How to get to Puerto Galera for first timers and Puerto Galera budget and sample expenses:

Getting to Puerto galera from Manila involves just two steps: Board a bus to Batangas Pier then ride a ferry to Puerto galera.

Herewith are the details, latest fares and trip schedules for your information (some information given by Tutubi's officemate who went there recenly with family)

Toll Fees (SLEX + Startoll end-to-end): PhP306 (from SLEX Nichols to Batangas City)
Port of Batangas (Pier) Parking Fee (overnight at Park & Sail): PhP155.00 for the first 24 hours, PhP6.00/hour thereafter
Bus to Batangas Pier Fare (from Cubao, Quezon City): PhP175.00
Ferry to Puerto Galera from Batangas Pier: PhP500.00
Puerto Galera Environmental Fee: PhP50.00 (PhP40.00 for senior citizens, free for children 12 years and below)
Port of Batangas Terminal Fee: PhP30.00 (pay this after booking ferry)
Puerto Galera Island hopping rates (boat rental)

Manila to Batangas Port travel time: two to three hours
Batangas Port to Puerto Galera travel time: one to two hours, depends on boat/ferry type

Puerto Galera Ferry Schedules:
Batangas Port to Puerto Galera last trip: 1800HRS (recommend ferry in the morning due to waves in the afternoon)
Puerto Galera to Batangas Port last trip: 1500HRS

Puerto Galera Boat Companies
Gallerian
Father & Sons
Minolo Shipping Lines

Puerto Galera by Bus and Ferry

Sikat Bus & Ferry service: offers a package nonstop bus ride to Port of Batangas with a connecting ferry trip to Puerto Galera. The departure is at the Citystate Tower Hotel and only once a day.

List of Buses to Batangas Pier:

RRCG Transport (Buendia, LRT, Taft, Pasay)
Batangas Express
Ceres Transport (EDSA CUbao and LRT Taft, Pasay)
Alps The Bus (EDSA, Cubao): Manila to Batangas trip schedule: first trip at 3am, last trip at 830pm

telephone numbers, contact numbers and hotline to be posted once available

Related posts on Puerto Galera:
How to get to Batangas Pier
Green Star Express
Puerto Galera ATM
Puerto Galera Travel Tips

you may be looking for these:
puerto galera how to get there, how to get to puerto galera, puerto galera environmental fee, puerto galera ferry fare,

Labels: Mimaropa, Oriental Mindoro, Puerto Galera

Now there are at least two competitors to Seair's once monopoly of the Manila-Batanes route, but here's one that serves cheaper "connecting flight" either Laoag to Batanes (Ilocos Norte) in the west and Tuguegarao to batanes (Cagayan) in the east.

Sky Pasada is a new company offering cheap flights to Batanes from either Laoag, Ilocos Norte or Tugegarao, Cagayan

Manila to Batanes Fare (year-round): PhP5985.00 (without terminal fee, terms and conditions apply)
Sky Pasasa Batanes Flights Trip Schedules: twice a week, Monday and Thursday

Cheap Flights to Batanes:

Laoag to Batanes promo Fare: PhP5199.00 (round-trip)
selling period: June 10 -30, 2012; Travel period:June 10 - August 30, 2012

Tuguegarao to Batanes promo fare: PhP5499.00
selling period: June 10 -30, 2012; Travel period:June 10 - August 30, 2012


how to book a flight to Sky Pasada? call their Manila Ticketing office hotline at Telephone: +63.2.553.4795; Tuguegarao ticketing office at telephone number: +63.78.304.1054; +63.928.203.3363; visit Sky Pasada official website for details or call Sky Pasada hotline.

now this promo fares to Batanes brought by Sky Pasada must be the answer to Tutubi's dream of cheap fares to Batanes since their competitor offers almost double the ticket prices to Batanes.

When will Tutubi visit Batanes? hmmm probably next year but no definite time for now

Related Posts on Batanes:

Seair Promo Fare to Batanes
Batanes Accommodations

Labels: Airlines, Batanes

This blog prides itself with being one of the very few blogs who've resisted offers of free hotel accommodations, resort tours, free meals at restaurants and other freebies in exchange for positive or neutral reviews.

This Tutubi was able to maintain for the last six years. On this occations, Tutubi's slightly changing this policy to be flexible enough to post advertorials from companies that can possibly provide travel funds (as you know, I need to travel to maintain this blog)

Advertisements on this blog e.g. Adsense, text link ads, affiliate marketing and other travel fund generating sources can't fully defray the high costs of unsponsored travel.

