The Philippines: Part 4 - Baler (The Final Part)
Baler became our home away from home for over 2 weeks. Baler was our Filipino home, where we found our Filipino family. We experienced things close to home and things extremely far away from home. Baler is where we happily spent the remainder of our time in the Philippines, without the need to go seeking anymore...
Since the last part (Bohol) we have been in Siquijor island, Dumaguete City, Cebu island, and back to where we started off Manilla. Our plan was to head north and find some surf as we had just over 2 weeks before we flew to Vietnam to begin our next adventure. We had La Union and Baler in mind after reading a bit on the internet. We decided to start in Baler as it was a bit further out of the way and we thought this would make it less touristy. As we found out this was the case, apart from the weekends, when many people from the city of Manilla come to spend a few days on the beach away from the hustle and bustle of the big smoke.
It took us 7 and a half hours to get to Baler from Manilla. We checked into a hostel we had previously booked and were pretty bummed at what it was when we got there. It was the weekend and the place was absolutely packed. We decided to stick it out the first 2 nights as locals had told us it settles down during the week and you’ll get the place pretty much to yourselves. We went for a walk and asked around for some new accomodation, prices, and availability. On the fourth stop we came to a place which we ended up called home for the next few weeks. Owners Beth and Romell and there little scruffy dog named candy became our Filipino family. They looked after us when we needed it and made us feel very welcome. We drank with them at night and even joined them for Romells mothers birthday in which the whole family attended, a karaoke machine was hired and a party was held. This night led us to something that we will never forget, but I’ll get to that further down.
Myself being a surfer, and Kait being keen to learn, we were up before sunrise the next morning to go down the beach in search of waves. Everyone comes to Baler for the surf. It was ok but comparing it to home is a bit hard for us. We surfed almost every morning we were in Baler on mini mals. We got waves most days so that kept me happy and if there wasn’t any waves, at least we were right by the ocean and could swim whenever we wanted.
We found a coffee shop where we could get a brewed coffee every morning and a bakery to get fresh bread each day. We found a local guy Freddy who would rent us his crappy motorbikes when we needed, a local guy Diego who we would get surfboards from, and many different restaurants to eat meals at. There was things to do and see out of Baler too which kept us out of trouble when there was no surf.
One of the great things was the Mother Falls. A waterfall about and hours ride out of Baler where you park up and hike for about half an hour before you reach the huge and absolutely breathtaking waterfall.
We met a Canadian couple and the four of us went to the falls together. You have to pay for a tour guide when you get there so this split the price up making it pretty cheap for everyone. Photos really don’t do this place justice but the waterfall is about 60ft tall and pounds through your chest as it hits the pool below. You can swim in the water off to the side which is a huge, deep, crystal clear and freezing cold pool.
Another day when we were riding up the coastline looking for more surf breaks we ended up at a land marker. Used for boats to mark the land it is a huge tower almost like a lighthouse which sits at the top of a mountain and the only way up is to climb up the side of the mountain. Not a very long, but a very steep climb will get you to the bottom of the tower. From there you wind your way up and around the tower, a few hundred stairs and you reach the top. The tower is actually fenced off and not a tourist attraction, but someone’s cut a hole in the fence, so it’s fair game for anyone who wants to climb up. Once you reach the top you get amazing panoramic views. The massive big blue ocean in front and the thick luscious mountains and jungle behind. It’s increadibly breathtaking and would be a recommendation for anyone heading to Baler.
Back to Romells mothers birthday party. If anyone has heard of Balut before, It’s a very popular Filipino street food. Most Asian country’s eat Balut but may have a different name for it. Balut is a developing duck embryo that is boiled and eaten from the shell. For most westerners, especially us, we find it pretty repulsive. But unfortunately for us, our new Filipino family love it, which means we had to try it.
We made a deal that if we both eat an entire Balut egg each, we get a free nights accomodation, to which Beth and Romell delightfully accepted. Yes we ate it. We both ate the entire egg each, after a certain amount of alcohol obviously to make the experience a little easier. We were happy we did it and we were happy to please our Filipino family too. Although now we both find it hard to stomach scrambled eggs as it reminds us of the Balut. So hopefully that wears off soon.
We headed north for a day to find some different beaches. Found one gem at the end of the journey but found a pretty cool stone beach along the way too. We rode up and down massive mountains into the clouds and back down to sea level within minutes. The scooter screamed in first gear to get up most and struggled to keep us under brakes on the way down. It was a beautiful ride though and the end result finding a white sand beach was very satisfying, even if we did just sleep on the beach for a few hours. Dinadiawan was the name of the beach up north, peacefully little beach. There was a resort that had tents set up on the sand for glamping and huts with bean bags and stuff in them which we took advantage of.
A few days later, and nothing to do with the Balut, Kait became sick, and wasn’t getting any better as time went on. We had to make a trip to the hospital much to Kaits delight...
Thankfully we had Romell with us the entire check in and pre hospital stay to sort everything out and translate for us otherwise the experience could of been a hell of a lot worse. Kait had E Coli, an intestine infection which landed her in hospital for 2 long days and 2 long nights. Let’s just say the hospital was a very different experience for us. Coming from a first world country and also being in the middle of no where it was change. I had to walk down the street to get water and medicine whenever the nurse needed it and constantly had to clean and ask for new cutlery just to keep the number of ants in the room down. I constructed a curtain to keep the light out of the room and tried to make myself comfortable on a wooden couch in the room to keep Kait company. As much as it sucks getting sick is a part of traveling and all you can do is hope it doesn’t happen too often. There is no point wrapping yourself in bubble wrap when your in other countries or you’ll miss out on a lot of good stuff!
Concluding everything really quickly, Baler was a sick time and a sick little surfing town 7 hours north of Manilla. We will definitely be back and will definitely recommend it to everyone who loves the beach and small town vibes!
