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In
December, 1993, and again in June, 1994, I (I'm Glenn in case
you just dropped in off the 'Net) went down to Puerto Galera in
the Philippines. Ten years later I went back with a coworker who
also hadn't been there in ten years. When I got back to Tokyo,
I decided to do a "then and now" web spread, and this
is it.
Puerto Galera is not
exactly a household word. When most people talk about Philippine
tourism, they're talking about Cebu and Boracay, not Puerto Galera.
Let me show you on the map here that Puerto Galera in on the island
of Mindoro, due south (one-hour or 90 minutes, depending on traffic)
of Manila. I understand that the Si-Kat that I told you about
on the old site has been moored in Puerto Galera harbor and a
new one has taken its place, but this time we decided to forego
the overnight stay in Manila. We had a van waiting for us at the
airport, and it took us down to Batangas on the coast. There a
banka boat was waiting to take us over to Puerto. The service
set us back USD45 each, but it was well worth it.
Just about everyone
who goes to Puerto Galera is a diver. You don't have to be a diver
to enjoy the place, though. The snorkeling there is fantastic!
Everywhere else I'd gone lately, including Palau in 2002 and Saipan
in March, 2004, the snorkeling was crap since the coral was nearly
all dead from El Nino. I don't know how Puerto has managed it,
but the coral is 85% alive. Even just off the shore off Small
Lalaguna beach the coral was breathtaking - hard and soft coral.
Put this together with good prices, good food, and crazy nightlife,
and it's a great place to visit.
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When I made
my first Puerto web page, there was no Internet there. They had
just gotten wireless telephone service to call Manila to reconfirm
flights out. Since none of the hotels had web sites, it was easy
to find the page I'd made on Puerto Galera by doing a Web search.
Since then, most hotels have put up web sites and pay people to
make sure they stay near the top on Google. In fact, the first 30
pages of a Google search I did turned up nothing but commercial
sites. The trouble is, these sites want you to book a room without
ever telling you where the place is located or showing you what
it really looks like. I find this quite irritating. |
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Therefore, if you've
just booked a hotel and wonder where you'll really be staying
or thinking of going to Puerto and wondering where to stay, this
site's for you. This top page has some general info shots, but
I also walked down the beaches from one end to the other and took
a picture of every building fronting the water just for you, weary
traveler. Feel free to check out:
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I'll start out with a
bird's eye view of the whole Puerto Galera area. This time down
I rented a motorcycle and was able to explore the area better than
on previous visits. The land rises up behind Puerto Galera, with
Mr. Halcon as the highest peak, as you'll notice on the map above.
What you won't notice
on the map is that someone built a golf course, the Ponderosa, halfway
up the mountain slope, and you can get this view by taking the road
up to it. So, as we stand here not far from the first tee, you'll
see the natural port formed by the peninsula and the islands. In
the middle right of this picture you can also see Verde Island with
its truncated mountain, and off stretching across in the distance
is the main island of Luzon.
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There is a city of Puerto
Galera, but you won't find any tourists in it. Rather, the tourists
hang out on the beaches of Big Lalaguna, Small Lalaguna, and Sabang,
with Sabang being the biggest and liveliest of the three. There
is also a resort or two on the eastern shore of the peninsula. Additionally,
you can travel west from the city of Puerto Galera, of course by
sea but also by land, as you'll notice there is a coastal road.
There you will find White Beach, Aninuan (Tamaraw) Beach, and finally
Talipanan Beach, where the road ends. White Beach was nothing but
a few Nipa huts when I first visited it in 1993, but has grown up
considerably since then.
At right you can see
Sabang Beach and the headland and jetty that separates it from Small
Lalaguna Beach, which disappears into the foliage to the right.
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There is a road from
the city of Puerto Galera to Sabang, but it is only paved in spots.
A local told me that this is partially because the motorcycle taxis
would be able to bring tourists in if it were paved, seriously hurting
the business of the banka boat operators. As you come out
of the jungle and down the hill into town, the largest thing you
see is the Tropicana. The first time I was here it was a smallish
hotel and the large Tahitian-looking Italian restaurant(!). Since
then, Paul, the owner, has been more than busy building a castle
on the hill. Paul told me, "Our Chinese and Korean guests tell
me they don't have to go to Europe to stay in a castle."
The rooms are very nice
and reasonably priced, IMHO. Make sure you check out the pool on
the roof, above the dive shop. Hope it doesn't leak...
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The road passes by the
Tropicana and goes straight down to the beach, as you can see here.
This picture was taken where it crosses the walkway that parallels
the beach. You can consider this to be "downtown Sabang."
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If we look to the left,
the walkway is wide enough to allow a jeepney to enter, but it gets
narrow again after the "It's Okay" karaoke bar.
To the left here are
street vendors are selling pirate DVDs and CDs, among other things.
The two discos you see
are quite interesting, as they have no dance floors, per se. They
only have raised ones where the bar girls come out five at a time
and move rather listlessly to heavy disco beats. As they are getting
paid by the hour to dance, you'll need to pay a "bar fine"
to take one out. After that, what you do and what you pay to do
it is up to you, I hear.
