Trip to the Hundred Islands National Park!!
Magandang hapon guys!!!
This post will be about my experience going to the Hundred Islands National Park in Alaminos, Pangasinan. It was such a wonderful experience! The place was so BEAUTIFUL I even still can’t believe that I went there LOL. So, without further ado, let’s go back in time.
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On Friday evening, September 6th, we already expected that the next day we will be having some interesting things to do, because on the schedule of activities that shown on the Opening Ceremony a week ago, we will be having either cultural exposure or campus activities every Saturdays. So, we got very excited whenever it’s near to Saturday LOL
In the evening of that day, we got some information that we will be going to the Hundred Islands on the next day. AAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!! THAT’S AMAZING LOL. But then they said that we have to prepare our things on Friday night because we’ll be departing VERY early—4am in the morning—on Saturday. Pretty wild yeah? Haha.
So, we did prepare our things. I brought some spare clothes because we might get wet there. I’ve read on the internet that the Hundred Islands National Park is one of the most famous tourism spot in the Philippines! And based on the pictures, it looked a lot like Raja Ampat in Papua, Indonesia, but I’m not really sure because I’ve never been to Raja Ampat before haha.
On Saturday, we woke up SUPER early—like, 3am in the morning—and took turn taking a bath. The campus officials said that they will fetch the other students from other campuses like PSU Bayambang Campus and San Carlos Campus, before arriving in Lingayen and departing to Alaminos. We waited and waited. Earlier they said that we’ll be departing at 4am to avoid the traffic. But the bus arrived so late. At last, we finally departed to Alaminos at 5am or 6am (I forgot haha).
On our way to the National Park, we stopped in the center of Alaminos City to buy some breakfast because we hadn’t eaten yet (they told us to prepare super early but the bus came late haha). I bought some food in McDonald’s there and change my USD to PHP because I was running out of Pesos LOL. Then we continued our trip for one hour—give or take a few minutes—then we arrived at the National Park!
Well, it wasn’t really the ‘park’—it was just a harbor for the boats going to the small islands. There were a lot of souvenir sellers there, it got super crowded near our bus and I got confused LOL. Some of the sellers even approached me, trying to bribe me with discounts but I said, “Sorry mam, maybe I’ll buy it after I came back from the boat trip.” Then they all went away with that, haha.
Then, we all gathered in one place to count how many we are. After that, we’ve been told that we have to pay about 130PHP each if we want to go to the small islands by boats. I mean, 130PHP sounded very cheap compared to the price they listed on the internet for the trip around the islands. So I said, “Why not? TAKE MY MONEY.” HAHAHAHAHA
And guess what, it rains. Like, why on Earth is it always raining in the Philippines? Maybe it was the season, I had no idea LOL. But even though the rain was pouring, we were still going to the small islands. At first I was kinda afraid because... it’s raining and we’re going to cross a freaking ocean! I have a fear of a wide and deep body of water, that’s so blue that I cannot see the bottom. But bismillah, I hope we’ll be okay.
And guess what, it rains. Like, why on Earth is it always raining in the Philippines? Maybe it was the season, I had no idea LOL. But even though the rain was pouring, we were still going to the small islands. At first I was kinda afraid because... it’s raining and we’re going to cross a freaking ocean! I have a fear of a wide and deep body of water, that’s so blue that I cannot see the bottom. But bismillah, I hope we’ll be okay.
WE FREAKIN CROSSED THE OCEAN GUYS!!! It was me and 7 of my friends and 2 campus officials in a boat. The boat wasn’t very big, and we have like 3 big people there so we have to sit on the opposite side of each other to balance the boat. Kinda funny but scary at the same time haha. We all wore our life jackets—that assured me, a bit LOL.
Because it was raining, we literally cannot see anything more than 5 meters in front of us (I’M JOKING IT’S NOT THAT BAD LOL). At first all we see was an open ocean. It was pretty calm, no big wave or anything. Just rain... a lot of rain. Then after several minutes of seeing nothing except water, we started seeing some islands!
AND BOY, SUCH BEAUTIFUL SCENERY!!! The islands are quite small with a lot of trees on top of them. The islands shape kinda reminded me of a mushroom—or an umbrella. Because the part of the islands that touched the sea water kinda eroded away because of the waves. SO COOL I JUST WOW-ED ALONG THE WAY HAHA.
