Philippines Travel Portal

I actually didn’t know about Sabang before going to Puerto Galera, but it turned out to actually be the most interesting place in the area. Sabang is a little town by the beach on the Island on Mindoro, just by the beach. It’s filled with dive shops, resorts, cheap hotels, gogo and billard bars as well as some discos.

Getting here is really easy, and that’s probably why this was the first Island in the Philippines I went to apart from Luzon. I just bought a ticket for a bus and boat package, think it was about 600 peso, and the bus left from in front of my hotel. I was staying in Citystate Tower Hotel in Ermita at the time, but if you don’t live there you can still just buy this package from the travel agency there. The advantage with this instead of taking a regular bus or taxi is that you don’t have to wait for the boat in Batangas, you just go directly from the bus and onto the boat.

Taking the boat there I had the choice of either going off in Puerto Galera City or in Sabang, and I chose Sabang just randomly, but I’m glad I did as the city of Puerto Galera is not too interesting, that’s merely a place to get transportation elsewhere.

Getting to Sabang I remember just walking off the boat with my backpack and wandering around the tiny streets looking for a place to stay. I found something for 1000 peso a night, and actually stayed there for about 2 weeks, but you can easily find something cheaper if you don’t care about the standart too much.

I soon found out that Sabang was really a nightlife spot, and it was during night the place really gotten alive. First thing I checked out was one of the billiard bars there called Big Apple. It’s actually a resort and a dive shop as well, but I believe the bar is what it’s most known for. It was quite a busy place, and I was just having a few beers here when some girls came over and wanted to play some billiards. Sure, why not, and we decided to bet a pizza on it.

I had heard that people in the Philippines were famous for their skills in billiards. This turned out to be true, and this girl I played with beat me quite easily. It was fun though, and after this first game of billiards I pretty much sign up to play in any bar I am in where they have a billiard table. I’ve gotten a better, but I still loose more often than not when I play against locals.

Anyways, over the pizza I got to know these girls more, and they showed me around town for the rest of the evening ending up in Hammerhead disco. At 2-3 am the place was packed with people dancing, mostly girls actually, and I was later told here is where the girls from the gogo bars go after their shift there is over. It was a fun night and I didn’t get home until sunrise.

When it comes to these gogo bars I mentioned, I checked out most of them, about 5 or 6 total. They are about the same style as in Bangkok if you’re familiar with that. That is girls dancing on a stage in shifts and those not dancing usually introducing themselves to the costumers and expect to have a drink if you keep talking with them. If you find someone you really like you can also take them out of the bar before their shift is over, as long as you pay the bar for that, which is what they call the barfine. I didn’t do that so I don’t know the prices.

During daytime there isn’t too much to do in Sabang itself. You can’t really swim at the beach in as it is tiny and pretty dirty, but you only need to take a 10 minute walk to get to two pretty nice beaches called Small La Laguna and Big La Laguna. There are also some resorts in these places, if you don’t fancy living in the middle of all the bars in Sabang. Other stuff you could do is go out diving, renting a motorbike exploring the island or maybe rent a boat and find your own private beach to hang out at.

I had a pretty good time in Sabang and the sourounding area, and for people who enjoy the combination of beach life and nightlife it’s definitely a place to go.