Taal Volcano
Trip Start
Dec 02, 2007
1
20
22
Trip End
Aug 2007
Tagaytay,
Philippines
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Tagaytay - Pie Day!
After the first good nights sleep in ages, got up at 9.30, showered and went for breakfast. Went to check how to get to Taal Volcano upon the advice of the Geezer in Banaue at the little tourist office next to our guesthouse. Crazy Prices for a day trip, so asked the bird if there were buses, she gave some info which was helpful so off we went. Got a Nice Taxi Driver to takes us to the bus stop, which you wouldn't really know was a bus stop, so for all we knew this guy could have just dropped us anywhere, but sure enough a bus turned up, which took us straight down to Tagaytay, we arrived there at about 1pm. We had been literally just been dropped at a bus stop along this big main road, so we dragged ourselves and our backpacks up the road and reached a little orange hotel called The Travellers Inn, enquired there, and it was a new little hotel, with roof terrace looking over the lake, where when the mist had cleared you could see the surroundings of Taal Volcano. So we checked in there and went up to terrace for a quick drink. We took a walk into to town a bit, and came across a restaurant called Bag of Beans, which had been previously run by an English guy, who had got a microwave form his mum or something, and had used the recipies to make pies and had then opened this restaurant. So we went in there and the Garden area was really nice, with a token Minor bird chatting rubbish, and we order a steak pie, a chicken pie and some country herb bread, it was lusho, mmm pie! So we took the rest of the bread back with us to the hotel and settled in for a little bit more American Idol. We sat and had a chat with Romeo who worked at the hotel for a while on the kind of veranda area outside our room, and there was a family celebration taking place next door, Romeo had said it was a policeman who lived next door and it was his daughter 1st birthday or christening or something, so they had a karaoke machine on the go all day long. We headed out to try and find this bar the liar had said about where they had live bands at weekend, apparently up by the rotunda on silang road, so jumped into a jeepney and off we went.
After about an 20 minutes or so, we were still in the jeepney, so I asked the driver about silang road, he was just like yeah yeah down here, and we ended up actually in Silang, so got out of the jeepney making out as if this was exactly where we had meant to be, and walked down the street market to the other side of the road and got straight back into another jeepney and headed back. We this time got off where we thought the bar looked like it should be, and again the lonely liar strikes again, it was gone and no-one had even heard of it! So had a drink in this bar, and then went to 7-11 type of place and then started to head back to our guesthouse, whilst looking out for a jeepney to flag down, typically no Jeepney really came past at that time of night, so we actually ended walking about 5 - 10 kilometers back to our hotel before we literally fell into bed.
10-02-08
Taal Volcano - Mum ans Lisa's birthdays
Well after not a lot of sleep due to family fun and frolicks of karaoke next door, but as we looked over the balcony the next morning we noticed a turkey pen, with a massive mutant chicken refer to pictures to be updated later. Anyhoo, a knock at the door at 8.50 woke us up, with the bloke saying that they guy who would be taking us to Taal Volcano was in reception, we had enquired about with hotel owner night before, and she would let us know, but instead just got the guy round, so agreed to a price and set off straight away. The drive down to the port didn't take too long and on the way down there was some really nice views. We arrived at the boat, kind of like a longtail and then set off across to Taal Island. We got absolutely soaked on the way, and arrived at the other side looking like drowned rats. As we got on to the island we were then charged a further 500 peso's for a guide we didn't need on top of the 1250 we had already paid, but better than paying 600 each for a clapped out old horse each. Bless them they looked near to death, but all the Koreans had hired the horses, and as we began our journey up the Volcano, they were on their way back down not looking very safe on their runaway horses!!
The guide had told us it was 4 km journey up the volcano and would take about an hour, but again it took us about 35 minutes to get up there, and along the way we walked past little bits of smoke actually coming out of the side of the volcano, and when you put your hand up to it, was really hot. We reached the top and had a look around, and was really disappointed with the view, as you did not really get to see the actual crater of the volcano, but we still got to see the island within a lake within an island within a lake, which was still quite impressive, with the toxic yellow stuff round the outside of the lake within the island, and lots of kind of vents where smoke was coming out, and the occasional bubbles in the water where the volcano would have a little cough. While we were looking over the side, a guy came up with his husky Damien, and I said to him, "well that is definitely taking you r dog for a walk!" So we got chatting asked where I was from etc, then when I asked where he was called Ramsey from he said Scotland but currently lived in Amsterdam and had travelled about, so that explained his confused accent, he said his Dad had lived in Tagaytay for while and his Aunt and Uncle and him had all come out to visit. We had a good laugh and got chatting with his aunt and uncle too, who were from Kent, then after an hour or so we said our goodbyes and headed off back down to the bottom, at least we got our monies worth as far as our guide was concerned as we had kept him up there for over on hour! So boat ride back, we had just managed to dry off, only to get soaked again on the way back! Headed back to hotel for shower and beer!
We decided to go out again and try to find this bar, as Ramsey had said it's possibly changed it's name to the G Point, so went up to Magasallanes Square and went to Carlos Pizza for dinner, it was rubbish, but then what do you expect going for an Italian in the Philippines, but as we had been going around the Philippines we noticed there really isn't much of a local dish...... So then we walked down to the G Point bar, where sure enough they had a live band on, which consisted of 3 Filipinos girls, all skimpily dressed, we sat in a booth and it felt like we were the "Only gays in the Village" Being practically the only westerners and what with being girls too. The band started and they did all sorts of songs from The Cranberries to Abba, and to be honest they weren't too bad, Simon Cowell would loved them! Some Filipinos had got up and started dancing and were trying to get us to join them to which we declined, but in time one of them came over and more a less dragged me onto the dance floor, gutted! SO danced for one song feeling like a right plum, and then we left shortly after, again no jeepneys about so started the walk again, only to be picked up by the same group of Filipinos who invited us to casino, but as we were leaving early in the morning we declined but they gave us a lift to our hotel which was ace!