This blog will now occasionally post advertorials but full disclosure shall be pursued. However, no advertorials nor paid reviews shall still be posted here for hotels (and other accommodations), resorts, restaurants and other similar establishments thus still assuring readers of unbiased reviews and recommendations. Positive or neutral reviews shall always be devoid of strings attached.

Hope for your understanding.

List of advertorials as of May 31, 2012

None

Labels: Blogging

Tutubi's friend and contact in Carigara, Leyte went home to Leyte and got back to Quezon City via a PP bus line roro from Leyte in a quite long travel of 21 hours

She rode the bus at 7am and arrived in Manila at 4am the following day. Here's the information she got from her:

Manila to Leyte Fare: PhP1200.00, travel time: 21 hours via (Bicol, Samar then Leyte via San Juanico Bridge

Bus companies/bus lines serving the Manila - Leyte Roro bus route:

Cul Transport

Eagle Star

PP Bus lines

Ultrabus contact number: +63922.859.2381; +63.927.960.6409

Information on this page will be updated soon to include bus trip schedules, bus fares and probably telephone numbers, official websites (if present) and bus contact numbers/hotline.

Labels: Buses, Public Transportation

There are many articles on the net about Facebook having millions of users and yet the Facebook advertising is not as mature as Google's. I've browsed many blogs with thousands of likes for Facebook pages and Twitter followers much more than mine but I noticed something by studying this blog's web analytics: that Facebook fans simply "like" Facebook page posts but not actually visit the blog post. There are of course some pages that get spikes on visitors referred by Facebook but as a general observation, Facebook is "just" another marketing tool or a way for your fans to follow you, same as Twitter.

This blog arrived late in social media presence being only about a year old with barely two thousand likes for Facebook page and about a hundred followers on Twitter. It's probably due to Tutubi's being inaccessible, being busy with life's routines rather than tweeting, posting FB updates, even bloghopping. Heck, he can't seem to reply to comments like he used to.

But even with the pathetic numbers of his FB page and Twitter followers compared to other travel blogs, here's a sneak peak at this blog's hidden numbers, something you can't see on Pinoy Top Blogs (want to know the reason why he opted out of this blog ranking site? The reason may make you decide to leave that blog ranking/aggregator too)

Total visitors, page views and unique visitors during Holy Week 2012:


Typical web statistics for Summer of 2012:


Numbers in a nut shell:

Blog age: six years
Number of Posts: around 930
RSS readers: around 320
Followers on Blogger reader: 64
Twitter followers: barely one hundred
Faceboook page likes: almost 2000 (paltry compared to most blogs)

Number of sponsored posts/advertorials/freebies in exchange for positive/neutral reviews: 0

average daily visitors: around 5000
average daily page loads: around 7500

these numbers are paltry compared to other blogs but the numbers that really matter are not the Twitter followers, Facebook page likes, not even comments but the pageviews and visitors of this blog that leave no imprint. There are about a few hundred people visiting this blog every single day without saying any thing, probably bookmarked due to absence of referrer site information.

And if you understand page views and how it relates to these acronyms: CTR, CPC and RPM, you'll know what they mean :P

Thank you, all silent followers of this blog. Been six years, Tutubi may have slowed down traveling, blogging and blog-hopping, it doesn't mean he'll stop at it!

Labels: Blogging

(This is the first part of the Lamanoc Island Mystic Island Adventure Tour)

A place heard first by Tutubi from his French friend who went to visit him after 7 year (whom he met in India on a ferry to Elephanta Island) and acted on a tip by Lonely Planet (hmmm, Lonely Planet Philippines Travel Guide has some nice tips though many are quite dated). He mentioned something about caves, ancient burial grounds and rock paintings but not similar to the ones in Angono Petroglyphs.

To get to Lamanoc Island, you need to get past a mangrove forest via a 200 meter long wooden footbridge plus a less than a kilometer boat ride.

The Mangrove Forest of Badiang, Anda, Bohol: The Jump-off point to the Mystical Island of Lamanoc


the road-side sign and registry of Lamanoc Island. You need to pay here a minimal entrance fee plus the banca ride

the long wooden footbridge to the wharf where boatmen awaits

interesting patterns of roots of bakhawan/bakawan or mangrove in english

a parked boat on the mangroves

the boat that will take Tutubi and his friend to Lamanoc Island, the island on the upper right of this picture

What is the significance of mangroves to our lives? they provide fishes sanctuary to lay eggs and multiply, they provide shelter to birds and other creatures of the food chain, they supply communities with wood (though not recommended), they're home to quire icky but tasty woodworms called tamilok, and they protect coastal communities from dangerous waves during typhoons, even tsunamis.

