Motorbike to Calapan Oriental Mindoro
Calapan is the capital of Oriental Mindoro and a medium sized city with about 120,000 people living there. The reason I had to go there was to get to an ATM machine, as they didn’t have any in Sabang or Puerto Galera city the time I was there. I’ve heard they’ve gotten an ATM in Sabang now though, maybe someone can confirm this?
Anyways, I rented a motorbike from the same guy I’d rented from several times before for 500 peso. This was after staying about 2 weeks in Puerto Galera. I believe 500 peso a day is the standard rate most places in the Philippines.
The trip there took much longer time than expected and the road was really bumpy in some places. I was driving there together with an English guy and we’d planned to spend like one and a half hours to get there, but ended up spending twice as much. This was partly cause of the really bumby roads and party cause of the girl on the back of my bike being afraid of driving too fast.
It was still a fun ride there though, the road taking us far up in the mountains giving us a beautifull view. We also
stopped in the middle of the trip to take a swim in a waterfall, which was kinda cold but really nice and refreshing.
There is not really much to see in Calapan city, and almost no tourists go there apart from just daytrips to get money from the ATM. Not many do even that, as it’s faster to just take a boat from Puerto Galera over to Batangas than it is to drive all this way to Calapan.
San Vicente Central is the major commercial and financial district, so this is probably the area you want to check out if you have some time to spend in Calapan. Here you’ll find some hotels, shopping malls, smaller stores and lots of restaurants. You’ll also find ATMs here, and that’s why we went here. We also had a quick meal at Jollibee before going back.
The trip back took even longer as it was getting dark, and the lights on my motorbike were not working too well. It was really awesome just sitting down at a bar in Sabang with a cold San Miguel beer after finally getting back though, and it was a fun trip too, even though a little stressfull.
