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Dalahikan

... what is Dalahikan? Dalahikan is the name of a small village in the Southern Part of Cebu Island Philippines. It is a barangay belonging to the town of Samboan.

This small village is also the donator of the name of this website. What is our relation to this place at the almost Southern Tip of Cebu?

Well, it all started a few years ago, when we were sitting together planning our life in the short- and longterm. While for the short term it was quite clear, that our center of gravity would be in Germany or Europe due to my work, however for the long term, after my retirement, there were a varity of options.



Our Banana Tree

View down to our Beach

 

While building a home in the Philippines in principle was never put in question, we looked into various possibilities to realize that.
One option would have been living close to Cebu City in a well protected subdivision. We looked at some of them on Mactan Island, up the hills and in Talisay. Yes, some of them are attractive, especially as long as not all of the lots have houses build on, however, we felt like being caged in there - even if the cage would be a golden one. The density of houses, together with the super small lots, having the neighbour just a few feet away, made us decide differently.

View down to our Beach

 

We decided that we don"t need to be so close to the city, as long as we are able to reach a "suitable" hospital with an acceptable standart within 1 hour.

In 2004 on our trip to Ginatilan, the home of Jho-Ann, we passed a "lot for sale" sign on the national road and stopped to get a view.

What we found was our dream.



A nice almost rectangle lot, bordered by the national road on one side and the sea on the other side. While the beach front is wide enough to build some spots where you can sunbath, the real living area will be about 15 m higher on top of the cliff. From there you have a view like shown on the pictures here on this page and of course in the galleries under Dalahikan.

Our Beach

 

Our Beach

When you enter the water at our beach, its like doing 1 step and its deep enough to swim. The area is full of soft and hard corals right in front of the lot with plenty of the typical coral fishes. I even spotted a banded sea snake there while snorkeling around. After about 50 Meters you reach the dropoff into the depth of the Tanon Strait. A few rocks which reach deeper into the water will provide a natural anchor place for our boat, which we consider essential at this place.

During our holiday in 2006 I had the chance to persuede my Dive-Center to dive the area in front of our lot instead of their usual dive locations.
I was very delighted to discover that the underwater area there, is as nice and beautiful as in most of the other even famous dive spots. It is a rocky steep slope with offers plenty of growing space for all kind of corals and sponges and hideouts for fishes. I discovered a huge turte right there, reducing the anount of jelly fish. The presense of turtles is an indication that the biological equibalance is still in place. No need to say, that I was more than pleased. (see also the galleries under diving/dalahikan)

On top pf the cliff the main lot is sloping very slightly from the street to the edge of the cliff, where we need to build some kind of stair for easy access to our beach. The size of the lot totals to 3,500 sqm. At the moment we have all in all about 40 coconut palms growing there, jackfruit trees, some mango trees and lots of banana plants. Our favorites are the 4 huge bamboo trees which grow there as well. It is a little bit like in a greenhouse. Everything is growing fast you can harvest up to 4 times a year.

more photos related to this subject are available in the galleries

Our garden - Plantation

Our garden - Plantation

Our plan is to keep it green, however embed a nice, modern mediterianien style house with a cool pool to refresh and a gigantic view from the sun protetcted terrasses over the Tanon Strait. See picture to the left.

The basic infrastucture for that is already in place. We have direct access to the National Road, going all around Cebu. Towards the street the lot is even rudimentary fenced. The fresh water line along the street was tapped during our holiday in 2006. The municipality of Samboan has put a 30 Meter long waterpipe into our lot, so that we have now running fresh cold water. To our big surprise the water pressure is surprisingly high, which will provide fresh cooling showers later.
As for electricity we have a power line crossing our lot, which only needs to be tapped to have electricity. This will be done when we need it.

The GSM connection is excellent, so communications is no problem from there.

JhoAnn's mother is an expert, when it comes to Filipino buerocracy, she was sucessful in optaining a valid title for that lot within 1 year. This is an outstanding performance.

Dalahikan itself is only a small barangay with less than 1000 inhabitants. Food you buy in Samboan or Dumaguete in Negros. To get to the last, you either take the ferry boat from Bato which is 5km down the road from our place, or you need to have your own boat to cross the Tanon Strait. In Dumaguete you find almost anything the western civilisation has to offer, including hospitals offering an acceptable standard. (Part of the famous Silliman University). To get there indepentently of the ferry times, we require our own boat, powerful enough and big enough to make it save accross the Tanon Strait even in adverse weather conditions.

If you need something real exotic you have to go to Cebu City, which is 4 hours car ride.

Harvesting Coconuts

more photos related to this subject are available in the galleries

Our lot from the National Road

 

Now, we hope you understand Dalahikan and our dream. If everything goes right, means, we stay healthy and no other issues of importance which prohibit our plans arise, we start building somewhen close to 2012.

If you got interested, maybe you have a chance to persuede our present neigbors to sell their lots if the offer is right.

See you in Dalahikan!