Coming up: The Mystical Island of Lamanoc's Red Hematite Paintings (Rock Art) and Ancient Burial Caves

Labels: Bohol, Central Visayas, Flora and Fauna

One of Tutubi's tip for other travelers and bloggers looking for something new is to always visit local markets to ask around and search for unknown delicacies, specialties and other "what have you" of locals that have not been known to outisders.

Though this small town of guildulman may have been made (almost) famous for Guindulman grave sites where ancient burial practices put the dead in boats, kept on the walls of caves near the marine sanctuary.

Tutubi, though, wasn't able to see the ancient burial site of Guindulman, he only visited the public market to buy some stuff: charcoal, freshly-caught fishes, pork, tuba (for sinuglao), bottled water et al

the public market of Guindulman, Bohol

the municipal fishport of Guindulman

Guindulman is Tutubi's last stop before going ahead on his real destination: the mystical island of Lamanoc Point

Labels: Bohol, Central Visayas

The town of Jagna in Bohol, besides being the home of Bohol Kalamay, also hosts the Port of Jagna where you catch daily ferry trips to Camiguin.
The gates of Port of Jagna, nearby are stalls selling Bohol Kalamay

GPS Coordinates: N9 38 57.8 E124 22 00.6

Schedule of Ferry to Jagna, Bohol: (Bohol to Camiguin)

daily ferry trips on Ocean Ferry (OceanJet) to
Cebu, Tagbilaran (Bohol), Dumaguete, Siquijor, Dapitan (zamboanga del norte), Bacolod, Iloilo

Jagna, Camiguin Cagayan Daily Trips

Jagna to Benoni, Camiguin 1:30pm daily via OceanJet
travel time is 1.5 hours

no information on ferry fare to camiguin but you can try to contact OceanJet for this information

Labels: Bohol, Central Visayas, Ferries, Seaports

A very popular resort and resort in Quezon Province that prides itself with eating lunch with wet feet in near a waterfall, Villa Escudero was visited by Tutubi for less than 4 hours, yet paid the whole day tour package rate, in order to catch up with his elementary class reunion.

Villa Escudero is a coconut plantation hacienda turned into a resort that caters to local and foreign tourists to give visitors a glimpse and experience life a hacienda. Here, tourists are ferried from the entrance to tour the resort facilities on carabao-pulled carts. Other facilities are swimming pool, team building activity area, river rafting, museum and church tour plus a cultural show (that Tutubi missed)

Pictures of Villa Escudero:

the primary come-on of Villa Escudero is the lunch buffet at the foot of a waterfalls (Libasan Falls) but the waterfall is actually not a falls but a spillway of the dam to hold water for a hydroelectric power plant generator

too many people at lunch time, hard to get a seat, but tourists savor the rustic and native feel of having lunch with feet wet at a waterfalls


some visitors try river rafting on bamboo rafts

carabao cart ferries tourists from the entrance to the activity area and for a day tour of hacienda escudero

review of villa escudero, tiaong, quezon:

buffett lunch is nothing to rave about though the caldereta is nice but not a hint of chili as it's supposed to be. other dishes on the menu are mango, bagoong, grilled tilapia, tinolang manok (served using coconut shells instead of cups/bowls), and pinakbet.

too many people on weekends, long queues plus it looks like a popular fast food restaurant where you need to wait for others to finish before you get a table (no reservations, first come first served)

Tutubi wonders how it VIlla Escudero vs Hidden Valley Springs will turn out but he still can't make a comparison. He hasn't been to Hidden Valley and he spent just less than 4 hours at Villa Escudero (though the lunch really deserves a negative review). Tutubi thinks he will never return to Villa Escudero unless his company again pays for it. For now, he can at least boast: been there, done that!

