Fun travel through Mindoro
Trip Start
May 11, 2010
1
7
27
Trip End
Aug 01, 2010
Sablayan, Mindoro Occidental, Philippines
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Eventually the 2pm ferry turned up and I arrived at Roxas at the island of Mindoro just after sunset, which meant that chances for catching a connecting bus to my next destination were pretty slim. I decided to stay at the port town of Roxas for the night, and judging by the amused/confused looks on many of the locals' faces they don't get too many tourists - a few even asked if I am a missionary! I tried to find out what time and where the first bus/jeepney would leave next day, but it seemed everyone came up with a different answer ("there's a bus leaving the market at 9am"; / "no, there's a jeepney leaving here at 5am" / "no, it leaves at 7am from the ferry port" / no, there's one mini-van but not until 2pm") so in the end I decided to just wake up and early the following morning and see what I could find then.
I was woken up next morning just before 5am by church bells, grabbed my bags and headed downstairs in the hope of finding more info on the buses. It turned out I had just missed out the first bus of the day, but the kindly man running the guesthouse volunteered to take me to the
port with his motorbike as apparently that would be the best place for catching the next bus/van/jeepney. We drove from the town through ricefields as the sun was rising - just beautiful! Wish I could have taken pictures but decided to make holding on to the bike a priority..
Eventually I was dropped off at a service station, which doubled up as a bus/jeepney station, just before 5.30am. I was in luck, as there was a jeepney with San Jose as its destination on the front - hurrah! I quickly popped in a bakery around the corner to buy a yummy freshly
baked rice cake and a 3 in 1 Nescafe (coffee, milk and a few heaped spoons of sugar in one) for breakfast for the grand total of about 15 English pence and rushed back, but it turned out there really was no rush - we didn't leave until around 8.30am. While I was waiting two Danish girls
I'd met at Malapascua island the previous week turned up and it turned out we were all heading towards the same direction.
After we'd driven for about 5 mins we then stopped at a market to load the car with enough local fresh produce to feed a small village for a week or so. A fair few passengers got on, too, and I thought that the jeepney would then be fulll - but we kept on stopping for more people,
parcels, random boxes, fruit, vegetables, live chicken and even baskets full of fresh fish to be loaded on. After 5 hours on an impressively bumpy road we finally arrived at the town of San Jose - hurrah! - had some pot noodles for lunch before getting on another local bus to the
next town, Sablayan. A few more hours on a dusty, bumpy road and a 20 min boat ride Martha, Camilla and I finally arrived at the North Pandan Island.
The island was well worth two days of travel - there was nothing but a few huts for guests, a humble restaurant and a diveshop; the rest of the island was covered by a thick jungle. I'd booked myself for a dive trip to a famous dive site (Apo Reef) the following day, which meant getting up early and being ready at the dive shop 5am. There was only three of us on the trip, an Irish guy and a French lady who was kind enough to let me have copies of her underwater pictures from the reef; do have a look, as it was one of the most beautiful places I've ever dived. We saw dolphins on the way out, and at the reef, countless (friendly) sharks, turtles, huge tunas, an eagle ray and probably millions of all kinds of colourful little reef fish. A diver's paradise...
