Surigao City and Mabua Beach Resort

Last December, we explored Surigao. Our first day was spent in Surigao City. We arrived at around 12 noon via AirPhil Express. Before our trip, I reserved a Standard Room at Gateway hotel for 1500 PHP, breakfast was included as well as the service to and from the airport.

It was only a 5-minute ride from the airport to hotel. The hotel room was ok, it has cable TV and free wi-fi. The toilet was noticeably clean.

Standard Room - 1500 PHP

They have a big pool but when we were there, it was full of kids so we were not able to use it.

Limited pool view from the balcony

After putting our things on our room, we decided to have lunch in the city. It took around 10 minutes on a tricycle to go to the city proper, and it only costs 8 PHP. Jollibee, Mang Inasal, Greenwich, and Chowking can be found there. We were really hungry so we just decided to have lunch at Mang Inasal.

After we regained our energy, we walked around the city. It is more like a town rather than a city. There are no big malls around yet. I was checking for souvenir shops but I can't even find one. It seems that the city was not tourist area and just a gateway for Siargao, Bucas Grande and other islands of Surigao.

We spent the rest of our afternoon at Mabua Beach. Traveling time on a tricycle was around 30 minutes from the hotel. We paid the driver 350PHP for the two-way ride.

Instead of regular sand, Mabua Beach has medium-sized pebbles in the shore. It is similar to the pebble beach in Batanes, only that pebbles here were smaller.

Then before we went back to hotel, we decided to try one of the barbecue stalls in the Pier. Nothing special except that it was cheap compare to our Mang Inasal lunch earlier :)

Pier View Barbeque Station

Variety of BBQs