Ride Buddies - Tour Reports

We have started planning this ride last December 2008 and were able to finalize the plan weeks before the ride. Our goal is to visit Legaspi, Samar, Leyte, Cebu and Bohol within 8 days. Two months before the ride, we've been busy gathering information on RoRo schedule, road conditions and prescribed routes. And we have finally come up with our itinerary two weeks before the ride. We have 103 locations and tourist spots listed in our itinerary.

The next thing we did during the planning stage is prepared the things we need for the ride such as riding pants, zip lock plastics, plastic bags, digital clock, flashlight, maps, garments, and most importantly motorcycle spare parts (such as drive chain, spark plug and motor oil). Basic maintenance was also done for my motorcycle (Sym Magic 110RR).

Day 1 (Feb 27, 2009): we took off at 4:11 am at San Pedro, Laguna and filled our tank at Binan. Our next gas stop was at Lucena, Quezon. Then we took our breakfast at Gumaca, Quezon at around 9am. By 11am, we are passing through the Quirino Hiway. The road condition there is bad. A lot of potholes, huge cracks, unpaved lanes, sand, gravel, mud and even road slips. If you wish to take this route, be sure to traverse this road during daytime. It will be a lot harder if you try to pass through this road at night. After that we filled our tank at Ragay, Camarines Sur. Then we continued our journey and arrived at Tigaon at around 3:45pm. We have decided to fill-in our tank again since the next available gas station will be at Tabaco, Albay area. We will ran out of gas if we didn’t gas up at Tigaon. After gassing up, we arrived at Sagnay, Camarines Sur. There we enjoyed 23 kilometers of twisties. Road condition there is good except for some sand and gravel at the edge of the road. Aside from the twisties, the view there is great! Near Gorde Point, there is a place where we stopped by and took some photos. After 15 minutes of rest, we continued our journey and reach our final destination for day one which is Tabaco, Albay. We took our lunch and dinner there at 6:00pm and spent our night at my wife’s relatives. Our time of arrival was 6:35pm. This concludes our ride for day one.

Day 2 (Feb 28, 2009): We woke up at 5:30 am and began preparing ourselves. At 7am, we began our ride. Our final destination for today is Allen Samar. Upon reaching Legaspi City, we filled our tank with gas. Then opened up our itinerary and of course Legaspi City map.

The next thing we need to do that morning is to withdraw some cash. We began looking for Union Bank but for some reason, we are unable to withdraw money. The ATM keeps saying, invalid transaction. I'm beginning to feel uneasy because, any further delay will move our schedule behind for the first day. We only have enough money for food and gas but not for lodging and RORO fair.

We have decided to roam around the City first and take some pictures. We visited Legaspi's Mosque, old churches, city halls, sea port, park and famous statues. After that we went back to the bank and retry withdrawing some cash. At last, we were able to withdraw some cash. Then we took breakfast at Jollibee.

After that we went to Lignon Hill. The view there is great. You can see Mayon Volcano clearly and the whole Legaspi City. Aside from that you can also try riding their Zipline. Unfortunately, we weren't able to visit the Japanese tunnel in Lignon Hill since a group of students (field trip) were there.

Our next destination was Cagsawa Ruins. We spend 30 minutes of our time there taking some pictures. After that we went straight to Matnog, Sorsogon.

On our way to Matnog, there is a group of kids playing volleyball at the shoulder of the road. We were running at about 80km/h that time. I already saw them playing so I lessen my speed to 60km/h. When we are about to pass by, the ball suddenly bounced towards our direction from the left most part. I have to evade the ball but 60 is still a bit too fast. What we did is do some hard breaking (both front and rear) while slightly turning the bike left. We have evaded the ball which is just a foot away from our front wheel. Never run to fast when kids are around especially when they are playing with a ball is what I realized as my heart beat turns to normal again.

