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Published: February 26th 2013
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Pesos
Ballin with a bunch of Pesos! The time finally came for deskwarming to be over and to head out to vacation in the Philippines! We had been planning the trip for months and booked about 4 different flights to visit different destinations in the Philippines. Everyone was so eager to get out of the cold and into some tropical weather with nice, sandy beaches! Our flight was early morning so we had to wake up at the crack of dawn and get the subway out to the aiport. When we left Korea it was 12 degrees Fahrenheit so we were getting quite the few stares from the Koreans as we wore our shorts and light jackets to the airport. We were taking a small backpack for carry on and didn't feel like lugging around a thick winter jacket. It was worth it though when we landed in Manila and it was 85 degrees outside, the shorts ended up working perfectly!
We got in a taxi and headed straight to the bus terminal to catch a 2 hour bus ride down to Batangas to grab a 1-1.5 hour banca boat ride across to the island of Mindoro to a town called Sabang/Puerto Galera. It is a pretty
Manila
Traffic everywhere in downtown Manila No Jason Bourne sightings either. popular destination for Philippinos living in Manila since it is so close by. The bus would stop every so often and all these vendors would get in and try to sell you their snacks and drinks. Once at the boat terminal we grabbed our tickets for the boat and then they always have a terminal fee and an environmental fee that is around 150 pesos which is like $4, no matter what part of the islands you are in. I don't mind paying the extra fees but in order to get them you have to go to 3 separate lines in order to get them. Why not just make it just 1 window and get all 3 at one time? Who knows.
We waited about an hour in the terminal for the banca boat ride across the passage which was interesting to say the least. About halfway through the boat ride we started hitting some waves and the boat started rocking back and forth with the wood outriggers making this loud crack everytime a big wave would hit. That was a little unsettling and then something was happening with the engine as well so the workers were down in
Banca boat
Inside the banca boat. the engine room trying to fix whatever it was that was wrong with it. So now we are sitting in this small boat in the middle of the passage, getting tossed back and forth with the waves as these guys fix the boat. I can see some dark clouds coming over the island and started thinking of all the bad things that could happen but then I looked around and some of the other people weren't too worried so I just smiled and tried to take in the experience. Soon enough the guys had the boat fixed and were on their way to getting us to Sabang/Puerto Galera. As you came into port there were a ton of boats docked out in the water that we had to navigate around with houses and hotels lined up all along the bay that melted in with the lush green canopy. It was really neat!
We "relaxed" in Sabang/PG for the weekend. Overall I wouldn't recommend it as a place to go. There were a lot of older men with very young Philippino girls, street vendors that would seriously not leave you alone at all, and then there were a lot of
Banca boat ride
Banca boat ride to Puerto Galera working girls in the town. Everytime we would head out we would be asked a million times for crappy necklaces, sunglasses, wooden boats, motorbike rides and they wouldn't stop at 1 or 2 no's. We literally had to say no like 4-5 times and walk away to avoid getting hassled more. After a day or two of this, you really didn't want to leave the hostel to be further hassled but then you start to learn how to deal with them. Just an annoyance but that is what you get when you are in a third world country.
Sabang wasn't really a beach area as all the boats were docked there in the harbor but about 10-20 minutes down there was 2 pretty nice, decently quiet beaches where you could lay and soak up some rays called Small La Laguna and Big La Laguna beach which had a little bit nicer places to stay with only a couple small restaurants. We took a jeepney into the actual town of Puerto Galera that took about 15 minutes for 3-5 kilometers which was pretty fun but nothing worth visiting or exploring long term. They had a cool little harbor area with
nice clear water and some small restaurants and little touristy shops selling trinkets.
I did a Scuba dive which was a lot of fun. Saw a couple wreck dives off Sabang beach at about 55feet. Tons of colorful fish and great water clarity! Took some GoPro footage that I can hopefully upload to Youtube for everyone to see.
The next day we reversed the transportation order and took a banca boat back over to Batangas to catch a bus to Manila and then the airport to catch our flight over to Puerto Princessa, Palawan!
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Beth
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Nice Pix!
Very nice photography, Chris! Enjoyed the vicarious tour. (Next time try saying nothing to the street vendors - we found that worked better when in China...maybe will work in Korea, too - but cultures are so different, maybe not!) Looking forward to seeing more photos wehn you are home in half a year. Take care and keep clicking!