The Yellow Roadtrip: South Luzon Loop: NAGA CITY

D has been bugging me about this ride since forever. His argument was that he only has 2 long 'legal' vacation in a year - holy week and Christmas break. So we have to make sure that Choco Banana will see the long road. Ok! Ok! I really want to go to the beach anyway.

Unlike last year that we completed the North Luzon Loop with just the two of us. We opted to have someone join us this year. First, we wanted companion because our North Loop was kinda scary due to the occasional rains that for some reasons fell on those secluded areas. Second, we really wanna save on hotel and boat ride costs. We asked several friends to join us. You see, although we wanted companions, we still did not want it to be jam-packed 50-motorcycle ride. We just wanted a smooth ride, with no one to take care of but ourselves. Only Leo aided to our call. Not bad, we have one of the best riders in Club CB110.

So now for the planning part. Of course, I insisted beach. I will not go if there's no water to wet me after the ride. It's SUMMER shempre! Going back, of course we considered Calaguas but instantly scraped the idea because the boat ride was too pricey for just the three of us. And we were guessing that it will be full of excursionist knowing that the island is slowly gaining a good reputation. Then there's Caramoan, but like Calaguas, the cost of the boat stopped us. I suggested Paguriran Beach because there's no need for us to ride a boat. But the boys wanted Subic Beach in Matnog. I read blogs about this beach and I got really curious about its Pink Sand. So let's see.

Anyhoo, let's get back to the ride report. So, at 5am on March 28 (which was also our 3rd wedding monthsary by the way), we made our way to Jollibee J.Vargas. We were late because 5 am was the call time and we still have to eat our breakfast. Haha! Sorry Leo. Anyway, we left Pasig at around half past five in the morning.

By, six quarter we were already at Petron Famy to stretch our legs for a little bit.

We encountered a roadblock just before the clock striked seven.

D and Leo huddled to find a detour.

We reached Pagbilao at 8:30 am. Leo introduced us to a stall that sells yummy Pansit Habhab. Look at my husband eating it the right way -

This was only 10 pesos. Not bad eh?

Would you believe this little store was packed with a bunch of parokyanos? Grabe!

After that, we were given challenge by the roads of Quezon.

Others were entertaining din naman. Look at this magnificent view -

We were in Gumaca at around 10:20 and we were forced to wait under the sun due to this long traffic jam. It was really long I tell you, maybe around 3 towns long traffic. Good thing, we were just in bikes.

We stopped by a random eatery in Lopez, Quezon. I wasn't able to take before photo of our food. We were already famished at around 12nn.

Our first wet experience was still in Quezon at around 12:50. We said a rider will brave the rain no matter what.

But we have to stop. The rain was too hard for us that we might slip or something.

At 1:40pm, we were at the gates of Bicolandia. Giddy!

By around 5pm, we reached the arch of Naga -

We stayed in one of the triple AC rooms of Sampaguita Tourist Inn. We chose the older wing because it's cheaper. Look at our room, if you're not maarte like us, it's not bad -

We ate our dinner at Naga Garden Restaurant. Their food was just so-so. I found this Bicol Express, too salty. As in it destroyed my taste buds. Ok, im exaggerating. But salty talaga.

We wanted to try Toasted Siopao but it's sold out anywhere, so we tried the ever famous DJC Halo-halo instead.

I liked the texture of the ice, plus the leche flan, ube and cheese!

After the very heavy dinner, we walked in the park while munching on Lanzones. And guess who we saw - GIMO! Oohh you don't know him of course. Gimo was a former colleague from TDK. Whoa nagpulis na pala sya!