Aglicay (Tablas)

Last Full Day in Philippines

Yet again we had to get up early, this time  to catch a boat back to Tablas, so at least the builders did not disturb us too much this morning.

The boat was moored directly outside our hotel so we got our tickets before heading across to the Romblon Deli for one final visit before leaving the Island.  Just enjoying our coffee when the guy from the hotel ran up and explained that the boat was ready to go (30mins early!) so we rushed to pay and hurried onboard.

The return trip was being made on a smaller Banka boat and it’s always slightly worrying armed with the knowledge of their boat safety record and that we were pretty packed on.  But every time we have taken one of these boats the sea has been pretty much flat as a pancake.

Again the crossing was very smooth and only took ½ hour or so and once back at St Augustin dock a couple of porters grabbed our bags off me and headed of in the direction of the bus station.  Shell and I had to hurry along to catch up with them, however they did know which Jeepney was going to Looc which was the direction we needed to go.

 

Once the Jeepney was full and bags & produce loaded on top we headed off.  The journey completed the circuit of Tablas for us and again had some wonderful coastal scenery.  We were jammed on it with all locals, getting on and off, the Jeepney was also stopping at places to make deliveries of rice and groceries and also picking up more deliveries along the way, it was an interesting look at island life.

After two to three hours we were dropped off at the stop that would get us to Aglicay, we had decided to come back here after visiting it with Mimyong’s husband on our sightseeing bike ride.

 

From my recollections we only had to wheel our luggage about ½ km up the road, fortunately however Shell saw a sign for the resort saying it was 4 ½ km up the road/hill, so we had to have a rethink.  As we were standing around Shell spoke to a guy on a scooter about how we could get to the resort, shortly after another friend on a scooter turned up and after agreeing a price we and our luggage were loaded on to the back of the scooters and we were on our way (well done Shell!).

I arrived at the resort before Shell and was becoming anxious after she still had not turned up 10 minutes later.  Eventually she came into view, apparently as she was bumping along the paths she heard something drop out of her bag, so had to double back to find that her phone had escaped and was lying in the middle of the path.

We had the idea that just rocking up at the resort we could negotiate a cheaper price, but that was not the case as the receptionist wanted to charge us more than we could get it for on bookings.com.  Despite showing her the price and saying we would pay in cash and they would not have to pay the fee to bookings.com she would not budge and said she would phone the owner to discuss it.  In the end we got bored waiting and just booked it online.

However this was not the end of the matter, we could not check into our room until the owner had received a confirmation from the online booking company (even though we could show the receptionist our receipt).  So in the end we just decided to get a couple of beers and some food to eat whilst we waited, after all the view wasn’t too shoddy!!

 

Eventually we were given the keys to our room and we quickly unpacked and headed to the beach, which is stunning.  We then spent the afternoon relaxing, swimming, sunbathing (Shell not Glenn) and doing some blogging in a bamboo shelter on the beach (Glenn not Shell).

We had to pre-order our dinner earlier in the afternoon so went for it as booked for 7.00, unfortunately we had ordered far too much (you can never estimate portion amounts in the Philippines) and I think they must have cooked it earlier in the afternoon because most of it was pretty cold!!

 

After dinner there was not much to do as there was no village in the immediate vicinity so we went back to our room and watched some downloads until we went to sleep.