Tabuk

Tinglayan to Tabuk

The road from Tinglayan to Tabuk must be one of the dustiest roads in the Philippines. It goes through some nice canyons but your camera will get covered with dust if you take it out of the case. It is also hard to get a steady shot because of all the bouncing around.

One bus a day and a few jeepneys make the trip. If you are leaving from Tinglayan the bus will pass through town between 11 and 12am.

They stop for a lunch break at the Good Samaritan Hotel but be alert if you are staying at the Sleeping Beauty because you will have to flag the bus down because it is not a scheduled stop.

Most of the men passengers climbed out the door and got on the roof when it got real dusty. This was easy to do because the door fell off when we hit bump in the road.

The driver and conductors wore bandanas over their mouths as did most of the passengers.

We stopped at a few streams to fill our water bottles and freshen up. It was weird but that dust really got in your eyes and it became rather annoying.

We stopped at a few streams to fill our water bottles and freshen up.

The original plan was to go to the caves in Tuguegarao but the boys in Tabuk told me that the caves had been vandalized over the years and not that great anymore. My girl was ready to head back to town because she had been suffering from no signal on her cell phone for almost a week in Tinglayan and was in withdrawal so we decided to jump on the bus to Manila.

Tabuk is a spread out low key town with a small market and main street. There is a small internet cafe in the 2nd floor of the Mahseypahn Hotel.

The rooms start at 300 peso and there is a 3 hour short time rate which is fairly common in the Philippines. The four computer terminals are usually full with customers chatting on yahoo.

We spent one night in Tabuk at the Mahagony Hotel. (650 peso including air con and cable tv.) The food was ok and I stocked up on oranges and apples from the market. The food stall near the local bus station served up a mean plate of fried potatoes. Check out time is 12 noon but for 200 peso the management allowed us to stay till 5pm.

When you arrive in town you will pass the Autobus terminal (3 buses) and the jeepney station. (Jeepneys to Tuguegarau 60 peso) The Mahogany is right across from the Autobus terminal which is handy if you want to catch the bus to Manila or one of the jeepneys for local trips. Tabuk doesn’t seem to get very many tourists but it is a great place to get back to Manila without having to backtrack to Bontoc or Banaue.

Autobus
4:30pm to Baguio 502 peso
5:00pm to Manila 508 peso
5:30pm to Manila 590 peso delux

I was ready for delux and sprung for the 590 fare. 12 hours later we were in Cubao in Manila.

Tabuk