#  >  > Travellers Tales in Thailand and Asia >  >  > Philippine Forum >  >  Puerto Galera Trip

## khmen

OK, so a while ago I visited the Philippines for the first time with the intention of seeing a couple of islands, sitting on some nice beaches, hitting a bit of nightlife and generally just relaxing and sightseeing for a few weeks.
I had no firm plans as to where I was going to go, aside from a couple of days in Manila and Angeles before heading to greener pastures. I'd never been to the P.I before and didn't really know anywhere there so thought I'd play it by ear.

So, after two pretty uneventful nights in Manila and four fun nights in Angeles I was ready to sit on a beach and bronze my toned, muscular body. (Read pale and skinny!) After a quick bit of research on t' interweb I decided I'd visit Puerto Galera on the island of Mindoro first, as it was pretty close and easy to get to from Angeles. Puerto Galera is the name used for a collection of different tourist beach resorts but is actually the name of the main town in the area. I then planned on returning to Manila to fly to Palawan, which looked absolutely stunning.

I caught the bus to the port at Batangas and caught a banca, a small outrigger boat common in the P.I, to Puerto Galera. On nearing the island the boat drove through a small channel lined either side with palm trees and cliffs, and beautiful crystal clear water to dock at a small port. I was impressed already!

Stupidly following the advice of a local girl I spoke to in Angeles, I asked to be taken to a hotel in Puerto Galera town. I planned on staying there a night or two until I'd got my bearings but when I arrived the place was a dump, but just wanting a shower and a place to put my bags while checking out a better place I paid for a night. I asked at the hotel if they knew where I could rent a motorbike and they pointed me in the direction of a German-owned bar and I rented a poxy scooter to have a little look about.

I took a little drive over to White Beach, which was supposed to be the main tourist beach:


As you can see by the rainy season cloud, it wasnt peak tourist season but it was pretty quiet and a fair few bars weren't open but I thought it might be livelier at night. Nice beach though. Checked out a few hotels and clambered over some rocks to get to smaller, neighbouring Tamaraw Beach, also very nice:



After that I decided to take a drive back through the town and take the mountain road to Sabang, another main "beach" for tourists. I say "beach" because there isn't really a beach there as such, just a few metre wide strip of pebbly sand at low-tide and sea right up to the concrete sea wall at high-tide. It's a collection of bars, hotels, restaurants and dive-shops built going up the slope of the hill on top of the sea wall. There are also three or four go-go bars there. Sorry, no photos from Sabang itself but heres one fron the hills above it:



It was too early for the girly bars there so I went and had a meal and a couple of beers watching the sunset. When it was dark I decided to go back to the grotty hostel for a bit. I get on the bike, start it up and....no headlights. Bearing in mind I've got to drive over a 6km badly surfaced mountain road with massive unguarded drops in the dark. Fcuking German!

I couldnt remember whether the road had lighting or not and was debating whether to leave the bike and get a moto taxi. Ah well, go for it and if it's dodgy turn back I thought and off I went. Everything was fine for the first couple of K's cos a lot of houses had lights on and there were a few streetlights. I then came to a section covered with trees and I could barely see where i was going until suddenly I realised I'd come off the road next to a massive drop. 

I slammed the brakes on and tried to back up onto the concrete road slab but couldnt do it so I waited there until I saw another bike come along, and pressed the brake to flash the brake lights. Thankfully a couple of bikes of Philippinos stopped and helped me out of the ditch and kindly led the way front and back to the town.

Went straight to the German and said he'd nearly killed me by renting me the shitty bike and his response was to say "Maybe you should have rented the bigger bikes, better!" and laughed with his kraut mates. He'd already ripped me on the price for renting it for a day and he didnt have any to swap so I told him and his mates they were German dickheads and kept the bike for the night. 

