cebu area; backpacker friendly?

[sonar]

I never wanna go to Clarke again in my life.. Arrived there a few years ago, assuming it was manilla airport. Started reading in my lonely planet about how to get to an area in manilla that sounded like fun.. Reading about 50.000 hookers there and all these depressed former soldiers drinking away their pensions.. Plus it was hours away from manilla. Ended up taking a hired car with some scumbag from the UK who was bragging about how he was going to f*%k girls in the south because they were cheaper. Scumbag wouldn't shut up for the whole 3H drive about webcam contact he had with this girl and agreements with that girl blabla. That was the most **** start of an holiday ever.

PPD is by far the most helpfull and usefull part of this site; lot of great info, tips. Even people looking up flight prices! awesome

 

[Centrals]

Most tourists arrive at Clark have ONLY one thing in their minds!!!!!
I had seen tour operators advertised Clark(Manila) for the flight!!!
Clark is good if you want to dive those wrecks at Subic Bay, visit the rice terrace, the mountain city of Baguio or the coast along the La Union(surfing) and even the colonial city of Vigan.
Flight from Clark to HK departs at 07:15!!!! I cannot dive the day(whole) before and I have to spend a night at Angeles unless I want to travel from Subic around 5am in the morning. So I use Manila airport instead even though a longer road journey(no fun in the country) but I do NOT want to waste one day of my diving holiday on doing nothing.

 

[supergaijin]

Is it just me or did the price of beer come down? It was normal to pay 60-70 pesos for a SM stubbie when I was living in Cebu... 4 years ago. At the local shops on the side of the road a 'Grande' was about 75 pesos.

At the higher end places it was easily double that