Why I Love Traveling The Philippines, II

Second day of our Batanes trip.

We took the early morning 30-min faluwa ride (traditional Ivatan boat) to Sabtang Island. Upon arriving, we had breakfast near the Sabtang port. Our first stop after finishing our breakfast was the village of Savidug, where most houses were made from the traditional coral stones. Our next stop was Chavayan, but before heading there, our guides took us to Lime beach, the place where Ivatans baked coral stones so that they could use them to build the walls of their homes. This practice isn't being done anymore though.

After that, we passed by one of the most beautiful sights in Batanes. We were riding on the topload of our jeep, so we had a great view of the green fields that looked just like The Shire. It was hard to take a good picture since we were on top of a moving vehicle, but the place is really, really beautiful. I seriously wouldn't be surprised if I saw hobbits living there. Hell, I could live there :p

I think the theme for the day was overload of beautiful sights, because after seeing that place, our guide dropped us off on the Chamantad-Tinyan viewpoint. This is probably the most incredible view I've ever seen in my life. The green, rolling hills bordered by dramatic stony cliffs leading sharply down a cove to the clear blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. The beach was lined by white sand and rocks that were being pounded by splashing waves. My pictures don't do it justice.

We finally reached Chavayan. Chavayan is a beautiful village filled with traditional stone houses on a backdrop of green-covered rock formations and hills. Chavayan is such a charmingly quaint village. We went to a house that sold traditonal weaved products, and took a pitstop on a small plaza where we drank some fresh buko juice served by a bolo-carrying lola. Apparently her father, Lolo Marcelo, is the oldest man in Batanes at 104, so she invited us to meet him. She also invited us to see their kitchen, which was used for a Nescafe ad.

After Chavayan, we went back past to Centro to Nakabuang beach, where we had lobster, lapu-lapu and adobo for lunch. After lunch, we just enjoyed the beach and taking pictures of the Nakabuang arch. The waves were pretty strong so we just waded around, and we were all pretty burnt by that time so we didn't stay long, which was good since it turned out the falowa going back to Batan island was already waiting for us, along with about a dozen other passengers.

Sabtang Island, in summary, was just unbelievably amazing.

Why I Love Traveling The Philippines

Batanes. There's really nothing else to say other than it is an incredibly breathtaking place made even more beautiful by its very nice and friendly people.

Mia, Kian, Ish, Geebee, Chrissy and I booked our tickets last February/March when Seair had a sale on its Batanes flights. We've seen nothing but good pictures and heard nothing but great things about Batanes, so we were all excited for it, even if the trip wasn't gonna happen until six months later.

So, six months later...

We started our Batanes trip by exploring the northern part of Batan island. For the second day, we headed to Sabtang island, which just completely amazed me. The 3rd day of our trip was spent going around the southern part of Batan island. The 4th day, Kian and Ish climbed to the top Mt. Iraya despite the heavy rains, while the rest of us were stuck in our hotel rooms because of it. The 5th day, we were supposed to go home, but Ester rained it all out. Instead we just stayed at our room watching Here Comes The Bride (hiliarious) and taking a short walk around the town, which was supposed to celebrate its town fiesta (Ester completely rained it out too. Not hilarious.) We spent about 5 hours of the 6th day waiting at the airport, since we were chance passengers on the two Seair flights. Only four seats were available for the six of us on the 2nd flight to Manila, so Kian and I ended up staying behind. So we just walked and biked around Batan island the rest of the time there since we were running short of money. We finally got home by Day 8.

Batan Island

The sights of nothern Batan island is very subtle. The beautiful rolling hills covered by the greenest of grasses, a church and a hotel made of stone, wide green fields parted by hedges, rock formations that were used as fortresses in the old times, a beach covered by huge boulders instead of the typical white sand, a lighthouse that provides you with stunning views of the sea and the hills and the cliffs and the setting sun... This part of the island doesn't pound you in the head with its amazing beauty, it doesn't insist itself the way other touristy places do, you know what I mean? It's very charming, and polite, if you can use that to describe a place. But don't mistake it for something else, because it's breathtaking nonetheless.

Now, the southern part of the island is nothing but subtle, with its amazing blue lagoon and Rakuh-A-Payaman (more popularly known to tourists as the Marlboro country), the cliff by the coastal road in Imnajbu, and the postcard-perfect Mahatao Lighthouse. The places we saw here were all just begging to be photographed.

See what I mean?

I'm Not Sorry I Met You

A Batanes teaser first:



The sights, in order of appearance:
1. The rolling hills in Batan Island
2. Tukon Church (Tukon means hill in Ivatan)
3. Valugan Boulder Beach (The boulders were from a Mt. Iraya eruption)
4. A beach beside the Homoron Blue Lagoon. It has a natural breakwater that makes the water by the beach still, the clouds reflecting on the sea was an awesome sight.

The background music is by Your Ex-Lover Is Dead by Stars. I was listening to the song on my music player while we were at the airport, and something about the horns on the intro just fit with the rolling hills.

Traveling and Budgeting

Funny how last January, I was complaining about not having enough trips planned yet for the year. Fast forward to now, and I've got Boracay, Baguio, Singapore, Iloilo and Guimaras, Batanes, and Baguio all lined up.

Woot! Cheers to airline promos! Ubos na naman ang pera ko!

The Iloilo (with a planned sidetrip to Guimaras) and two Baguio trips are actually for weddings of friends/current & former officemates (Mich and James, Marlon and Camille, and Karon and Wayne), so those are pretty much planned out. The Iloilo flight is probably the cheapest flight I've ever paid for at 300 pesos (round trip!!!) from Cebu Pacific. And Guimaras is less than an hour's boat ride from Iloilo City, so that trip is definitely a steal. Baguio is a 7-hour bus ride, so we actually haven't planned those ones yet.

Last January when Cebu Pac had another seat sale, I was asking (a.k.a. begging) my office friends to go to Bohol/Singapore with me, but not enough people bit the offer for various different reasons... So when we heard that another team in the office was going to Boracay for their team building activity, Pat, Mats & Becca, Rommel, and I decided to tag along with them (we're crashing in on the other team's team building trip since they found discounted PAL flights and cheap accommodations there. LOL.)

And then last week, my college/office friend Mia was planning for a Singapore trip and found discounted flights on Singapore Airlines, so when she told me about it and found that an IT Fair and the Great Singapore Sale was going to happen around the same dates of the trip, and Mike confirmed that Universal Studios SG is now open, I jumped in on it too. We're planning on just crashing at our former officemates/currently Singapore-based friends' apartment to save on costs. Thanks for not objecting to our planned invasion, Ben, Jyue, Mike and Geebee!

Finally, we've been planning/trying to plan a trip to Batanes for several months now. We even have a discussion on Google Wave for it (because we're dripping with technogeeky hipster coolness as it is. Heh.), but found most travel options either too expensive (14k + on Seair, or a chartered flight from Tuguegarao), or too um, hardcore (boat from Curimao, Ilocos Norte, anyone?) So when Seair released their promo fares in time for this year's Philippine Travel Expo, we were finally able to finalize the dates of the trip. Woohoo!

So... now I really have to work hard to stay on my monthly budget (also: I guess now have to start setting a monthly budget) and reduce unnecessary expenses. As a first step, magce-Century Tuna at Ligo Sardines na lang ako araw-araw.

Also, kailangang humanap ng role na malaki ang on-call pay.