Then, we stopped at one small island called “The Governor Island”. Such a unique name, I don’t really know why they named the island like that. But the name made me wanna be the Governor of Alaminos (or Pangasinan, I don’t really know—my bad) so I can get one of the islands to myself LOL. After taking some pictures of the beach there, we went uphill because they said that the scenery is amazing up there—we can see the rest of the islands from the top.
It was tempting. But when I knew that there will be hundreds of stairs, I hesitated because this boy rarely does exercise HAHAHAHAHA. But I did go up with two of my Indonesian friends. And oh we all complaining when we’re going to the top—we kept saying that we’re about to die LOL. But thank God I didn’t die and we REACHED the top!! YEAY!!
“HOLY COW, THIS IS AMAZING!!!” I shouted when I saw the beautiful scenery at the top. We could see a lot of other islands from there. I spotted a statue, a statue of Jesus that looked very similar to the same statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But it was quite far away because it looked pretty small from where we stand. We took a lot of pictures there. And by the way, I forgot to tell you. It’s still raining so the pictures we took—we all super wet there HAHAHA.
Then we continued or journey to another island. On our way, our boat and other boats kinda had a race LOL. It was fun, we were shouting at each other, laughing and pointing at each other haha. Then after several minutes, we arrived on an island called Woody Island.
The Woody Island is more crowded than any other islands because I saw quite a lot of people there. I mean, not A LOT—decent amount of people. Maybe because it’s raining, I don’t know. After registering and doing some official stuff (we didn’t do that, the campus officials done that), we went to the bungalows on top of a small hill on the island. There, we had a lunch. We ate Chicken Adobo, made by sir Mike—one of the campus officials and our field coordinator. It was very good! Even though I found the taste is quite salty—maybe a lot of sea water got into the Adobo haha. But really, it was super delicious.
Did I tell you that I wasn’t feeling really well that day? Well, now you know LOL. After eating, we went down to the beach. But being in the rain all day made me feel dizzy and very cold. So I didn’t do much there—only sitting with my friend’s wet jacket (which wasn’t really helping with the cold at all) and trembling. It was still raining and the wind was super strong and super cold. But I don’t want it to destroy this once in a lifetime experience.
We’re about to go to the island where the Jesus statue is, but it got cancelled because it was too much. The rain and wind really affected us so they decided it was enough. I kinda felt grateful because I couldn’t take it anymore, but sad that we couldn’t explore another island. Maybe this is a clue from the Universe that we might visit this place again in the future to complete the experience—when it’s not raining for sure LOL.
After several minutes on the ocean, we arrived at the harbor. Then, we went to change our clothes. I took my time cleaning myself and changed into my dry clothes. Then, when waiting for my friends who were changing too, a couple of souvenir sellers came to me and it got wild.
Did you remember the seller that bribed me with discounts when I first got to the harbor? I said that I’m going to buy her stuff after I got back from the islands. I was about to buy her stuff, but the other seller offer me a better deal, 200PHP for 3 packs of keychains and a pack of magnets. I was tempted to buy the other seller’s stuff because it was cheaper. Then they all argued in Filipino. It got pretty messy, but no fighting though—thank God. I was confused, whose stuff I’ll buy?
I promised to buy this sellers stuff since the first time I got to the National Park. But the other seller offered me better deal. It’s confusing and I didn’t want to break anyone’s heart LOL. But then the seller that I promised offered 3 packs of keychains and a pack of magnets for 200PHP. The same as the other seller. I took that. Then they all argued—I didn’t understand what they’re saying! I felt like I didn’t want to be a part of this, then I slowly back away to the bus. Haha...
After that, everyone got in the bus and we had an hour trip going back to our campuses. The first thing I did when we got back to our dorm is sleeping—duh. It was very tiring, and I still felt kinda dizzy, but it’s getting better. Then I drifted to sleep.
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THAT’S ALL, Y’ALL!!! Fun wasn’t it? LOL. I hope you can enjoy my experience going to the Hundred Islands National Park through this post—and even feel like you’re part of it. Haha. So, I’ll be writing more of my experiences in Pangasinan, Philippines. See you on the next posts!!!
