What Goes Around : My Batac Trip (Ilocos Norte) 2015

Ilocos Norte, as the name implies is located in the northern part of the Philippines, I have never been this far up of the map and to be honest I was a bit anxious on how a 12 hour bus ride would be like and tried to visualize a scenario, all that got stuck in my head was what if I needed to go to the toilet in 2 hours, and the next stop would still be in another 2 hours. But thankfully it wasn't all that bad. The bus I was in had a nice movie selection that was quite entertaining and helped me forget that I couldn't feel my legs anymore.

Partas, owned by Chavit Singson (The guy that always shows up beside Pacquiao on tv during his fight press cons), one of the many bus companies that takes people to places up north is located in Pasay, given the traffic conditions aren't that bad, it should take around 10 - 15 mins from NAIA Terminal in a Taxi.

Inside the Taxi that took us around from Terminal 1, then Terminal 3 instead of just doing a left at an intersection straight to Pasay. Basically from the usual php400-ish fare bumped up to php570. just by deliberately slowing the ride in heavy traffic.

The open-air bus terminal.

Upon arrival at the bus terminal, one must quickly secure one of these stubs where you need to wait another hour for the number to be called and get the actual ticket which costs php850 from Pasay to Batac.

Pic from Wiki.

Finally the tickets.

Bus Schedules.

Finally our bus.

Making sure our bags are placed properly.

Inside the Bus.

After slowly squeezing out of Manila traffic, the bus driver probably hit a button somewhere and hit warp speed. Thankfully it was already after Holy Week, April 12, 2015 and the highway to the province was clear. For the next few hours we watched movies non-stop. Then THE much awaited stop came in Pangasinan.

Inside the Eatery. Lots of typical Filipino Food.

Just right outside.

Other Buses going north, and some going back to Manila as well.

Another stop a few hours later... gotta run to pee.

The usual twelve hours travel was shortened to nine hours and we reached Batac at 2 a.m. for a good night's rest. The fresh provincial air is very crisp fresh especially at dawn. Very much refreshing already.

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Waking up on the same day, beach was the first thing in mind. Since Batac is not actually located by the ocean, the nearest beach is located in the next town around 15-20 mins away which is Pangil Beach in a town called Currimao.