We filled our tank again at Sorsogon, Sorsogon. Then we continued our journey to Matnog. at 2:10 pm, we arrived at Matnog. We are clueless on how to buy tickets for us and my bike. Though we brought lots of copies of our MC's OR/CR, luckily, the arrastre there is very friendly. He helped us on our papers and in just 15 minutes, we have our tickets, freight receipt, terminal fee and PPA. And in 5 minutes, we are already inside RORO and began cruising towards Allen, Samar. At 4:30pm we arrived at Allen.

According to our plan, we have to spend our night at Allen so we looked for a decent place to stay. We stayed at Wayang Wayang Beach Resort. It's relatively cheap since their rooms are brand new, clean and pretty decent. We paid 900 pesos for an overnight stay there. After checking in, we went out again to fill some gas for tomorrow's ride.

Day 3 (March 1, 2009): Our final destination for day three was Cebu City. We began preparing ourselves as early as 6:00am and the rain began to pour. It's raining hard that time and I'm a bit worried about the weather condition. I asked for Sunsetrider's help by asking the weather report of PAGASA. Fortunately, there's no storm but just scattered rain showers through out Visayas region. We worn the rain gears we bought from Sir Overdose before take-off and has kept as dry until we reach Calbayog. The rain gradually stopped as we approach Calbayog. There, we made our first gas stop and took our brunch (breakfast and lunch). The next stop was at Catbalogan, Samar.

Road condition between Allen to Catbalogan is worse than we expected. Huge potholes and cracks, unpaved roads, mud, sand, gravel and dust are what you'll expect from it. We barely run 40 km/h. Although there are some part of the road that are well paved but its only few kilometers long. One thing we noticed in this area is, workers who rehabilitate the road are only using hand tools to fix their road. No machines were provided by the government. We even saw group of people trying remove the old road by hammering it multiple times and then leveraging it against the ground using only wood and manpower. My wife and I began to feel sorry for them and realized how fortunate we are compared to them.

After reaching catbalogan, road condition became good until we reached San Juanico Bridge. Of course we stopped over to take some pictures and moved slowly as my wife takes pictures while we approach the boundary of Leyte. By 2:24pm we reached Tacloban, Leyte.

We took pictures of famous landmarks at Tacloban and had our gas tank refilled. Then we went straight to McArthur Shrine. It's already 3pm that time and we still need to rush to Ormoc. We always try not to travel at night to avoid NPA since Samar and Leyte are known to be the territory of NPAs. Because of this, we barely spent 10 minutes of our time at McArthur shrine and went on immediately to Ormoc.

We reached Ormoc at around 5:16pm. We took our dinner at Jollibee (I'm starting to like it na, hehehe. We've been eating jollibee foods since Day 1) and immediately went to pier to buy tickets. By 10pm we began traveling from Ormoc towards Cebu City. Then we finally arrived at Cebu City at 3:00 am. To spend the rest of the night, we went to D'Inn and slept for 3.5 hours.

Day 4 (March 2, 2009): D'Inn is not the typical inn for resting and sleeping. We even saw used condom on the floor. We got no choice that time because it's 4 am and my stomach was crumbling (toilet please). Hehehe. We stayed there for four hours and we took off at exactly 8am. Honestly, I don't recommend this place. There are still a lot of better short time lodge/inn along the area. It's just my stomach was already looking for the throne and D'Inn is the first place you will see after exiting Pier 4.

At 6am, I started sending text messages to LittleGirl. she immediately responded and asked us where we are. She offered us to guide us around the city. My wife and I were too happy to hear the offer. So we went to gas up first then went to Jolibee at Gorordo Ave Corner to eat. There we waited for LittleGirl and her buddy to come. At around 9:50 am, LittleGirl and Butch came. We showed them our itinerary and they have come up with the route/ride plan (in just a couple of minutes).

