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Travels --> Pagsanjan Falls Pagsanjan Falls Pagsanjan Falls is a famous tourist destination in the Philippines. My Lonely Planet travel guide states that the final scene of Apocolypse Now was filmed there. The area is about a five hour drive from Subic and we made it there in remarkably good time despite the fact that "All Saints Day," November 1st (a national holiday), was the very same day we headed out for the Falls. The terrain from Subic all the way through south of Manila is characterized by mountains and hilly ranges. As soon as we got southeast of Manila, though, the area turned into mountain plateaus, with coconut tree plantations streching as far as you can see. It was refreshing to see such a change in scenery, it gave me the feeling that I was now really in the tropics! Once we got near the falls, the terrain once again picked up the mountainous landscape that so characterizes this geologically active area of the world. We had heard that the major attraction of Pagsanjan was a boat trip up a river gorge to see a mulititude of waterfalls cascading down the gorge walls. After making it upstream and seeing all the falls, things supposedly would get really exciting as you shoot through the rapids on the way back downstream. After arriving in the town of Pagsanjan, we were nearly mobbed by a group of middle-aged men when we stopped at an intersection. They all apparently were boatmen and they all were holding postcards of the Pansagjan waterfalls and incessantly kept asking if we wanted to go see the falls. When I asked "How much?" their only reply was "Entrance ticket only 30 Pesos (less that 1 U.S. dollar)!" "Ah, but how much for the boat ride?" I replied. Again, "Entrance ticket only 30 Pesos!" was all they would say. Of course, after you paid the entrance ticket, they'd stick you with a boat rental fee and a boatman's fee as soon as you were out in the middle of the river! My friends and I decided to drive around and check out what the average price for a boat ride was before we handed over any "entrance fee." As we pulled away from the intersection, the group of men started running after us, postcards in hand, waving for us to come back. After driving around for a while, we finally came across a place that stated that they were the offical Philippine Tourism Department accredited operation. We initally balked at the fourteen U.S. dollar price per person but we fortunately met a very nice gentleman who was taking his family on a boat trip too and just happened to know the operator of this particular place. He managed to get the price down to around ten U.S. dollars per person. It started raining a bit during the middle of our boat ride but we would have gotten wet from the splashing of the river anyhow. The rapids weren't as big as I imagined them to be, but it was an adventurous, exciting experience nonetheless! A Boat Ride! Here I am in a boat with my co-worker, Jasmine. These little boats are not the most stable of crafts so every time you shifted your butt, the boat rocked wildly! I'm amazed at how the two boatmen kept us afloat amid all the downsweep of the current that was to come. We're off! With the water level close to being even to the edge of the boat and a boatman paddling in the front and one in the back, we headed off upstream. The water was murky brown because it was raining in this area recently and the rushing water disturbed the silt and sediment. Notice the chopped off end of the boat ahead of us. When water gets into the boat (which invariably happens) the boatman uses his hand to push the water out the back. The first rapids. When I first saw this, I thought that these guys were crazy to be paddling UPSTREAM. How can you lug a boat with two people inside up rapids? Granted, this didn't qualify as nasty whitewater rapids, but I figured that it would take a fair bit of exertion if not darn impossible to get up a series of these turbulent points in the river. Remarkably, our boatmen got out of the boat, and hugging the bank, managed to push, pull, and paddle our boat past this, and other, even more daunting, points in the river. A waterfall! Here is a small waterfall streaming down from the sheer walls of the river gorge. The length of the river has a plethora of these waterfalls, some merely trickles of water while others are raging columns of white foam and spray driving down into the earth. Another boat working its way up the rapids. Along rocky portions of the river such as this, metal bars have been laid flat in the water, perpendicular to the flow of the river so that the boatmen can slide the boats on top of the bars instead of on the rough, jagged rocks. Some poor suckers who decided to pay a little more than one U.S. dollar extra per head to get soaked by that waterfall in the background. Second thoughts but beyond the point of no return! After the falls and considerably wetter. Our boatmen, Jerry and Ting. These two guys were very polite and courteous to us during our boat ride. They said that recently things have been tough economically due to a lack of tourists and the competition from the other two-thousand plus boatmen in the local area who vie to take tourists up the river. According to them, the official price for a boat ride is around 14 U.S. dollars. After taking out the cost of the boat rental and government taxes, they each take home approximately 4.40 U.S. dollars. I then asked how many trips they get to make in a day. They said that during good times, you can make two trips a day, but recently you'd be lucky if you get two trips in a week. Now, I don't know if they were softening me up for a big juicy tip, but they seemed honest and sincere enough. Here we are going back to our starting point. The water was too high and the rapids too rough to go further upstream. Our guides told us that the months from January through June were the best time to come and that the inner most portions (and more spectacular falls) could be reached.