During the Baler leg of my short Philippine break, I did something I always imagined myself doing when traveling--I rented a motorbike and drove myself around for almost two hours.


I thought it was gonna be a walk in the park. They say, after all, that an old skill will never be lost on you. Well, apparently it was. I didn't take into account that there will be other vehicles in play, people crossing the road, animals resting ON the road, sharp road curves, broken bridges that made you detour to a steep rough road path. To stop burying the lead, I lightly crashed into a mountain of gravel three minutes into driving, and had two VERY scary near-misses on sharp curves on the way back to The Circle Hostel.

To be honest, I was scared for my life and I kept swearing and shouting "Tangina! What did you get yourself into, Jen?!" However, to me that was still an achievement unlocked, considering I haven't driven a motorbike for the past 12 years. And because, you know, it was exactly as I envisioned myself doing before doing this side trip--driving by the sea, getting mesmerized by the view. I am very cheesy, #sorrynotsorry!

Note: I forgot to schedule this post! Chapter 1 and 2 can be found before the Onok Island posts. Not that anyone actually reads these. :)) 

CHAPTER 3: OMG SHE'S NOT DONE TALKING YET?

Speaking of what I do for a living...

I want to tell you about the first three job offers I got right out of college. The first one was with SMITS, the second one was with IBM, the third one was with this IT Firm in Ortigas, which name escapes me. What do they all have in common? They all offered me good programming jobs. They all also got turned down by me. Thing was, I wasn't interested in being a programmer.

Programming in college was fun for me. There was no pressure. If you made a mistake, it will only cost you your grades. But when I was a fresh graduate, thinking of programming for a living really got to me. Did I really want to slave hours and hours in front of the computer to think of logic that would make a program run? No. I was done with it! I was done with thinking on that level. I decided I wanted to go work in the infrastructure IT department. Then, HP came along with an offer to the same department, but very different career track.

I spent two years in a role that was low-paying and had no potential for career growth. Truth be told, if I was privileged enough, I would have resigned the moment I felt I had already saturated everything I could learn in that role. But I wasn't. I was living in Metro Manila independently. I had bills to pay.

Welcome to this video clip compilation where you will be seeing...just me for the entire last half!

I shot the clips using a tripod for my (failed) jumpshot stills, which I will screencap later on for Instagram purposes. It will also give you an insight on my beach kaartehan when I am alone and how I spent the first 30 minutes as mentioned in my Onok Island Itinerary entry.




Because I have learned from my mistake a few months back, I went on and finished this travel video without all the pretty wide shots of Onok Island from G's gopro. I can always go back to the old draft and re-edit when everything I need is in my hands.

That mistake being, waiting for the video clips to be sent by other people so I can finish compiling the entire thing. Two of the best travel videos I have put together so far will not see the the light of day because my work laptop crashed just before I left Manila, and the IT department was unable to recover the files. Like any grown adult would do, I ugly-cried upon hearing I have lost ALL of my files forever. *echoes foreverrr*

IT Personnel: Sorry, your HDD is already corrupted. 
Me: But it's an HDD. It's 2015! Everything can be retrieved now! Technology!!!
IT Personnel: We already tried everything. 
Me: Are you SURE you cannot do anything???
IT Personnel: It happens. 
Me: *keeping myself from crying*
IT Personnel: Accept it. 
Me: Excuse me. *walks out of the room*

(I may have dramatized this exchange for retelling purposes but something like that really happened.)

Kuala Lumpur and El Nido trips last year-- you have been wonderful and you will always be in my and my friends' memories. But not on my Vimeo page. No, you will be not. (Kriz says he was able to get the recovered files from the IT department, but when I asked him to search for the KL and El Nido drafts I have already rendered, they were not there.)

P.S. Should I go ahead and just buy my own GoPro???

Related: Road To Onok: The Nitty Gritty

Onok Island: Checked! In a perfect world, after a nap you could just go down a ladder and swim in the ridiculously clear sea.

A little over three months ago, I crossed off an item in my travel bucket list-- Onok Island. Being there was so surreal. Half the time, I couldn't believe we actually made it. (Related: Road To Onok: The Nitty Gritty) And the other half, I spent napping on a hammock in a stilt cottage perched on the beach. Easily the best nap I have ever had in this lifetime!

Onok Island is a privately owned small piece of land situated within the Balabac island municipality in Palawan. The island came out in public light when a shot of Onok by George Tapan won National Geographic's Best Photo of 2011. Since then, a lot became interested to go too, including me. This post is an attempt to give you a guide on how to get there using the same itinerary my best friend, G, and I did.

Sample Itinerary



Important: Before hauling your backpacks to Balabac, make sure to ask for permission from the owner, Mayor Astami and his family. I won't put the contact number of the tourism officer here because we had a bad experience dealing with the officer. I wouldn't want to put you in that position, if I can help it.

Edit: Contact Ate Beth instead at +639494241605. She's a newly appointed tourism officer and she's very nice. Ask her for the Mayor's permission to go to Onok.

(RELATED: Onok Island Itinerary)

The road to paradise is not always glamorous. I have always known this, but the idea kept on reinforcing itself during that trip to *Onok Island with my best friend, G.

Port of Rio Tuba. Some of the boardwalk planks felt like they would give in at any moment.

I am only posting about Onok now because I have reviewed the photos and videos from my camera just last night, for the first time! Why I waited for so long, I don't know. Maybe I just didn't want to get lost in its beauty all over again?

But this post is not meant to gush about how wonderful the road to Onok was. Because in reality it was not. It took a total of 20 hours to get to Balabac island municipality from Puerto Princesa, including the waiting time for the daily ferry from the port of Rio Tuba. And that was not it. After reaching Balabac, we had to wait until the next morning before we could take another boat ride to Onok Island.

Port of Rio Tuba: Shanties on Stilts. Photo taken from the ferry.

Politics and local corruption made it so much harder too. I didn't mind the wait and the lengthy travel time, but when we were already being conned for our money outright, I was fuming mad. This is my home province, and you are making me pay that much?! My pride (and sense of entitlement) almost had me catching the next ferry ride back to the mainland.

To reiterate what I said after that trip, I am glad I went through with it, with all of it--not just the good, but also the not so good. It was a great exercise in practicing grace under pressure. And at the end of it, I got to go home with photos and anecdotes, too.