We started our journey at 9am and hit the EDSA (thankfully no traffic) and traveled through the towns of Santa Rosa City, Calamba & Los Banos before reaching our destination. Travelling through these towns was just as interesting as the falls itself, and it reminded me just how lucky I was to live where I live.
When we got to our destination we popped on some life jackets and a hard hat (this will make sense later) and the three of us jumped in a canoe with our 2 'drivers'. These guys work so incredibly hard - they canoe you upstream and through some small rapids to your destination. At times they use their legs to push along rocks to get you through the rapids and up the stream, its really amazing. I was told that the men work together their whole working lives, they do not swap canoe partners. This is because they work so well in sync together and they are completely thrown off when they have to work with someone else.
After about 30 minutes of going up stream you reach a half way point - it is a bit of a tourist trap. The second you are out of your canoe a man came up and offered us some BBQ chicken and soft drinks to buy - we weren't hungry and when you say no they then say 'what about lunch for your drivers'?. These guys work SO incredibly hard so we were more than happy to buy them lunch (It cost about PHP280 which works out to be about AUD7) There is a smaller waterfall here, and the guys at the pit stop were onto us straight away 'we'll take a group photo for you' of course once he takes the photos he asks for a little tip. We gave him PHP50 which is like AUD1.25 - he seemed happy and thankful for that.
After our hard working drivers ate their lunch we jumped back on board for the second half of our journey to the falls. They worked ten times harder on this part - pushing us up rapids and through some tight squeezes with rocks.
After about an hour of going up the rapids we reached our destination: Pagsanjan Falls. It was an awesome cascading falls at the bottom of a valley. It was quite busy here (lots of other canoes arriving as we got there)
We were ushered up some stairs/rocks where you reach the pool the falls meets and jump on the bamboo raft for the fun part.
A brave (or crazy) man pulls you along by rope underneath the powerful falls - where the locals say you get a free back massage. To me it was more a beating than a massage. The pressure from the water as you go underneath the falls is intense - you really do feel the full force of it. Behind the falls is a small cave where you can jump off the bamboo raft and have a swim around if you like.We didnt get too much time here as only me and friend were brave enough to jump off the raft and have a swim around - i don't think everyone on board our raft was confident swimming maybe ??
After our waterfall adventure we jumped back on board the canoe and back down the falls we went. The journey home was alot quicker going in the direction of the falls made it alot easier for our drivers.
When we reached our starting point we gave our drivers PHP300 per person tip (there was 3 of us to we gave them PHP900 in total) Our tour guide said this is the average to give them for their work. Honestly I wanted to give them alot more as they work so hard the whole time.
We had a great day out of Manila - the locals were all lovely to us and the falls was a beautiful site to see. I would highly recommend the day trip for those in the city - its a great escape to the 'wild'
Jacsxx
