January 7, 2012

Visayas Honeymoon: Biri, Samar

Ok, it’s a week before our first wedding anniversary and there are a bunch of things that I haven’t done yet, like upload our wedding photos on Facebook, make our wedding album, or change my passport (which, by the way, are all part of my January goals). Shame, I know. I’m starting something today, though, and that is finally posting about our Visayas honeymoon. The initial plan was to tour South America, but PJ and I changed our minds and decided to see more of our the Philippines first. Since Mindanao isn’t exactly the safest place on earth, and we both have seen much of Luzon, we decided to hop on to Visayas and explore all the islands and towns. Our honeymoon was a 6-week trip, so I hope you don’t mind if I take you along on a (virtual) journey for the next few days.

We chose to begin in Northern Samar, and flew from Manila to Catarman, Samar via CebuPac. I was panicking a couple of days before our trip because we still didn’t have a place to stay, and I couldn’t really find much information about Catarman on the web.

As soon as we got our bags, we rode a tricycle going to the Catarman Terminal (for trikes and jeepneys). Wanting to give the town a chance, I asked our tricycle driver, “Manong, ano po ang makikita dito sa Catarman?” and he chuckled, “Wala. Bakit ba kayo nandito?!” Oh. Okay.

So we took a 1-hour jeepney ride from Catarman to Allen, where there were more sights and beaches (Thanks to Bok for the suggestion!), and checked into Wayang-Wayang Beach resort (about P800 per night). We were planning to go to Biri that afternoon, but it was raining, so the locals advised us not to risk it.

The next morning, the town’s vice mayor (who owns Wayang-Wayang) offered us a ride to the town of Lavezares. She was taking some high school students to town for their college scholarship test, so we squeezed into the van with them for the 15-minute ride. Normally, it’s about P100 for a (special) trike ride.

We got to the mercato saw that the commuter boat to Biri had just left. The boatmen offered us a private boat for P1,000 (roundtrip). It took about an hour and a half on the boat to get to Biri island, but the scenery was gorgeous.

We passed a huuuge monument in the middle of the sea, a tribute for the lost lives when a commuter ferry MV Dona Paz sank during a storm. There was a break in the middle of the ocean even with the sunny weather, so I can only imagine how crazy it would be if there were a storm.

When you get to Biri Island, you can hire men with habal-habals (motorcycles) at the docking area It’s P200 to the rock formations and back, about 15 minutes each way.

We first stopped at the rock formation called Malasag. The view was breathtaking. PJ and I could not believe that we had something like this in the country and did not know its beauty until now.

The mangroves are there as a wave barrier. Behind the rock formations is open sea. Biri is on the northwest tip of Samar island.

We crossed the shallow water, but it took a while because the moss on the flat rocks made it super slippery. Our habal-habal drivers served as our tour guides.