We went first to Cebu City's business district, then followed by top. Ther we took some photos. You can clearly see the whole city from above. I bet it is more beautiful at night. Then we went to Kan-Irag Nature Park and Sky Island. We headed back to Cebu City and took our lunch. The food there was great and cheap! Thanks to LittleGirl and Butch for leading us to this place.

After lunch we went to Taoist Temple. The place is really nice and quiet. Then we roam around the City and took pictures of famous land marks such as Colon, old churches, Magellan Cross and famous buildings. Then we filled our tanks again near Pier 6 and immediately proceeded to Mactan Island by crossing the old Mactan-Mandaue bridge. There we visited Mactan Shrine. I saw a painting there where Magellan and Lapu-lapu fought. Magellan was looking downwards (towards Lapu-Lapu's ). Maybe that's the reason why he got killed. Maybe he's gay. Hehehe. (joke only).

After this we went to a beach at Mactan to take some photos. Then at 5 pm, we headed back to Marcelo Fernan Bridge Pylon. We went to a park under that bridge and rested for about 30 minutes. After that, we headed back to Sugbutel and concluded the ride. We checked in first at Sugbutel. Then went out again to SM Cebu to take our dinner. By 9:30 pm, we were back at the hotel.

Thanks to Butch and LittleGirl for guiding us and sharing some historical information about the place that we visited. We really learned a lot. And thanks again because, out of 25 landmarks and tourist spots we had in our itinerary, we were able to visit 28 places.

Day 5 (March 3, 2009): Our itinerary for day five is to buy Super Ferry tickets by availing their Birthday Discount Promotion and to buy dried goods such as danggit, fish tocino, tuyo and dried squids. We went to Pier 4 at 8 in the morning to buy tickets but for some reason, their system are unable to process birthday discount promo. After waiting for an hour, have decided to buy tickets at Lite Shipping Office. Then we went back at 11 am. Still their system still has problems and we continued waiting. To make the story short, we finally got our ticket at around 2pm. It took them almost 6 hours to fix the problem.

Around 1pm, while we are waiting for our tickets, LittleGirl and Butch came to rescue our day. We already have wasted half a day waiting for our tickets at Pier 4. At 2pm, they helped us buy our dried goods. Thanks to them again, we don't have to look for the best place to buy these. After that, we went straight to SM Cebu. We don't have any space for 5 kilos of dried goods so we went to Mail More and shipped these back to Laguna. Upon arriving at SM Cebu, they went home and concluded our short ride for today.

Day 6 (March 4, 2009): Finally, we are in Bohol!!! After 6 days of travelling, we arrived at our final destination. The sacrifice is still not finished since we have to travel from Tubigon to Panglao Island. It is around 100 kms away.

We took off at Tubigon at exactly 8:20 am. then we dropped by at Punta Cruz Watch Tower and spent 20 minutes of our time taking pictures. After that we went straight to Panglao. While we travel towards Panglao, we took pictures of old churches. At around 11am, we arrived at Flower Garden Resort.

At last, we can take our rest. My officemates are already there wen we came. So we immediately unpacked our things, changed our clothes, began to look for food and took our lunch. And in the afternoon, we went to Alona Beach and relaxed. The white sand is very fine and the sea is very clear. If I am to rate this beach from 1 to 10, that would be 10. At around 6:30 pm, we headed back to the resort to take our dinner and rest. We need plenty of rest for tomorrow's ride since we have 39 landmarks and tourist spots in our itinerary and we need to visit all of them tomorrow.

In our itinerary, we have three route plans and Route 1 got completed today.

Route 1: Tubigon - Calape - Loon - Maribojoc - Cortes - Tabilaran City - Panglao

Route 2: Tagbilaran - Baclayon - Alburquerque - Loay - Lila - Dimiao - Valencia - Garcia - Hernandez - Jagna - Duero - Guindulman - Candijay

Route 3: Tagbilaran - Baclayon - Alburquerque - Loay - Sevilla - Bilar - Batuan - Carmen - Sagbayan - Clarin - Dagohoy - San Miguel - Trinidad - Talibon

Day 7 (March 5, 2009): We woke up at 6am to begin preparing ourselves and of course, our bike. I noticed that my rear tyre has already lost pressure. It barely has 10 psi. the puncture was as small as staple wire's diameter. The good thing is, I brought my hand pump with me. At 7:15 am, we bagan our adventure. We gassed up at Tagbilaran, then took Route 2.

