from Malapascua, there is a small islet of Gato - a rock that grows out of nowhere right in the middle of the Visayan Sea. Many species of birds nest on Gato, and flying foxes live in the forest that covers the steep cliffs. Myriads of rare nudibranchs can be seen in the coastal waters of the islet, and reef sharks live in the underwater caves.

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Topic: Daanbantayan description and photos - Philippines: Cebu Island.