April 13, 2006
Bangkok to Manila
The flight from Bangkok to Manila took 3 hours and cost less than 12,000 baht. There are two international terminals at Manila Airport. The newer Terminal 2 is exclusively for Philippine Airlines. It’s cleaner and less crowded. There is one single exit area where people wait and pick up passengers. All other airlines use Terminal 1 (at the moment, nobody knows when the latest Terminal 3 will be open). The exit mechanism is quite confusing there. First, you exit the gate and see a road where you can take airport taxis. Then you cross the road to enter another building and exit again either from left or right side based on the first letter of your family name. People who pick up passengers sit in a waiting area grouped by the first letter of passenger’s family names opposite the building. It’s not a bad system unless you know how it works. Because of this confusion, my sister, Mandy, waited in the first waiting area (where you take taxis) for 1 hour before she lost patience and bought a phone card to call me. It’s better to walk 2 minutes to the road outside the airport to take a taxi. If you insist the driver to use meter, it will cost you about 20%-30% of the fare of the official airport taxi. We went to Victory Liner bus terminal in Pasay City and bought the 11:30 p.m. bus to Bagiuo for 395 pesos each (the last bus at midnight was fully booked due to the Easter holiday in the Philippines). Victory Liner is one of the best bus companies in the Philippines. The bus we took is air-conditioned and similar to the second class bus in Thailand (without toilet). It’s acceptable but still quite difficult to sleep
April 14, 2006
Sagada
The bus stopped two times for snacks and toilets and arrived in Bagiuo 5 hours later. The last hour was in the mountains. The city of Bagiuo is admired by many in the Philippines. Built on the mountains, it’s a popular place to avoid the heat during the hot months. The president of the Philippines was there too during that time. The roads are not easy to navigate in the city so we took taxi to another bus terminal for buses going north. There was no direct bus to Sagada and we bought tickets for a bus heading for Bontoc for 232 pesos each (later we found out the tickets were marked as 202 pesos – is it a Philippine way of ripoff?). This non air-conditioned bus left around 7 a.m. and started the 7 hour journey in the mountains. The roads are not that dangerous and most parts are paved. The view is good if not super. Immediately after we arrived in Bontoc, two jeepneies were waiting there to transfer passengers to Sagada (35 pesos per person). Almost all the passengers on the bus from Bagiuo were locals taking holidays in Sagada so the jeepneies were quite crowded. Sagada is just 1 hour away from Bontoc on an unpaved road. When we just arrived, it looked like a pleasant little town, quite different from the commercial feel of Bontoc. We even saw some foreign tourists for the first time. But we didn’t know what was going to happen next.
The first trouble we got was accommodations. There are about 10 hotels in this little resort town. Perhaps because of the long holiday weekend, there were many local tourists during that time and only 2 hotels had rooms available. The hotels there tend to serve local tourists who, like Thais, like to travel in groups. Therefore most of the rooms are for 6 to 10 people. The only rooms left in the last two hotels are large rooms and both hotels asked for over 2,000 pesos for each room. This was totally ridiculous to us and we decided to hire a jeepney back to Bontoc the same day for 1,000 pesos (public jeepneies are only available in the morning).
Then the inconvenience for independent travelers. Every tourist is required to hire a tour guide. The fee is 400 pesos for 1-4 people. You can choose 3 places. If you don’t have your own vehicle, you have to hire a jeepney for 350 baht. We first visited a cave with coffins. On the way we saw something similar to the stone forest in China. The coffins were made of stones and of different sizes. Local tourists were busy taking photos in front of the coffins. The second cave has nothing special and you need to walk 1 hour on a very slippery pathway to finish the journey. I walked 10 minutes and decided to come back. One the way back to the Tourist Information Center, we stop on the road to see the hanging coffins among the stone forest on the mountains. While it’s interesting to explore the coffins, at 750 pesos it’s definitely not cheap.
We spent the evening in Bontoc, the capital city of Mountain Province, at a nice hotel for 100 pesos only (shared bathroom). The city (or town) has only 1 main street. People are quite nice to tourists. The thing we heard the most during our brief stay was “Welcome to Bontoc”. The hotel clerk even walked 5 minutes to show us the best restaurant in town where you can listen to music.
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| Hanging Coffins |
April 15, 2006
Banaue
The bus station in Bontoc is just next to the Town Hall on the main street. We took the 8:00 a.m. bus that passes Banaue. The journey took 2.5 hours in the mountains. It’s not too difficult to locate the popular People’s Lodge where you actually go downstairs to the rooms but still have a great view of the mountains. The rates were 400 pesos for rooms with toilet and hot water and 150 pesos for rooms without toilet (public bathrooms are not equipped with hot water). Like most hotels here, People’s Lodge also has a large restaurant with good views. We had our lunch here and got a free map from the hotel (a similar map was for sale at the Tourist Information Center). We were ready to explore the 8th wonder of the world – the race terraces.
Like most places in the Philippines, you need to negotiate to get the best prices. We managed to hire a tricycle to go to the viewpoint 4 km away for 50 peso one way. The view at the viewpoint is good but that was not enough for us. We decided to walk through the rice terraces back to Banaue. I had trekking experience before but it was the first time I did in the rice terraces along the hillsides. The feeling was great although you do need some kind of balance which is not too difficult. There are no signs at all. We used a TV tower in Banaue and our mouths for directions. There are a few homes along the rice terraces so if you don’t mind asking, you will not loss the way. It only took us 2 hours to reach Bocos, a small town on the national road near Banaue. Mandy ordered a cup of Halo Halo, a popular drink in the Philippines and it started to rain cats and dogs. We hired a tricycle back to Banaue (10 pesos per person).