Going back to the cesspit I sat in the room and got changed and then noticed the hotel rules on the back of the door. "Doors close at 10pm, no guests shall be permitted after this time". I asked what this meant and basically there was a curfew at 10 and I had to be in by then! WTF!? Sitting back in the room and thinking If I wanted to go out that night or not, the electric went and decided it.

Hopping on the poor excuse of a bike I went back to White Beach, checked into a hotel I'd looked at earlier and went to check out the nightlife. It wasnt much livelier than earlier on in the day. Out of about five bars open only one had music and any customers so I went there. Had a couple of beers and a chat with a ladyboy serving but the beer wasnt going down well so I had an early night.

Felt a bit ill the next day so lazed on the beach and the next day still feeling a bit dodgy moved over to Sabang for a bit more liveliness. I might as well have not bothered as that night after 2 beers in a go-go I felt really bad. Went back to my room and vomited. It progressively got worse until I was really feverish and my joints were aching badly, I thought "Shit i'm in trouble here". 

Next am I went straight to the doctor who took my BP and Temp and both were sky high, temp up to 40 degrees. She thought it was dengue, took a blood sample and put me on a drip overnight. Scared shitless now. Anyway, got the results back next day and turns out I had Typhoid Fever, caused by exposure in some way to infected faecal matter. Lovely! Injections in the arse and 2 types of anti-biotics were prescribed and off I went to lie in my bed eating food delivered by my hotel restaurant for a week while shitting and vomiting off 7 kilos of weight.

Oh, and follow up blood tests, jabs in the arse and anti-biotics 7 and 14 days later! That was pretty much the end of my holiday right there and I never did get to Palawan, maybe next time.

I'll end with a couple of photos of a beautiful beach between Puerto Galera Town and Sabang, the last one is a viewpoint on the road to provincial capital Calapan, on a 60 km ride to an ATM I had to do cos the TWO in Puerto Galera were offline!

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## khmen

SCHEISSE! I posted the same pic twice, was supposed to be this one and I cant work out how to change it in the OP!

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## Begbie

That looks really nice. Pity about the shits.

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## Agent_Smith

Nice thread.  Guess if I ever get back out to the P.I. I'll skip Puerto Galerta and go straight to Palawan.

That's the moral of the story, right?

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## Marmite the Dog

> SCHEISSE! I posted the same pic twice, was supposed to be this one and I cant work out how to change it in the OP!

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## khmen

> Nice thread. Guess if I ever get back out to the P.I. I'll skip Puerto Galerta and go straight to Palawan.
> 
> That's the moral of the story, right?


555, yeah sort of mate! Nah, Puerto Galera is a nice place to visit but would probably be a bit livlier in the high season, just a shame I didnt get to properly explore it and the P.I in general due to being sat on the bog for a week! Cheers for the green btw.

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## Bangyai

Nice thread. If its any consolation, you're not the first to have a shit time in Puerto Guelera. I went there once about 25 years ago, but not trusting to luck, I took my steady from Angeles City with me ( good move ). When we arrived we couldn't believe what a dump it looked having heard so much about it. After checking out a few beaches we ended up at a private beach owned by the Kangaroo club ( bad move ).  I've got nothing against Aussies ( or chavs ) but the rest of the guests had clearly been in the outback of Aus way to long and forgotten _all_ the social graces completely. Not only that, but not having the foresight to bring their own crumpet they spent a fair bit of time drooling over mine whilst hunkering their stubbies.

Moabual on Cebu was a whole lot better in case you ever go again. But probably changed a lot by now.

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## porno frank

Beautiful beach pics on the pines.

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## sabang

Some nice pics there- and Puerto Galera has to be one of the nicest natural harbours in the word (yeh, the towns a dump). Sabang itself is great fun at night, but the beach went after the reef was killed by dynamite. It's a mixed diving and mongering destination now. Nice part of the world anyhow- heck I liked it so much I bought half of a small resort there, in the 80's.

Contratulations and commiserations- you're the first person I know to have got typhus.  :Smile:

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## khmen

> Contratulations and commiserations- you're the first person I know to have got typhus.


