Hundred Islands, Pangasinan (March 2010)

Q: Yeah, so what's the plan?
A: We board a bus to Alaminos and then take it from there.
- also known as, the best plan ever (tm almi)

This one's with my angels Cy, Ice and Almi, the girlfriend and constant beachbuddy Edz. It's customary for the month of March to at least have one of these beach trips with these girls, and this year it's to Hundred Islands in Pangasinan.

We left Manila via Victory Liner - their Cubao station has buses leaving every hour for Alaminos. We boarded the earliest bus at 4.30am and arrived there around 10am so the trip's give or take six hours and cost around P350 one-way.

Victory Liner's Alaminos station is right in the heart of the town. Hawkers were everywhere but we were desperate for a restroom break so we crossed the street to this small mall (that I did not even get the name of, but it was nice) where the CR was at least better than the one in the terminal. We ate early lunch at Cindy's (Yeah the place to be, remember that jingle?) and asked around for directions to Lucap, which is the gateway town to the Islands.

We took two tricycles to Lucap at P60/trike (since it was from the terminal; later in the day, we would find out that they charge P80 for when you go by trike directly to the Victory terminal, but that's all right as we were in a hurry anyway, hehe). It's a ten to fifteen-minute ride to the Tourism center, which is the first office you go to when you get there.

At the Tourism center, they give you options re: boats. There's really no other way to go about the islands but on boats and we took one that costs P1,800 - it's a boat for 6 to 10 people and well, we basically had it with us the whole day. Not bad, if you ask me. It's called a Service Boat, and it's pretty convenient; for smaller groups of 1 to 5 pax, it's at 1,4k; for bigger groups of 11 to 15 people, it's 2k, based on the rate sheet they gave us. It's pretty spacious and it yes, it has a roof.


Meet Monagrace, our boat

Apart from that, the Tourism center also charges P20/head for day trips like ours. Pretty cheap, considering what we're about to see.

Our first stop was Governor's Island, where apparently we can climb to some point and see the view.


The Islands (just a few of many)


Group shot. (L-R: Edz, Ice, Cy, Andrea, Me, Almi, Kim)

Breathtaking view, most definitely; totally worth the stressful climb that went before it. (Note to self: Stretch first next time, Jesus.) Upon descent, we decided to check out the beach there. The water's fantastic, but guess what we saw?

Yep, a giant rock. Of course, the logical thing to do right then is take photographs.


Temptation Island, Stoned version. L-R: Me, Edz, Ice, Almi, Cy, Andrea.

And then, something fantastic happened: We found a fairly secluded island that had a gorgeous beach. It's called Lopez Island, and it is PARADISE.

At this point, I would like to flood you with images. To wit:


Places like this make me wish I have a DSLR hehe but for the meantime, I have Andrea's Canon A470 to thank, and of course, Adobe Photoshop CS3.

So yeah, staying at Lopez Island was the best thing EVARRR. The water's clear, the sand is fine, plus hey natural shade under rock formations. It was PERFECT. ♥

We stayed on the island until around 4; we spent it lounging under the shade/rock, camwhoring, eating chips, going into the water, trying to teach Andrea to swim freestyle (heh), camwhoring some more, taking really funny pictures underwater (HAHA), attempting to snorkel briefly (Thanks Ice!), re-applying each other's sunblock, being sexy on the sand, staring off into the middistance, etc. And of course, telling each other stories.

All in all a good day! :) We left a little before five, after passing briefly through Marcos Island for last-minute camwhorage. The boat trip back to the jumpoff point took around 20 minutes. There we tried taking a quick shower at the bath house near the tourism office (P10/shower, not bad, considering we had not expected it to be there in the first place haha). After showering I bought myself a cold can of soda (mm heavenly) and then we took a quick trike trip back to the Victory Liner station (P80/trike now) and caught the 6pm bus back to Cubao. (Their last trip is at 7pm, which is also good to note)

After three stops - we had one in Tarlac that lasted for 20 minutes in a terminal where you can buy dinner, too - we reached Cubao around midnight. The fare is also around P350, and man Victory Liner buses are AWESOME. Let it be said here. Comfortable and awesome.

So, in all - a really great time! :) Expenses review: P700 for transpo by bus (two-way); ~P260 for the boat (P1,8k divided by 7pax), P20 for entrance, ~P50 for trike (two-way). That's less than P1,5k so you can spend the rest on food even. Definitely, the trip's below your P2k budget. In a word: AWESOME.

Tips and tricks: Do bring a lot of water and baon and sunblock and coins (for those stops where you need to shell out P2-P10 to use facilities hehe). And plastic bags for your trash - take whatever you bring there back with you and leave nothing on the islands! :)