---

Villa Escudero Entrance Fee/Rates: PhP1275.00 (corporate rate/discounted)
Villa Escudero day tour includes buffet lunch, river rafting, use of team building facilities
Resorts Opens: 8am to 5pm (no overnight accommodations?, visit Villa Escudero official website, call their contact numbers for inquiries and reservaations)

Warning:
try to avoid going to Villa Escudero on summer weekends due to it's really overflowing with people, something Tutubi doesn't really like. Weekdays may be a lot less touristy

sample menu prices:
buffett lunch does not include drinks, herewith
juices (mango, pineapple, orange): PhP45.00
nestea (lemon, calamansi): PhP35.00
softdrinks in can: PhP35.00
Coke light: PhP40.00
fresh buko juice (coco water): PhP30.00
San Miguel Beer Pale Pilsen: PhP50.00
SanMig Light: PhP50.00


How to get to Villa Escudero:

Commute to Villa Escudero: board a bus to Lucena (Jam Transit, Jac Liner et al. Bus fare from LRT Buendia/Taft Avenue is around PhP130.00+) then drop off in San Pablo along the highway. ride a tricycle

Driving directions to villa escudero, tiaong, quezon:

from Quezon City or Makati, villa Escudero is just a straight drive to SLEX, take Toll Road 3 to exit at Sto. Tomas Maharlika Highway, drive past Sto. Tomas (Batangas), the Laguna cities of Alaminos and San Pablo then turn left a few meters from the welcome arch of Quezon (the boundary of Laguna and Quezon Province). Open street map has a useful road map of Villa Escudero

Green Star Express Star Toll, SCTEx

Labels: Calabarzon, Hotels and Resorts, Quezon, Quezon Resorts, Southern Tagalog

The location shoot venue of the popular movie "No Other Woman" starring Derek Ramsey, Anne Curtis and Christine Reyes sporting blue and white motif set on the beachfront of Poro Point, San Fernando, La Union.

Tutubi was able to briefly visit this luxurious resort with pricey rates to "inquire" and order clubhouse sandwich, green mango shake and just enjoy the view of one of the playgrounds of the rich and famous in the north.

Pictures of Thunderbird Resorts Poro Point, San Fernando, La Union:

the signature white and blue motif of Thunderbird Resorts symbolizes the colors of the sea

the spacious lobby and viewdeck with giant "sun shield"


the empty swimming pool of Thunderbird Resorts at around lunch time

clubhouse sandwich

green mango shake, anyone?


Tutubi's lunch actually was at a frugal roadside restaurant somewhere in Bauang with sinanglao and bulalo :P

Information on Thunderbird Resorts Poro Point, San Fernando, La Union:

No Entrance Fee in Thunderbird Resorts, no information though on the Thunderbird resorts day tour rate to include use of swimming pool. An order of clubhouse sandwich, 2 green mango shakes and a can of soda costs PhP750 just to give you an idea of sample menu prices. the bar is open with a 32 inch LCD TV showing an English Premiere League football match between Chelsea and Fulham FC. Not too many people around lunch, though there are people having lunch. Noone's using the swimming pool at this time of day.

Labels: Hotels and Resorts, Ilocos Region, La Union, la Union Resorts

Are you sure you've been to Bicol? Sure, you've seen the really beautiful Mayon Volcano in Albay, swam with the butanding in Donsol, Sorsogon, stayed at CamSur, visited Caramoan and other now usual part of Bicol tour itinerary but probably you've missed other lesser known Bicol culinary treasures due to pre-occupation with Bicol "sightseeing tours." Besides the pili nut, have you sampled authentic Bicol Express? This sweat gland-inducing dish seems to be getting spicier as you head south. The equally great pinangat of Camalig, Albay, the less-known hinugom, kuyog, binut-ong, kinagang of Sorsogon plus other Bicol specialties like the sinantolan (different from Laguna and Quezon versions of the ginataang santol dish), the kinunot and other bicol dishes with primary ingredients of coconut milk and chili. This one may be too ubiquitous for you and probably served right under your nose when you got there. The pancit bato was introduced to Tutubi by a close friend from Daet during his first visit to Camarines Norte about 10 years ago. Pancit bato costs just PhP5 per serving then and yet it's so filling it can put to shame Chowking's similar serving costing 12 times as much. pancit bato servd to Tutubi by friends in Paracale In a visit to Paracale, Camarines Norte, he was again re-acquainted with the frugal food find in Bicol, again at P5 per serving but less in serving size after 10 years. Why was it called pansit/pancit bato? It's not made of stone/rocks nor stone used to cook/make them. The noodles were actually made in the town of Bato, Camarines Sur and made from rice cassava (kamoteng kahoy) Tutubi has a future post on regional variants of pancit in the Philippines, a collection of stories and pictures for his "pancit tour of the Philippines" :P

Labels: Bicol Cuisine, Bicol Region, Camarines Sur, Filipino Food