After a couple of changes in our plans, my high school
friends and I finally decided to stick to our original plan which was to
celebrate our High School reunion in White Beach, Puerto Galera. We were only
six in the group (4 high school friends to celebrate our reunion, lol, plus two
other “friends”), all first timers in Puerto Galera. The date was April 13-14,
2013, Saturday to Sunday. At the end of this blog, I will list down our
expenses which totalled about 3,600
pesos per person.
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| White Beach Puerto Galera |
PREPARATION:
We had no hotel and ferry ticket reservation so I can say
that this was a sort of on the spot outing. The only preparation we had was the
setting of the call time and making sandwiches and adobo to serve as our “tipid
food.” We also packed our things enough for an overnight outing including my
snorkelling gears and aqua shoes. We also read some blogs first to gather
information on where to stay, activities etcetera. I made this blog and made it
as detailed as possible for the benefit of readers/outing organizers like me,
hope this looong blog helps. J
GOING TO
BATANGAS PORT
We arrived at Jam Terminal, Cubao (aka Kamuning, Kamias
Branch) at around 3:30 in the morning. Thanks to the late comer such as myself,
we were not able to board the 3 AM trip. I was actually surprised that at that
early, there was already a line of passengers waiting for the next trip, mostly
Puerto Galera bound to spend the weekend. We left Cubao at 4:30 AM. Fare was
175 per person.
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| Batangas port on our way to White Beach Puerto Galera |
BATANGAS
PORT TO WHITE BEACH
We reached Batangas Port at around 6:10 AM, after reading a
couple of blogs, we knew we only had two options: Father and Sons Shipping Lines (FSL) and Minolo Shipping Lines (MSL). We also had already anticipated
fixers/barkers who would like to assist us in booking ticket for Puerto Galera.
We politely refused Manong from FSL’s offer and told him that we do not have
budget for his tip (we really intended to spend as little as possible for this
outing). But he assured us that it’s okay and his job is just to bring
passengers to FSL, maybe that’s where he's getting his commission, and so we
agreed. He was the one who lined up to pay in the cashier, but one of us was
beside him to be safe. We paid the same amount as the other’s who paid
personally without fixer’s assistance (Php 500 round trip ticket), so we were
sure that we were not charged by Manong. I momentarily became paranoid when he
told us to wait and suddenly ran to the other side and disappeared, he still
had our Php 480! I nervously looked for him and eventually found him, turned
out that “the other side” was the terminal fee cashier. P30 for terminal and P50
for environmental, not sure which was 30 and which was 50 really :-D). After
getting our tickets, we lined up for the entrance, we did not pay Manong any tip
because of his assurance a while ago, we just told him “God bless po” for his
kind assistance.
And so we boarded the boat. FSL boat is big and can
accommodate many passengers. Aside from White Beach, FSL
has also trip going to Muelle and Sabang.
We reached the shore of White Beach, Puerto Galera around
pass 8 o’clock in the morning. The place was okay, a bit crowded because it was
weekend. Since we bought round trip tickets, we were asked to approach the FSL
booth by the shore to confirm/reserve our return tickets for next day and chose
a schedule of departure; we chose the 4:30 PM trip.
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| Father and Sons Shipping Lines |
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FINDING A
PLACE TO STAY
Our next mission was to find a place to stay. We decided not
to book a room online because of the rates ranging from Php 3,500 to 4,800 for
a capacity of 6. There were fixers in the FSL booth offering us a place to
stay. We told them that our budget was Php 2,000 – 3,000, to maintain our maximum
budget allocation of 500 pesos per person for the accommodation. One of the
fixers gave us two options: first was on beach front for 3,000 pesos and the
other was located in small alley a little far from the shore for 2,500 pesos.
We chose the first one, Mindoro Korea,
beside Mindorinne Oriental Beach Resort.
We had to wait long because they are still preparing/cleaning
our room. Luckily, they had their own restaurant so we decided to have an early
lunch. We just bought rice and had our “tipid food” Adobo as our meal. Our room
was ready by the time we were done eating.
Also read my blog: Where to Stay in White Beach, Puerto Galera to know more about accomodations in Puerto
Galera
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| Mindoro Korea Hotel |
ACTIVITIES
We booked Tammaraw
Falls and Virgin Island trip with the same fixer who brought us to to
Mindoro Korea. She charged us 1500 for the whole trip, I am not sure why we did
not insist on haggling for a cheaper offer, but we later found out that 1500
pesos was really expensive. The package also included a trip to the market to
buy some stuff and a stopover in an ATM for extra cash. The whole trip was from
3:30 PM to 6 PM, 1.5 hours spent on travelling alone.
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| Tammaraw Falls |
We then spent the rest of the night watching fire dancers
whom I thought were much more entertaining than the performers I saw in
Boracay. Plus they also have more hot fire dancing chicks there than in
Boracay. We also tried the famous Mindoro Sling and honestly I did not like it!
It tasted more alcohol than juice. We even ordered from another bar thinking
that it would differ in the mix, but the alcohol taste was still dominant.
Then came day 2. After having our breakfast, (our tipid food
adobo of courseJ), we
decided to do the Snorkelling / island hopping activity. We did not want Ate
from yesterday after what happened to our Tammaraw Falls activity. The moment
we reached the shore, we were done negotiating with the first fixer who
approached us. We paid 1500 for the
trip, excluding the tricycle fare, tip and “others.” The entire activity was
fun specially the fish feeding in the “real” Snorkelling area (aka Snorkeling
Area #2). The entire activity lasted almost two hours including travel time.
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| Queen Reyna free advertisement for treating us well :) |
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| More fishes in Snorkeling Area #2 |
At 10:30 in the morning, we did the UFO instead of the Banana
boat because of two reasons. Banana boat required 10 persons and we have to
wait for 4 more if we are going to ride in it, and second was that we felt that
the Banana ride was kinda scripted and boring. It was our first time on the UFO
and totally enjoyed it.
For a detailed version of this part of our trip, check out:
GOING HOME
Our check out time was 11:30 in the morning and since our
trip back to Batangas is at 4:30 in the afternoon, we decided to have lunch first to kill some time. We left our
bags in the reception area of Mindoro Korean to look for a place to eat with
videoke. We ate, sang, and drank a mild version of Mindoro sling which we
totally enjoyed this time, for more than 3 hours. We went back to Mindoro Korea
to fetch our things, bought some pasalubong and finally head to the FSL ferry
waiting for us.
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| Going Home |
