Northeast Samar by motorcycle
If you like riding trails in the bukid, this is the place for you.
Not many people venture into northeast Samar because it just takes too much work. Even locals give it a pass during the rainy season. The area between Rawis and Arteche gets soaked during the rainy season – so be prepared to make alterations to your plan.
It had been raining for three weeks straight when my friend Joni and I decided to circle Samar Island by motorbike. He has a cave guiding business in Catbalogan Samar (Trexplore) and it had been slow due to all the rain so we decided to do a little exploring by road.
He does have an extensive knowledge about Samar and the caves in particular. We don’t mind camping and roughing it a bit and so were in our element.
We took a tent along but it wasn’t necessary. There is a great new hotel in Gamay that looks so out of place that it’s a dream.
We ferried the bike across 3 rivers and didn’t run into any serious problems. The area gets a lot of bad press because it is said to be NPA controlled (New Peoples Army) but the people there were very kind to us. They actually got a good laugh out of a white guy riding a habal-habal in the bukid.
We did travel late into the night but this might not be a good idea for most.
Enjoy the pictures and post comments or questions below if you want to.
I will try to be of help with an answer or will refer it to Joni. Trexplore is his one man guide service located upstairs in the Abesamis building near the Petron and Jolibee in Catbalogan.
Mud trails in Samar
Climbing Mount Apo
General Santos
Growing Orchids
Judy's Resto Bar
Logging with Motorcycles
Mount Mayon
Balabac Island
Biri Island
Calbiga Cave
Capul Island
Mangrove Swamp Palawan
Mikes's Resort
Graet pics, we also did this trip with 2 bikes back in 2006, reconised many pics. really enjoyed it, lucky had next to no rain, also no problems at all.
maybe stayed same hotel in Gamay, seem to remember we came across a beautiful little english style pub with some rooms to rent somewhere in the north east. Really surprised and so happy to find it.
Intend to do another samar trip in couple of months,probably take the central road from wright to nato and back to the beautiful town of guiuan. After a few days head up the west coast (dp advises road now ok) allen and over to my favourite provance Sorsogon.
Hi Bruce,
My apologies for a very late reply…have been relocating from Samar to Leyte and then I got side tracked looking for whalesharks in Sogod Bay for 3 days.
priorities – website comes way behind whalesharks!
I really appreciate the info that you are providing
Here is a link that Lindsay sent me – about an English style pub in Palapag, Northern Samar
Cobadonga Inn in Palapag, Northern Samar
link
http://cobadonga-inn.com/
cheers
dp
Sorry to see the state of the road in Arteche,Eastern Samar. I used to have a roommate from that town way back in the 90′s and he told me of the road condition going to their town. Well, i just read about the $241M+ grant by the Millenium Challenge Corp. a Washington D.C. based funding agency(to be carried out by USAID if i’m right) for the development of roads in SAMAR(that’s good news) but bad news for the NPA’s for sure, because this will spur progress in the lives of people in the area.
Hello..at that time you passing to my place from Rawis,Palapag,Mapanas,Gamay and Lapinig road its not good.But please try again this time its diffirent now, improvement and some conctre road. So please visit again and take some images picture on the road and upload here..thank you.