In our journey as professionals, we usually meet different
people from different parts of the country and one of the things that we appreciate
the most in life is to be able to make connection more than the usual corporate
relationships...
It all started almost 6 yrs ago when we suggested to a
friend of ours who lives in Mindoro that we pay a visit in their home town.
There wasn’t any concrete plans then not until earlier this year.
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| boat ride to Calapan from Batangas Port |
Around
3 o’clock in the afternoon of that faithful day, we arrived in Batangas Port and
we’re very fortunate to manage arranging our tickets there without further
waiting. After 2 hours we arrived in Calapan Port and decided to have a short
break in a fastfood restaurant located in a Mall.
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| Calapan Port |
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| @ Greenwhich New City Mall, Calapan |
Another 2 hours of land travel, we made it to Bandayrel
Residences in Bongabong. Our dinner was spent with some meaningful
conversations with our friend’s parents and Lola Inang over some of these goodies
before we went to slumber…
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| sinaing to the rescue! |
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| Tamalis is in the house! |
Early the next day we took off to Bulalacao Port and arrived
there around 7 o’clock in the morning, just in time for our scheduled island
hopping. By the way, there is a boat ride here to Caticlan where the famous
Boracay Beach is located.
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| Bulalacao Port |
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| It's time to start the Island Hopping tour! |
Our boatmen were really generous and allowed us to visit
Islands that were not part of the itinerary!
More often trips during Island hop takes a lot of time and so discouraging sometimes because of the distance, but here... easy peasy lemon squeezy!
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| Island mapping |
First short stop was in Tambaron Island. They offered us to stay here overnight but we declined since we have kids that requires
special attention… maybe next time!
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| Tambaron Island |
Next stop is the sandbar in Aslom Island. We arrived a bit
late to witness the full stretch of the sandbar but it wasn’t a total loss…
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| Aslom Island groupie |
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| hurray for today! |
Then off to our next Island called Sibalat which is not part of our itinerary. The Island has the
smallest footprint but offers a lot especially if the private
owner can somehow continue developments being made.
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| Island's vantage point |
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| Sibalat Island |
Next is Alibatan or Target Island which is also privately
owned. In here we spent most of our time! Besides having our lunch break, we
were really fond of what we found under…
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| Alibatan Island |
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| Kainan na! |
Our last and final destination is Maasin Island. The place is inhabited by approximately 800 voters they said, so that explains why the
whole shoreline was filled with boat. Since I’m gonna be driving back to our homebase
in Bongabong, I need some time to sleep…
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| our Ella getting Sunburn |
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| Kapoy! |
We took off from Bulalacao late afternoon and if you’re
lucky enough, you might get a chance to purchase fresh catch from boatmen.
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| all ready!!! |
Pass halfway on our way back to Bongabong, we got this urge to cross
Roxas for snack and ended up in Tita Cor’s Restaurant. The place offers a lot
of options but we went for the usual “pancit” and ordered halo-halo in fresh
buko nut… wow walastik palagatik!
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| Tita Cor's Restuarant |
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| beat the heat with this treat! |
When we got back to Bongabong, we first went to our Friend’s farm
before we spent our last night in their house just a few kms away.
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| @ Inang's farm house |
Saying our farewell the next morning with the Bandayrel
family was quite sad especially how we were treated like family in our short
stay…
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| Bandayrel's Residence (in pink) |
It is our 3rd day here in Oriental Mindoro and from Bongabong, we need to be in Puerto Galera before lunch. What we
did was eat breakfast in Pinamalayan and bought some goodies in Socorro.
Mindoro is famous for their banana products so keep it in your list of
“pasalubong”.
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| Oh Jollibee... you're everywhere! |
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| Pinamalayan Landmark |
Our next destination was the famous Tukuran Falls and to get
there from the main road you either use your legs or the legs of a Carabao… we chose the latter! If you're curious why it was called "tukuran", it literary means that in tagalog. Large boulders holding up each other in layers... tukod!
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| true or falls? |
Fun and exciting fact! Our kids usually watch our vacation videos where we do something crazy like cliff jumping. When we asked our eldest if she can do what we did, she answered YES with confidence and beauty! So watch her nail it with her bro!
We had our lunch late since we took advantage of the lesser
number of tourist arriving that time and enjoyed the area to ourselves… we
thought! We also shared our meal with the locals since we brought more than
enough food for the gang.
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| late lunch with the gang |
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| pupur is in the house! |
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| sharing is for caring... |
Around 4 o’clock in the afternoon we started rolling towards
our final destination here in Mindoro… the white beach in Puerto Galera! We
arrived just in time to witness the perfect sunset and although we’ve been here
twice, we immediately noticed something different about the place.
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| Sunset @ White Beach, Puerto Galera |
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| Greenhouse where we spent the night |
Had dinner in a nice restaurant where they set up tables and chairs along the shoreline and it felt peaceful contrary to what we had before where loud music & "party all night" were the only way to spend the evening here.
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| Marco Vincent Aqua Bar |
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| fire dance show |
We opted to spend our last day chillaxing by waking up late then geared up for breakfast in a newly opened food park where every rice meal is "unli rice" unless you haven't noticed their sign! Also had some photos along the beach and got another layer of sunburn on our skin.
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| lifeguard feels |
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| bfast in the newly opened food park |
All journey must come to an end so was ours! Packed our things and left Puerto Galera pass noon and along our way back to Calapan Port, we stopped over at a restaurant with a nice view of the ocean to fill our tummies then went to take some photos in Tamaraw Falls. Last time we checked the water fall was dead dry but much to our surprise it has water and a pool below!
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| Lunch @ AJ Lomi House |
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| It's true... it is a falls! |
Mindoro is really a gold mine as its name implies, a treasure waiting to be found only by a few! That's the end of it... by for now!
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| Two thumbs up!!! |