Yeah, same as! I'd been vaccinated against it so was quite surprissed, it's certainly not pleasant. Was a month before I felt right again. 
On the plus side, if any of you want to lose weight fast I'd highly recommend the Typhoid diet!

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## Andrew Hicks

> Some nice pics there- and Puerto Galera has to be one of the nicest natural harbours in the word (yeh, the towns a dump). Sabang itself is great fun at night, but the beach went after the reef was killed by dynamite. It's a mixed diving and mongering destination now. Nice part of the world anyhow- heck I liked it so much I bought half of a small resort there, in the 80's.
> 
> Contratulations and commiserations- you're the first person I know to have got typhus.


I last went to Puerto Galera in 1977 and it truly was the most beautiful natural harbours in the world.  I have always wondered what it's like now and the pics were quite reassuring.

Typhus is spread by tics and typhoid is spread by shit.  Either can kill and can spoil a holiday.

Andrew

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## pangsida

Its not somewhere I would go for a break but I went about 6 or 7 times when I was a diver. Its a fab critter diving spot.

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## APMann

That's a nasty medical experience.

I visit PG twice a year to scuba dive, for which it is really superb but there is not one other single reason to go there except to say you've been, maybe. The other side of the island is better but more difficult to reach.

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## nidhogg

^ as noted, the muck diving in PG is really outstanding.  I normally go there on serious dive trips (4 or 5 dives a day).  Frog fish, pygmy sea horses, blue ringed octopus and lots of other elusive stuff there.  Marvellous.  There is a night life scene as noted, and yeah, sabang is pretty much a shit hole.  However, there are a couple of good dive outfits there and as a dive destination it is pretty much to be recomended.  Now that Dumaguette pier is pretty much off the list, PG is one of the best macro sites in the region.

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## Stranger

Looks great.

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## sabang

> Now that Dumaguette pier is pretty much off the list


Why so? not that i know the place well, but it's loaded with college hotties, and really quite a pleasant town by flippa standards. Long way from PG though.

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## nidhogg

^ I was talking specifically about "muck diving".  Dumaguette pier was a world class muck diving site.  Unfortunately they needed to repair the pier, and basically killed the site for diving for years to come.

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## omgim

Dont' know why 20 percent of the tourist coming to the Philippines get sick their first few days. I've never been to Palawan but my buddy swears its Heaven on a  beach.

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## khmen

^TBH mate, typhoid fever has a gesticulation period of 1-2 weeks before symptoms show, I think I must have picked up the bug in either Kanchanaburi or Bangkok before i went to the PI. I remember having a dodgy belly and the beer not going down in Angeles on my first couple of days in PI, the first minor symptoms, so it must have been picked up in Thailand somewhere.

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## Chance

few years back, had same thing happen to me while on Miniloc Island, El Nido. Worst feeling ever!!!... Weeks before I had been staying @ Eastwood city, just outside Manila, diet consisted of Yellow Cab pizza & McDonald's. (also some beer)

Last year I traveled to Baler, ate some local mystery food and was fine.

Its really to bad you didn't get to see Palawan, one of my favorite places in PI

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## Davis Knowlton

^You're lucky the Yellow Cab Pizza didn't kill you. Horrible shit. Two friends of mine have been knocked flat by bad cheese - one had to be hospitalized.

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## FailSafe

I used to head to Puerto Galera for diving in the late 1990s- nice spot (I always stayed at Atlantis)- there was plenty going on at night to keep a single guy entertained as well- I would imagine it's been built up quite a bit since then.

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## nidhogg

> I used to head to Puerto Galera for diving in the late 1990s- nice spot (I always stayed at Atlantis)- there was plenty going on at night to keep a single guy entertained as well- I would imagine it's been built up quite a bit since then.


Atlantis is a  good outfit, know their diving and have (when I have dived with them) some really excellent local dive guides.

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