on travel

Recently, I have been exposed to the joys of travelling. I don't know, but I just like the feeling of travelling long hours and being several miles away from where I usually am. So right now, what we've been doing in the office is listing down places we'd like to visit.

Here's what's on my list (in no particular order):
1. Bohol
2. Mayon Volcano/Bicol
3. Pinatubo
4. Palawan
5. Pagudpud/Ilocos
6. Boracay
7. Mt. Apo
8. Spratlys
9. Batanes
10. Pagsanjan Falls
11. Mt. Makulot
12. Pico del Oro
13. Mt. Binukbok

I'm not yet writing destinations outside of the country because I can't afford them yet. Maybe in the future, I'll have a list of foreign destinations. But for now, these places will do. I'll be crossing out items from this list when I get to them. I'll be adding other destinations as well.
Hopefully, before I die, I have all items in this list crossed out. I also do hope that I don't die when all items are crossed out.

taal volcano trip

There are several aspects of our journey to taal volcano I would like to include in this blog entry. These include our misconceptions about the volcano, a personal account of my experience going to the top of the volcano to see the crater, a post-mortem analysis of the trip to analyze what we should have done prior to the trip, and of course, thoughts about my UWA 10-22mm lens which I used exclusively to document this event.

But before we go into those aspects, I would like to outline how this trip became possible. This is specially for the benefit of those who want to see the volcano crater themselves.

1. Travel by land to Talisay, Batangas. Actually according to the Internet, you only need to travel to any town by the lake side.
2. Look for a boat. For our case, we employed the boats of Taal Yacht Club. A boat for six costs 1500 PHP.
3. After the ride, you'll probably be already in the island. You just have to walk a couple of hours to see the crater! Or you can also hire a horse if you have plenty of cash. A horse costs approx. 500 PHP.

Here's a view from the point where the crater is visible.