LJ’s friends invited us for an impromptu road trip to Quezon. Unisan, Quezon to be exact. Where is this place exactly? It’s at the very faaaar side of the Quezon province.
We left at 7am and arrived close to 3pm. We were unlucky enough to be stuck in a 3 hour traffic because of some bridge-road construction. At one point, we were beside a JAC liner bus with free Wi-Fi. It required a password so Alou knocked on the driver’s window to request for it. Resourceful! That Wi-Fi connection entertained us for a good hour.
Despite arriving late, we still continued with the island hopping. We paid 1,200 for the boat, 30 pesos for the Dampalitan Island and 20 pesos for Borawan.
What’s the difference of the two islands? According to the boatmen, Dampalitan is better for kids, it's more shallow as compared to Borawan where the shore is steep and dangerous if you are not careful. We were joined by my friends nephews so we agreed.
You learn through experience though, but we’ll share what we now know with you… Skip the other island and just go to Borawan! There are some steep areas, but you can identify good spots and instruct your kids to just play there. The Dampalitan, though shallow, has a lot of broken corals so it’s very difficult to walk. Zero fun. If you insist, bring some aqua shoes, or in our case, we just wore our slippers (I know, it sounds weird, but it helped). The boatmen will also just charge 800 if it’s just one island, so just tell them to take you straight to Borawan, that one is a true paradise, very picturesque.
The sun was ready to set when we left Borawan, and the tide was very low. The boat couldn’t bring us back to the dock anymore, so we had to walk.
We slept in a humble beachfront house. We had the basics – beds, electricity and water, and that’s it. No aircon, no TV, definitely no internet. For an overnight stay, you don’t need those anyway. Just enjoy the peace and quiet. Since it’s dark outside and there’s nothing much to do, we were lights out by 10pm. Yup, it's so not us. :)
What else can you do in Unisan? Well not a lot, but there are things that you can do. There are nature parks that you can visit, but if you're like us, you might want to just drive around their 'city.'
There’s this good place to eat that we highly recommend that you try. The name escapes me now but it's a small store nestled in the town proper's only gas station (at least from what I can tell) so it will be pretty hard to miss. LOL!
They serve mini pies, and empanadas among other things, but those are the ones you really have to try.
We were in love with the asado bread and the apple pie. Hay, na-miss ko tuloy! Why does that bakery need to be 6 hours away?? LOL!
We left at 7am and arrived close to 3pm. We were unlucky enough to be stuck in a 3 hour traffic because of some bridge-road construction. At one point, we were beside a JAC liner bus with free Wi-Fi. It required a password so Alou knocked on the driver’s window to request for it. Resourceful! That Wi-Fi connection entertained us for a good hour.
Despite arriving late, we still continued with the island hopping. We paid 1,200 for the boat, 30 pesos for the Dampalitan Island and 20 pesos for Borawan.
What’s the difference of the two islands? According to the boatmen, Dampalitan is better for kids, it's more shallow as compared to Borawan where the shore is steep and dangerous if you are not careful. We were joined by my friends nephews so we agreed.
The sun was ready to set when we left Borawan, and the tide was very low. The boat couldn’t bring us back to the dock anymore, so we had to walk.
We slept in a humble beachfront house. We had the basics – beds, electricity and water, and that’s it. No aircon, no TV, definitely no internet. For an overnight stay, you don’t need those anyway. Just enjoy the peace and quiet. Since it’s dark outside and there’s nothing much to do, we were lights out by 10pm. Yup, it's so not us. :)
There’s this good place to eat that we highly recommend that you try. The name escapes me now but it's a small store nestled in the town proper's only gas station (at least from what I can tell) so it will be pretty hard to miss. LOL!
They serve mini pies, and empanadas among other things, but those are the ones you really have to try.
Driving back, we took the longer route to avoid the traffic. LJ was very happy to pass by Lucban, he said it’s he’s chance to buy the baton sword he didn’t get when we went there a year ago during the Pahiyas. We stopped to buy some longganisa, but eventually decided to get some snacks. Well, it was the afternoon, it was snack time, but I don’t think what we got was a snack, haha! We got some Longganisa Rice (a must try!), Longganisang Lucban and Pansit.
We spent about 300 pesos for the 4 of us and it was sulit. I even took home about half of the left over the pancit because I over calculated, I thought that at 80pesos, it would just be good for 1 but apparently, it’s enough to be shared by all of us!
Wedding duties has definitely consumed most of our weekends, that we've been unable to plan decent vacations recently. I forgot how road trips can be a fun alternative. There’s no airfare, and you are not stressed with the hotel reservations and itinerary. We need more of this… Hmmm, maybe the honeymoon can just be a road trip?
Wedding duties has definitely consumed most of our weekends, that we've been unable to plan decent vacations recently. I forgot how road trips can be a fun alternative. There’s no airfare, and you are not stressed with the hotel reservations and itinerary. We need more of this… Hmmm, maybe the honeymoon can just be a road trip?
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