Trekking at Mt. Arayat

My fiance and me went to the park yesterday. And was suprised to find they had 2 different admission`s fee.One the 30 peso for my fiance and then 110 for me.And they try to charge us 500 for tourist guide.I was telling my fiance that we would leave the place at once, but she is kinda stubborn and would never pay more than 2 times 30. Which we did... and no tourist guide too.In my mind the place was worn down and could benefit much more maintaining.we went for a walk in military camp and talk to one of the military guy...when we was talking ito one of the guy in the camp civilians away...and my fiance complain about what those civilians did to us.....that they was charging me a lot because i was foriegner and then those civilians stay away from us after we talked to the military guy and they did not charge me for the pay parking in mount arayat park..which we found out its free parking....my question is ...Is that the way of treating a foriegner to be charge a lot of pesos because those people reasons its a foriegner???

you doesn't sound foreigner to me anyway...and by the way, F-O-R-E-I-G-N-E-R spells this way. oki??

I went to this resort in August and indeed it is extremely run down and expensive to use. It has a couple of pools but not much else. You cannot see the mountain from here and they charge more for foreigners which is a complete rip off. The whole place had a feel of bygone days.The hundred steps lead up to some long grass and not much else.

doesn't sound like one to me, too.

I drove to Mt. Arayat yesterday on my motor bike, had a really nice ride getting there with my girl. When we arrived at the park the advertized price for entrance was 30 peso, seemed fair so I drove on in. The actual entrance fee I was charged was 30 peso for my filipina friend and 100 peso for me, which was not posted and seemed a little suspicious to me but what the heck its only 100 peso. I wanted to climb the Mountain as high as we could safely using my GPS to assist us. I asked where the trail started and I was told I need a guide which will cost 1000 peso and was not allowed to climb unless I have a guide walk with us, which I refused because we are capable of climbing on our own and is more enjoyable without a guide, then they lowered the rate to 700 peso but it didnt matter because the excitement of climbing the mountain, is doing it on our own. So on we went to explore the area below where there were swimming pools to play in, videoke, very small waterfall and a run down playground for children. We relaxed poolside when a girl asked us to buy a chicken BBQ for the price of 500 peso if we liked, my girl didnt seem interested so we declined, after my girl had enough of the bug / ant bites we decided to leave. As we got on my motorcycle the girl that asked us about the food stopped us and said what about my tip for being my guide? I thought she must be joking since she did not guide us at anything and I said when we arrived I did not want a guide, but she was serious. So like a good sport I asked how much, she replied with the common "Up to you?" This went back and forth with her and my gal a couple of times when my girl got agravated and gave her 100 peso. The bottom line of this trip in my opinion is the employees at this park are doing this tourist site a diservice to tourism for the Philippines it is one of those sites that I was excited to go see but due to the experince we had from the time we entered the gate to the time of leaving we felt unwelcome due to the employees persistently trying to take full financial advantage of anyone not filipino. Eventually this attitude if not cleaned up will have an impact on tourism and they will suffer the loss it always comes full circle when gone unchecked. Its a shame but may tourist locations here in the Philippines are this way because there is no oversight or bad oversight by the department of tourism. Its terrible to make such pleasant places, so unpleasant that you never want to return, all due to a few bad apples hustling pesos and gouging prices for their own personal gain. Needless to say I will never climb Mt Aryat and will never visit there again. I like to visit a tourist attraction happy and excited and leave feeling the same way, but in Mt Arayats case I went there happy but left rather disappointed and sad the employees there have to suck every bit of fun out of the experience. Just my opinion

Hi,me and my family are planning to celebrate my birthday this coming november in arayat pampanga.We heard that there's a new resort there but we don't know it's name.Did somebody here give me some names of resorts/hotels pls? Thank you very much and more power...

eow thats so beutiful will you give some picture in my friendster emo_destroyer18@yahoo.com or mikelloyd castro

The last time I visited Mt Arayat Park was in 1977. Myself, my girlfriend and two other couples had gone for a day excursion from the Clark Air Base/Angeles City, area. I remember a swimming pool, a small sari sari store and walking on one of the trails that led up the mountain. About the time we were getting ready to leave, there were a group of older Philippino men sitting and drinking at some tables and chairs near the store. As we walked by, one of them said to us, "One day we will drive you Americans out of our country". He was quite correct, that actually did happen in 1991. Mag beer muna tayo, pare!