Tag: <span>liwliwa</span>

Date: January 3, 2023

After arriving in LiwLiwa yesterday and checking out the beach, we wondered how to spend the day today. We took a trike to San Felipe Public market, and tried to find a money exchange place that would accept Singapore dollars. Unfortunately, I learned that even though there are many Filipinos working in Singapore, in small towns across the Philippines… don’t expect money exchange centers to accept a wide a variety of foreign currency. US dollars are still your safest bet.

Santo Tomas sand river Zambales Philippines — The Santo Tomas river of sand

Fortunately I managed to find a money exchange place in the neighbouring town of San Narciso that would accept Singapore dollars and converted some in exchange for Philippines pesos.

Breathing a sigh of relief, we had an early lunch now that I had enough cash in hand.

Lunch pasta sisig Zambales — Cafe de Verde was the name of the restaurant but the food was quite forgettable. Mediocre at best. All this came to ₱590 (₹876/$10/€9.7)

We sat at the restaurant to do some work as the mobile internet in LiwLiwa beach wasn’t always reliable.

San Narciso Zambales Philippines — After we left the restaurant, we walked around San Narciso

San Sebastian Parish church Zambales — San Sebastian Parish church

Old house San Narciso Zambales — An old wooden house that’s now open to visitors

There wasn’t much else to do in this town, so we took a bus back to San Felipe.

Continue reading “Philippines: Strolling around San Felipe town; visiting Subic Bay” »

Date: January 2, 2023

After mostly mall-hopping in Manila, just after the New Year, we decided to take a break and head out somewhere. I had looked for beach destinations in Luzon itself and that’s when my girlfriend suggested LiwLiwa beach in Zambales province. The town/village we would need to get to was San Felipe and we would have to take a bus from a company called Victory Liner to get there.

So we took a taxi to Victory Liner’s Cubao terminal, in Quezon City.

Victory Liner Cubao terminal ticket counter — Although we did get to the terminal by 8:30am or so, unfortunately the tickets for the 9AM bus to Iba were already sold out

So we only got tickets for the 11AM bus. Tickets to San Felipe cost ₱484 (₹726/$8/€8) for one. We booked our stay at Cafe de Liwa which offers a few cottages as well. The owners recommended getting down at San Felipe Public Market. So Victory Liner buses going to Iba or Sta. Cruz are both good. See this route map (orange is Zambales line) to get a better idea.

We sat at the terminal and I used the wait time to get some work done on my laptop.

Inside Victory Liner bus Cubao Manila — We boarded our bus by 10:45 in the morning

The bus left on time and the journey would take us around 3 and 1/2 hours. Watch the video at the end of this post which features clips from our bus journey.

Philippines arena sports stadium Manila — We drove past the Philippines Arena and Sport Stadium

Philippines Arena is where a lot of major concerts now take place. Now I know why Filipino K-pop fans complain whenever events are held at Philippines Arena — it’s so far from the city!

Continue reading “Philippines: Getting to Liwliwa Beach, Manila to San Felipe (Zambales) by bus” »