Chasing Waterfalls: A 2Days Cycling from Batangas City to Laurel

By: Maryan

It was again a long celebrated Holiday season in Philippines as we Filipinos spent a week holiday for what we called "Holy Week Celebration". Unfortunately, for the second time we cancelled our plan to cycle around Romblon because of work related issues and Yohann arm injury. We decided to explore a new cycling route just around Batangas province.

We left early from Batangas City to Lemery and stop along Diversion road between Taal-Lemery for late breakfast. We meet a cyclist on the road who told us about two different routes: 1.) Via Lemery - Agoncillo road, the easy one 2.) Via Talisay passing the famous look alike castle old building.

The Lemery-Agoncillo Road gave us a perfect view of San Nicolas lake village.

The beautiful sceneries made me feel privileged to work on this province. For just 2-3 hours travel time from Manila you can experience the countryside and genuine local culture without a feeling of isolation. Batangas province is a one stop door for all your travelling adventure from white sand beaches, old architecture (churches), food, people & culture, mountains, lake, waterfalls and most of all amazing dive sites around Anilao and Tingloy island.

We spotted some fisherman’s doing their daily fishing activities in the lake so Yohann stopped to take some photos. The election campaign jingle can be heard all over the town same as videoke songs around the quiet and laid back town of San Nicolas so I made fun dancing on the beat of election jingle.

I don't feel tired this time so I assumed an improvement with my cycling skills or simply because of Yohann injury that he became less demanding on my cycling speed. As usual, we made a stopped to buy some bread from local bakeries whom I considered as an always part of our cycling activity. Yohann bought his all time favorite pan de coco bread. We stopped for half an hour at the house of one local due to rains and made some conversation revolving around the why's of cycling.

We took our lunch at Poblacion, Laurel before moving to famous Ambon-ambon & Malagaslas Falls. When we arrived, locals head us to designated parking place. There is a Php10 fee plus additional Php10 as entrance. No need to get a guide, the trail was quite obvious and you can just follow people so for sure you won't get lost though someone will offer you a tour guide service if you want. I am expecting too many people around the falls because of Holiday season but never did I expect such number of local tourists. Around 5,000 local tourists in a day was #notmorefun.

As the huge number of people having fun around the falls, water never get cleared because of its natural brown soil. I prefer to choose watching them taking their best selfies and groupies while some are eating and drinking with friends and families. I fall asleep at our rented Nipa Hut because of tireness. Waterfalls is a good sight but not the trash that scattered around the area after all people left though there's someone in charge of cleaning. We took shower to clean our body from sweating before going back near the other falls (Malagaslas) just few kilometer away to set up our tent for a goodnight sleep.

Many friends are wondering if I find it comfortable sleeping in a tent and I can absolutely say yes. I can sleep well same comfort I feel at home because we are just using the same mattress. :) except this night where the dog of a nearby lone house found out that there are campers around the area. The dog keep barking the whole night and stop only for few minutes when get tired. 

Day 2 (Laurel Falls to Batangas City)

We woke up a bit late but still no tourist so we had our bread and coffee in Malagaslas Falls and now watching it with it’s naturally beautiful crystal clear water. I can feel it's calmness resting from yesterday stressful day. For those interested to visit the area, visit on weekdays if possible to avoid the larger crowd. Personally, I would never visit this place again to give way to others and not add to nature stress.

Going back, we cycled using the private road of Amansinaya Mountain Resort to Spendido Taal Golf Club to reach Tagaytay main road.

The activity was more of pushing than cycling as we did it for almost 4hours. With just a bread and coffee for breakfast I felt relief when we reached tagaytay main road but suddenly felt disappointed when we cannot find carinderia nearby. Yohann did not give up to the nearest Italian Resto and want to cycle more to look for other food store but I really felt weak so we bought pineapple from sidewalk as we also stopped because of rain. I finished half of the whole fruit so got energy to cycle. Just 2 km away, we found a good carinderia along the road in front of Starbucks coffee. After few minutes, we moved to make sure we will arrived Batangas City before 5 p.m. We turn left before reaching Nasugbu to take the road going to Lemery where we had a very good ride as it all going down and down to Lemery (I rarely paddle for almost 2 hours maybe to compensate the 4 hours pushing) plus a perfect beautiful view of Tagaytay made me feel like I am watching a travel show for real while seating on my saddle. 

After Lemery, everything just back to normal and we arrived Batangas City before sunset.