Saturday, March 24, 2012

Road trip to Mindoro

The Bugle recently had to make a road trip to Mindoro and decided to utilize the Strong Republic Nautical Highway created in 2003 by then president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.  This network of Roll On Roll Off (RORO) ferries allows you to travel throughout the Philippines either by Bus or you can actually drive your own car.  The trip to the Batangas pier was easy and comfortable with all roads in good repair with the exeption of EDSA.  It took a little over 4 hours at a leisurely pace.  The Batangas Port facility is a huge operation but unlike the majority of the Philippines it was actually quite organized.  Just drive up and tell them where you are going,  pay your terminal fee and get directions.  Once you are staged and getting ready to Roll On someone collects your fare to Mindoro (1,800p) drive aboard and head on upstairs to the seating area.  Now this is where the PI sets in. In the seating area you will find numerous places to sit the only problem being that where normally 5 people could sit you will find 1 person laying down pretending to sleep.  Real pain in the ass if you are travelling in a group and would like to sit together.  Now the Bugle isn't against laying out and making yourself comfortable but how about waiting until everyone gets aboard and then spreading out.  Enough on that.  The trip is roughly 2 hours long and there is food and drink to be purchased (SMB was 50P per can).  Overall the voyage was smooth and it was a highly recommended way to see a lot of the countryside.

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