After a short rest in the hotel, we walked to Banaue Hotel, obviously the best hotel in town. What impressed us the most was the swimming pool - in the mist of the mountains. I felt like I could only see this in the movies. Not too far from the pool is the starting point of 240 steps down to Tam-an Village. The village became quite commercialized with children offering guide service on the way. The mysterious bones were obvious hidden in the houses. I heard some children asking “do you want to see the bones?” Not very interested in this kind of craps, we climbed back to Banaue Hotel and had our dinner at Green View Lodge and Restaurant, just next to People’s Lodge and Restaurant. The restaurant at Green View is actually better then the People’s – there have larger selections of food and we met a waiter whose cousin happens to work in China.
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| Rice Terraces |
April 16, 2006
Banaue to Manila
There is only one direct bus from Banaue to Manila leaving at 5:30 p.m. every day. In order to have a better sleep, we decided to take the day buses and it turned out to be not an easy journey. We started at 8:00 a.m. The first leg was not hard. A jeepney takes you to Lagawe where you change to another jeepney to Solano (the total journey cost around 70 pesos). We arrived in Solano around 11:00 a.m. and had lunch at Chow King, a local fast food restaurant chain in the Philippines. Probably because it was the last day of the long holiday, we couldn’t find a bus heading for Manila with seats. We finally boarded a non air-conditioned bus and paid 300 pesos each for the trip. Mandy managed to sit on a box in the front while I had to stand for most of the journey. Because of the design of bus, all the luggage was put on the hallway and there was not much space to move around. There were more children on the bus than adults and that made the bus quite noisy. Before San Jose City the bus run through the mountains. Certain part of the journey is quite scenic. After San Jose City it’s all flat and the traffic became busier. We finally arrived in Manila at 10 p.m. and missed the MRT which surprisingly finishes quite early at 10 p.m. We took a taxi to the budget hotel area of Malate and walked through the hotels until we finally found a hotel that was acceptable by Mandy, the Stone House on Mabini Road (900 pesos with a/c, TV and hot water).
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| Jeepnies in Solano |
April 17, 2006
Manila and Taal Volcano
We spent about 2 hours checking out Rizal Park, Intramuros and Chinatown. Nothing special. The MRT was extremely crowded even at 11:00 a.m. although it’s still fast, air-conditioned and cheap (15 pesos from Carriedo near Chinatown to EDSA where most bus companies to the South are located). There is even a women’s car on the train.
The Crow Bus Lines bus we took to Tagaytay is the best – new, clean, air-conditioned and only 70 pesos for the 1.5 hour journey. After we got off in the main drop-off area of Tagaytay, we had to hire a tricycle to Taal Vista Hotel for 50 pesos. The hotel charges 50 pesos per head to the view point unless you stay or eat in the hotel. The view is fantastic. Even if you decide to explore the Volcano (like we did later), I still recommend this view point – you won’t get the same picture while you are too close to the volcano.
It’s possible to take public jeepneies to Talisay from Taal Vista Hotel but this involves change of jeepneies 3 times and the service of the last leg is infrequent. So we decided to hire a “package tour” freelancer to explore the Volcano. We paid 2,000 pesos that we later found out only included the tricycle to Talisay and the return boat to the Volcano. From Tagaytay to Talisay it’s all the way downhill and takes about 30 minutes. The boat was actually run by a family whose house is just on the lake and has a peer within. We saw a private pool inside the house that indicates the wealth of the family. There are other families running similar services in the town. The boat takes about 30 minutes. Although it’s a lake, the waves were quite heavy on that day.
Although the guidebooks say you can walk to the crater, nobody seemed to do that as we could see. I negotiated a horse ride for 400 pesos (asking from 500 to 700 pesos). It takes about 1 hour and it’s a good idea to wear a mask along the way. Surprisingly there is a lake in the crater and it’s really amazing. The volcano itself is a mountain surrounded by a lake within mountains, and this crystal clear lake is inside the volcano. Although I visited many mountains and lakes, this kind of mountain/lake structure was the first time to me.
The “guide” (the son of the rich family that runs the boat) took us to another jeepney station for Tanauan (although he said the “package” included a trip to Tanauan in the beginning). We paid 70 pesos each (obvious higher than the locals) and it took less than 1 hour. We stopped a Minila bound bus (air-conditioned) and paid 84 baht for the journey back to Pasay City area of Manila (partially using expressway).
Mandy spent 1 hour in a big shopping mall (Harrison Plaza) looking for cosmetics and was quite disappointed. It’s definitely not the same level as Hong Kong or Bangkok for shopping. The mall closes at 9:00 p.m. and we stopped a jeepney back to our hotel (7.5 pesos per person).
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| Taal Volcano |
April 18, 2008
Manila to Bangkok
Scared about the crowd in the MRT the previous day, we decide to take a taxi to the airport (120 pesos using the meter). The taxi used the major road along the sea that gave us a chance to have a quick peek of the Manila Bay. I enjoyed the view while eating Bola Bola (a kind of dumpling I bought at a 7-Eleven shop for 30 pesos) on the taxi. Prepare 550 pesos or 10 US dollars to pay the airport tax – it’s not included in the ticket!
Overview
The Philippines is definitely worth a visit. I didn’t have a chance to visit the beaches on various islands this time but the rice terraces and Taal Volcano were good enough for the trip. Most people are quite nice to tourists and we didn’t encounter any major problems except for the mild rip-off around Taal Volcano. Security check is frequent – your bag will be checked when you enter the MRT, shopping malls, etc. and that actually makes me feel safer. Roads are generally good and traffic is not as jammed as in other Asian cities like Bangkok. The only downside is the food. Food in the Philippines is not of characteristics and not very cheap. Good thing is there are not many restrictions due to religious reasons, etc. – you can get almost all kinds of meat although you don’t see many vegetables in the dishes.
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