Pagsanjan Falls

Our entire day was occupied with a trip to Pagsanjan Falls which is a three hour drive away. It's not that it's very far from Manila, but the road conditions of construction and heavy traffic drew out the time. Reggie was able to get his friend's car and driver for the trip so it was nice to do it in comfort and style.

It was a beautiful drive through a few different provinces and it was good to give Shauna a taste of provincial life as it is quite different than in the city. Once we arrived in the province of Laguna, it took a while to finally figure out how to get to the falls but we loaded into a canoe at a local hotel where we also had lunch.

All of us were amazed at the stunning scenery, especially the green high canyon walls and numerous waterfalls. The movie Apocalypse Now was largely shot in the area so upon return we'll have to watch it even though the movie is 30 years old.


To get to the falls, it's a one hour boat ride in a canoe which sits extremely low and often takes on water. There are two guides that rowed and would jump in when it was too shallow on rapids which was quite often. Those guys busted their ass to get us to the falls and said that there's 2000 licensed guides in the area but said they're lucky to go once a week without enough tourist demand.

Once we arrived at the falls, we were able to board a bamboo raft which took us directly under the falls. None of us were expecting the full strength of the falls but it was a wonderful experience. The return back to the boat launch is only about 30 minutes so shortly thereafter we were back in congested traffic for the three hour ride back to Manila. Along the return drive, Reggie insisted we stop at different roadside stalls for local treats like rambutan fruit, buco pie, and tamarind candy. The full set of photos is here, click on View Slidshow: http://tinyurl.com/fallsphotos


It's our last night in Manila and we're just going to take it easy and prepare for our trip to Delhi. Our aim was to try and change our flight to spend a couple days again in Singapore, but one of the few restrictions of our ticket is that we can't stop more than once in the same city.