Subic Bay

Hi All! 

     This weekend we decided to get out of Makati for a little while and have ourselves a little adventure.  There are a lot of places we want to go while we are here, but we wanted to start small to figure out how traveling like the locals works, and we must admit, it's pretty free and easy!  We decided to head up to Subic Bay (the old U.S. Navy base) for the night.  We booked a room online through agoda.com and then did some google searching about how to get there.  Subic Bay is about 200km north of where we live here, and everything we read pointed us toward the Victory Liner Bus Line for our journey.  We took a cab over to the bus station...which was quite eye opening to see how most people in Manila live.  Traffic is so congested here that two days/week only half the cars are allowed to travel, and the other half must stay home or carpool to get somewhere.  It depends on the type of license plate on your car.  Tuesdays are for one type of plate, and Wednesdays are for the other.  Cabs, jeepneys, buses, cars, and bicycles all vie for position on the busy city streets.  Lots of honking!  It took us about 45 minutes to get to the bus station which is about 30km from here.  It cost us 200Php or about $5.  Signs were good at the bus station, and people were helpful, and we bought our tickets right away!  Easy-peasy, right?  We thought so...until a security guard got on the bus to tell us we were on the wrong bus.  So we did the walk of shame down the aisle and out to the waiting area.  We had to wait for the next one.  It did almost seem too easy...  :)   About 20 minutes later, we got on the RIGHT bus.  Our tickets for the 3.5-4 hour ride?  245Php each  - or about $6.  Pretty cheap.

 

 

At each stop people would get on the bus and sell all kinds of food and drinks from peanuts and bottled water to speckled eggs and home made pork rinds......and meat on a stick.

Our bus from Pasay City to Olongapo City...it's good to know your bus number.  :)

 

 

     We got to our destination with no problem.  It was a nice air-conditioned bus, and it was pretty comfortable along the way.  However, there is no bathroom on the bus.  Something we found interesting was that anyone anywhere on the side of the street could flag down the bus, and the bus driver would pull over and let him/her on and then off again down the road a bit.  Everyone was friendly and helpful....I suppose we looked like we needed help a time or two.

 

     We grabbed our backpacks and grabbed a cab to our hotel which immediately set the tone for our experience in Subic.  The cab driver drove us less than a mile and charged us 200Php.  There are no meters in the cabs we encountered in Subic.  Interesting.  We checked in to our room at Seorabeol Grand Leisure Hotel, dropped our bags off, and headed out to explore and find a place for lunch. 

Our hotel pool.  We spent a little time here. 

 

 

     Everywhere we went people were trying to sell us things.  See this incredibly beautiful and realistic looking bracelet?? 

It is made of "...coral from the sea, ma'am...you know, shells..."   NOT.  It's made of hard plastic bits, and it's pretty obvious, but because he kept saying "I need to buy lunch, ma'am, sir....I need to buy lunch..." I thought we should buy one for 50Php or about $1.10.  My mistake.  With his eyes Eric said, "Don't do it" and he was right because as soon as the money came out, three more plastic-salesmen appeared out of nowhere hawking their wares, too!  I thought buying one would make him go away....nope...it made his friends materialize out of thin air.  We were really just trying to take a couple of pictures on the beach, but we didn't get to do too many because we were swarmed.  That was not a fun part of the trip.  We did manage a couple of pictures. However, don't be deceived...the beach is NOT as pretty as it looks in these pictures. 

Day two was sunny, so the pics came out really well.

Picturesque backdrop.

The beach could have been much prettier....we weren't sure if they were still cleaning up from the typhoon or if it was kind of dirty because it is the off season.  This is right outside the restaurant where we had lunch.

The mountains are a pretty backdrop to the water, but it was pretty hazy this day. 







 

     We found a couple of cute little coffee shops.  Always a priority in our travels!  And then we spotted this great church which was packed inside and out Sunday morning for Mass - with ice cream vendors, too!  This is what it looked like on Saturday night.  We loved it!

 

 

     We found a place called Seafood by the Bay for dinner.  It looked promising!  We opted for the seafood buffet, but when we started putting things on our plates, we noticed everything was cold.  I mentioned this to the waitress and she offered to "microwave" our plates for us!  Haha!  We decided to forego the buffet and order off the menu.  It didn't seem like a big deal to anyone else that all of the buffet items were cold, so maybe this is normal?  We will have to do a little research!

 

     After dinner  we went a couple of doors down to a place called Pier One which is a huge outdoor venue right on the beach with food and drinks and live bands!  We stayed for a couple of hours and listened to the bands -which were very good and thoroughly entertaining-.  There was a lot of American contemporary music as well as some Filipino music mixed in.  We enjoyed the evening immensely!!  It was very relaxing and just easy.

 

     The next morning we got packed up and went to breakfast.  We could choose the American or Filipino breakfast. The waiter told us that he felt obliged to let us know that for the American breakfast when it says 'sausage', it really means a 'hotdog'.  He seemed slightly embarrassed.  We thought it was funny.  We chose the Filipino breakfast.  Mine came with a native sausage - sweet and delicious - and Eric's was called beef tapa.  They both came with garlic rice and an egg.  The coffee was terrible, so we headed to yet another little coffee shop - the best one of the trip - and then back to the hotel to grab our backpacks to catch a cab back to the bus station. On the way back we even got to watch a movie on the bus! 

 

     We don't know that we will go back to Subic Bay - it does seem VERY touristy - even for us.  But it was a good experience for our first traveling adventure here! 

 

Until Next Time,

Eric and Kim  :)