Cebu Best Posts in Thread: The Roads to Cebu

Made a trip to Cebu last night and returned. On the way up I went the normal route (Tampi-Bato-circling around the southern tip of Cebu Island and going north to Carcar). Left Dumaguete at 7:40PM, arrived at 1:20AM, stopping for two 10 minute breaks. The road up to Carcar was in a terrible state. Almost every kilometer of highway up to Carcar needs to be replaced or is currently being replaced. Pot holes, unmarked transitions and construction, dirt and obstacles on the road, many idiots driving without taillights and headlights, and many idiots that refused to turn off their high beams. Very hard on a vehicle and very stressful. Oncoming headlights meant I had to slow down to 30-40kph. No traffic congestion but oncoming traffic and road conditions made it slow going. After Carcar the road was ok and could easily go 80.

On the way back I decided to give the Carcar-Barili-Bato route a go. Left Cebu at 1:30AM (Yes, I was only in Cebu for 10 minutes) arrived in Dumaguete at 6:40AM. I had a nearly 1 hour wait for the ferry to take off. The Carcar to Barili mountain pass was a near perfect road and I passed maybe 10 cars total. Wide lanes, painted lines, those solar lights on the center line, blacktop a lot of the way. Starting at around 40km north of the Bato port there was a massive nearly 1km long landslide cleanup in progress but was easily passable. The rest of the way had some highway that had been washed away every couple kilometers or so but there was always 1 to 1.5 lane of smooth highway available to pass and all of the road hazards were decently marked. Not an issue as there was basically no traffic.

Also, I was not asked for my vax card or cert anywhere. The new rules may take a while to be enforced though.

 

Tried it. They didn't have any ferries running and told me the only option was to go to Tampi.

I remember taking the route 10+ years ago and many sections of the road up to Carcar were some of the smoothest in the country that I had personally seen. 5 years ago those same spots were mediocre at best. Today it is complete garbage (minus a few 1 to 5 kilometer sections that quickly, and without warning, drop down to tire bursting/rim bending shite). I think it is a combination of a lack of maintenance and the typhoon. Certain locations were certainly directly due to the typhoon but others have just been completely ignored over the last decade or so.

I noticed that the closer you got to Bato (10-20km) the worse the surviving road got. There were some rough spots you certainly felt but nothing that made you cringe and want to pull over and check your vehicle for damage.