Just past the It's Okay
you will usually find Rowena deep frying little cakes. She's the
gal who rented me the motorcycles that took me up to the golf course
and down to Roxas. More on that later.
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behind the businesses that line Sabang beach are a mix of dive shops,
bars, restaurants, souvenir shops, Internet cafes, and of course little
Mom and Pop groceries with their proprietresses sitting outside. |
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Walking
back to the main intersection, I caught a vendor offering me a knockoff
Rolex on film. As in most third world countries with rich tourists,
you can expect to be offered something to buy every 5 minutes or so. |
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is a side street that intersects the main road in from Puerto Galera
right in front of the Tropicana. I looked down it with my camera to
find a man getting an extra fare on his 3-wheel taxi. This is the
road that will take you to the lighthouse or up and over to the Coral
Cove Resort. I'll show you that on page two. |
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In
front of the Riseros Guest House I found this lady selling fruit.
If you enjoy fresh fruit, I suggest you buy it from one of these sturdy
souls, as that can't be a fun way to eek out a living. |
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| Here's
one from the "you can never go home" department. The picture
at the left was taken in December, 1993, and is me drinking a beer
of the porch of our cottage with my daughter by the steps. Ten years
later I went back and found the concrete colonnade still there, but
the hotel had been razed and turned into a dive shop, Sea Queen divers. |
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| Continuing
on the same theme, here's a reprint of a picture I took in the summer
or 1994 in front of Sonny's on the east end of Sabang Beach. On the
right is the same scene in October, 2004. These views are not really
all that telling, but the place sure has grown up. Let's walk down
to the other end, shall we? |
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Here
we are at Raphael's Rarechords Bar, looking back at where the picture
above was taken. Raphael's is the last place on the beach, and it's
up on the second floor, so you get a nice view from there. Many or
most places have happy hour, but Raphael's was half-price every time
I went there at any hour of the day. Here I was having a sandwich
and a San Miguel beer while looking at the paper. Several older guys
were watching Australian rules football on the TV that hangs from
the ceiling. It was a nice little interlude. |
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| In
1993, El Galleon was a sleepy palm frond restaurant with broken coral
sloping down to the water. Although it continues to be open-air, the
slope of the roof tells you that it was redone. Now there's a pool
and a brick patio with a concrete walkway along the water. |
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There's
a jetty built out from The Point bar / Asia Divers / El Galleon complex.
As this was where I was staying this time, I had plenty of chances
to pick up my camera and snap a shot or two while waiting for my meal.
This was of course at low tide, and that big banka looks like
the one that brought us across the channel from Luzon. |
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Down the beach from El
Galleon was, well, not too much, as this 1993 picture will attest.
Imagine my shock when I came back in 2004 and found that the same
spot is now the site of the reception desk of the Club Mabuhay Resort.
No stopping the wheels of progress...
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The people
that I was with were all sad to see the Full Moon getting torn down
and saying things like "How many beers did you have in
there? I joked that since half the timber from the place was on the
ground outside that they could now call it "Half Moon."
The oval bar outside was still there when I took this, but gone by
the time I left. This is not beautiful photography; I'm just documenting
the frenetic pace at which everything was getting torn down and rebuilt. |
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| In 1993, Small
Lalaguna was pretty backward with not much on it at all. (I could
hold my daughter with one hand, too.) In 2004, the most obvious difference
is the Red Sun Beach Resort built down at the end, but there are equally
impressive resorts built back from the beach a bit now, though you
can't see them for the vegetation. Again, take a look at my walk
down Small Lalaguna Beach page for details. |
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Big Lalaguna is the beach
that I know least well. I've never stayed on it, probably because
it was too far from Sabang, although I priced rooms at the La Laguna
Beach Club once (it's the large building at the far left edge of
this picture). Big Lalaguna has good snorkeling right off the beach
and also the finest sand. If you want to lie out, this is the beach
for you. It also seemed the least changed of the three over the
last 10 years.
Up over that headland
is Coco Beach, but I'm afraid I've never been there, so I can't
tell you much about it. However, it is reputed to be the most exclusive
resort in Puerto Galera.
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| Here's how
Big Lalaguna looked from a dive boat in July, 1994, under a brooding
sky. By the way, the summer months are the rainy season, and the time
I was here in July it rained nearly every day in the afternoon. When
I was here in late September, I never saw a drop of rain. |
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I was sitting on the
terrace of the Lalaguna Beach Club talking to the manager, Frank
Doyle, and I found out he has published a book on the dive sites
of Puerto Galera. While I was talking to him, several young ladies
in their street clothes decided it was time to have a swim between
the dive bankas. I have zoom lens close-ups, but I'll just include
this pullback shot to give you an idea of the atmosphere.
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OK, not everybody has broadband Internet access, so I'd say I've
got more than enough photos on this page already. If you're interested,
on the next page I've got shots of the hike I took to Sinandiganan,
and the motorcycle rides I took to White, Aninuan, and Talipanan
Beaches and also down the coast to Calapan and Roxas. If you want
to take the beach walks with pictures of everything fronting the
shore, I'll include the links again:
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Outside
Puerto Galera | Glenn's
Home Page
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Tokyo, Japan
October 10, 2004
© Glennsworld, 2004 All rights reserved.
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