Route 2: Panglao - Tagbilaran - Baclayon - Alburquerque - Loay - Lila - Dimlao - Valencia - Garcia - Hernandez - Jagna - Duero - Guindulman - Candijay

We were able to follow route 2's plan up to Jagna only. At around 8:45 am, we have decided to take a short cut from Jagna, towards Carmen passing through Sierra Bullones. According to the map, it's just 36 kilometers away from Jagna to Sierra Bullones. Take note, we didn't refilled our tank. (lapit lang kasi eh, 36kms + lang carmen na)

From Jagna, the road condition there is PERFECT ... for just 5 kilometers. After that, Oh my, Am I at Sagada? There is no road anymore! We still have to travel 30+ kms before we reach Sierra Bullones. At that time, we were thinking, we don't have any choice, we are already deep into the mountains and turning back will cause further delay. So we continued our journey there and we barely run 40km/h. The road here is even worse than Samar's. Huge rocks, sand, gravel, soil are all over the place. There is no other transportation there but huge trucks, bulldozer and habal habal. We almost took 2 hours before we reach Carmen.

At Carmen, we immediately refilled our tanks. It's near empty already when we arrived. Just imagine, we were in the middle of the mountains with no gas stations around, unpaved roads, no other transportation and just few locals. Aside from that, I'm also worrying my bike would get damaged due to lots of bumps, tight uphills and downhills and flat tyres. We have to stop in the middle just to pump my rear tyre. I'm glad we made it to Carmen with no problems encountered.

Since we are already at the middle of Route 3 plan, we have decided not to pay a visit to Dagohoy, San Miguel, Trinidad and Talibon. We just went to Chocolate Hills then went straight to Man Made forest then to Loboc River. There we took our lunch (river cruise). We arrived at Loboc at 12:54 pm. By 2:20 pm, we have finished cruising the river, and of course, eating our lunch. Just be aware, you can eat all the food you want while the boat is cruising but you should save your drink wisely. You can ask for another bottle of soft drinks but that would be around 40 pesos each (237 ml only).

After this we went to Loboc Tarsier. We took some pictures and fed the tarsiers with crickets. Oh my, they all look like Yoda of Star Wars.
After this, we went back to Carmen then to Sagbayan Peak. We arrived at almost 5pm and rested there for 30 minutes. Took some photos then headed straight back to Panglao Island via Clarin-Tubigon-Tagbilaran route. By 6:24 pm we arrived at Tagbilaran and refilled our tank. We safely arrived at Panglao at 7:20 pm. This concluded our ride for day 7.

Day 8 (March 6, 2009): It's time to head back to Manila. We headed towards Tubigon Port. At 12 pm, we began travelling back to Cebu City. At around 2pm, we arrived Cebu City. We went straight to 2GO at Pier 4 to process my bike's freight documents. After this we stayed at SM Cebu and took our lunch. Then we headed back to Pier 4 and turned over my bike to 2GO at pier 5. At exactly 9:15pm, superferry started cruising towards Manila. We arrived at Manila at about 7pm the next day (March 7, 2009). And we finally arrived home in Laguna at 9:30 pm.

It's around 3:30 pm when we have completed our goal for today. RoRo schedule is 7pm so we have two hours spare time to rest. We took our dinner there (though it's only 4pm). At 5:30pm we went back to Pier 1. At around 7:10 pm the ship began to travel towards Tubigon, Bohol. We arrived at Tubigon at around 9:30 pm and spent our night at TMR Pension House.

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