Pagsanjan falls for tip
bamboo raft
I haven’t updated much in a while. I have been to other places around Luzon and will eventually post more on them but this article is on Pagsanjan Falls. Being 2-3 hours away from Manila this is one of the top tourist destinations in the Philippines. I would have to say that I honestly do not recommend the place and believe that traveling is all about the place and culture. My conclusion is the place is nice but the local culture is far less than desired.
As soon as we arrived “fixers” or should I say hustla’s approach you. They know your not from there they see you looking around where the bus drops you and they start following you even riding on the same jeep. They keep talking to you like you can’t read the signs to where the falls are. I told him we didn’t need his help but he still kept following. I know he was not trying to do what he was doing for free so I just pretended he wasn’t there. Man it was annoying.
It says 1000p
As soon as we go to the spot we talked to the resort owner. I asked him why the guy was following us and he really said that’s just how it is here. Wow. So we waited for the boatmen and the resort organizer guy charged us over 1000 saying we had to pay for insurance. I know the set price was 1000 so I’m pretty sure he was just trying to get money. I later found out he was a boatman as well. He did stress tipping the boatmen.
Avoid this guy
We hopped on the boat and the boatman in the front seemed pretty sketchy. He was. As we left another boat followed us asking if we wanted to buy drinks. We said no and they asked if we wanted to buy for the boatmen? Serious. They do this for a living and I’m not trying to be cheap but damn the whole trip seems like semi extortion at least of guilt.
tip me
So we went around and it was pretty nice but i couldn’t get over the fact that the boatman in the front kept crying about tip. He got paid more than minimum wage here per boat ride and he kept talking to us about tipping good service. I do believe in tipping good service but there is a reason why the government set the prices here. I read that the locals used to charge upwards 8,000p a head before forcing the government to intrude due to a drastic decrease in tourism.
As we went along the front boatman kept looking back every time it seemed like he was having a hard time. He was mind asking for tip. It was pretty annoying. The place was and is nice but the way the community is I will not go back and do not recommend this place to any travellers.
bankero 2009
Final word:
Easy to commute. Take bus from buendia to Sta Cruz. Then Jeep to Pagsanjan.
I wouldn’t recommend the place because of how they keep trying to make money out of any tourist.
ready to leave cause they rushing us
item cost
jeep 7
bus 140
jeep 7
boat 1000
insurance 50
tip 60
jeep 7
bus pj to cal 37
bk 140
bus to manila 79
naicha 49
jeep 7
total 1583
