MALAMAWI / CABUNBATA ISABELA BASILAN ADVENTURE

MALAMAWI / CABUNBATA ISABELA BASILAN ADVENTURE

Posted by the thick key on January 26, 2018 in basilan, basilan adventure, basilan travel, malamawi, travel mindanao,

"It's a paradise, not a warzone"

watch the vlog here:

Last week, me and 3 of my friends decided to visit Basilan, one of the most feared places in the Philippines as it is the hiding spot of a terrorist group. Only few of my friends came with me because they were scared of the place.

Also, the decision to visit this place was abrupt. (planning a trip too early ahead of time usually does not push-through, at least for me experience)

Despite of Basilan's bad reputation, province is endowed with amazing islands and beautiful spots. Two of them are the Malamawi Island White Beach and the Cabunbata Falls, which is where we're heading. Both of these places are located in Isabela Basilan. Both places can be visited in a single day.

 The photos we have of Malamawi white beach speaks for itself. It is so beautiful. It's has a pure white sand beach like that of Boracay. Its beach cove is distinct of its wharf that stretch towards the sea, a beautiful background for every selfie and groufie. You may also climb at Malamawi hill top and enjoy the scenic sight of the entire Malamawi island that features a view of a vast mangrove plantation.

After enjoying the Malamawi white beach, we headed to our next destination which is a waterfall in Brgy Cabunbata. With just a tricycle ride from the Isabela port, you'll be in the place in 30 mins.

Cabunbata Falls is visible from the highway. It does not take a long trek to get to the it. It's looks beautiful from the highway. However, as you get closer to the waterfalls, you'll realized that this places isn't getting the love it deserves. It such a sad scene because there are trashes everywhere. People who visit this place seem to leave their litter in the waterfalls area. You'll see plastic bottles, cellophane, leftover food and so on. The worst thing about it is that there are motorist who do their motorbike washing in the area. When they wash their motorbike, oil from the engine drip to the swimming area of the waterfalls making the falls oily. Too bad. Maybe, it's better to come to this place on weekday where there are few, or no people at all the visit this beautiful waterfall.

If you ask about its safety, it was technically safe. The people were friendly and nice. There were many security checkpoints as well. There were military men around so we felt really safe during our visit.

We traveled from Zamboanga City going to the beach. It was so easy. Below is the itinerary and expenses of our trip.

Ferry via Stephanie to Isabela Basilan Port- 60 pesos

Boat from Isabela Port to Malamawi Port - 5 pesos

Habal-habal from Malamawi Port to White beach - 25 pesos

Malamawi White Beach Entrance Fee - 30 pesos

Entrance to Malamawi Hill top - 20php with free bottled water

Habal-habal back Malamawi port - 25 pesos

Malamawi to Isabela Port - 5 pesos

tricycle to Cabunbata Falls - 50 pesos (round trip)

Isabela to Zamboagnaa City - 60 pesos

Food - 100 pesos (it's up to how much food you'd like to bring)

TOTAL: 250 pesos plus FOOD!

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MACAU

MACAU

Posted by the thick key on January 21, 2018 in adventure, asia, hongkong, hongkong-macau, macau, travel, travel macau,

When visiting Hongkong, always include Macau in your itinerary. Hongkong and Macau are just close to each other, just an hour away. So, it's better to hit to birds with this trip.

Macua was our last destination in our itinerary. We scheduled it on the same day of our flight back to Manila. Our flight to Manila was on 10pm in the evening, so we only had the entire day to take a peek at Macau and had to go back to Hongkong 5 hours before our flight.

To fully enjoy our stay in Macau, we had to leave early from Hongkong.

at Hongkong Ferry Terminal

We were early in the Hongkong Central Ferry Terminal. We bought our ferry ticket right on the same day of the trip. It costs us 39 HKD each. We passed through the immigration officers and we were on our way to Macau!

We took the CotaiJet Ferry and left Hongkong to Taipa Ferry Terminal at around 8am. We missed the first trip which was on 7am but that was ok. CotaiJet leaves every 15 minutes.

at Taipa Ferry Terminal - heading to the Bus Terminal

When we landed at Taipa, we realized that we landed on the wrong terminal. We should have bought a Turbojet ticket because it lands on Macau’s Outer Harbor Ferry Terminal, where the tourist's places are located, Senado Square and St. Paul Ruins.

Somehow, I felt we were lost. We then asked terminal workers to direct us to buses going to Senado square but it was no go. People in Macua can barely speak English. So we just walked around and looked for the bus terminal ourselves.

We found the terminal and there were several buses offering free rides to different casinos in Macau. We really weren't sure where to go so we took the bus that looked familiar, the Venetian Macau bus. We embarked on and it brought us to the Venetian Macau Casino. The Venetian Casino is an indoor casino with its ceiling painted with sky that makes it look an outdoor place.

We spent about an hour in the casino and took several photos. There were many shops and restaurant in the casino but we didn't buy any because they were a bit expensive.The venetian Macau is huge and grand. A place worth visiting.

It took us a while to find an exit because the Casino was so huge. Thankfully, hotel employees can speak English.They guided us to the exit and answered all our questions about the where-to's in Macau.

Next stop was on Senado Square. We took the Grand Lisboa bus to get to Senado Square as instructed by the kind employee of the Casino (again, this ride is free). The bus left the Casino and to our surprise, the bus passed through a very long bridge that crosses a sea. It was the Macau bridge. It was a great experience. It was something that we do not see or experience in a third-world-country like ours. Such an amazing man-made structure!

Macau Tower as seen from the Bridge

Finally, we arrived at the Grand Lisboa Casino, which is just a 5-minute walk to Senado Square.

Senado Square is an old European town built by the Portuguese, which used to be a colonizer of Macau. Its got some European feels with a touch of the east. It is amazing. We roamed around Senado Square with its narrow walk-way and shops along the side walk then suprised to find the St. Paul Church Ruins. We took serveral pictures and enjoyed every second or our stay.

We left Macau at 2:30PM by going back to Grand Lisboa hotel to take a free bus back to Taipa Ferry Terminal.

If we only had the time, we could have stay overnight in Macau to explore more of its villages and other European structures. Too bad it was going to be our flight back to Manila on the same day. I fell in-love with Macau... so deep <3

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