Why Batangas? And why not Batangas? It’s just a 3 hour- drive from Manila for that quick blanking out on the sea and sky moment which I needed for a grueling and stultifying self-imposed reclusion in my dad’s house. We raced down the highway, but got slowed down by traffic along Bicutan and Alabang which we also got stuck in driving back to Manila.
a brochure-worthy picture of La Luz. you'd see more or less of such image on their website. But it's still nice, I mean La Luz is still the better resort there in Laiya.
This time we went to La Luz resort where I’ve been to 3 times already – the first time was for a friend’s wedding where she had us billeted here even though the reception was in a neighboring resort (in Balai Laiya), the second time was for a sort of “company outing” that had us packed in one of the cottages that was then still very rustically furnished with bamboo headboards, capiz lamps and nipa faux exterior walls, that contrasted with its modernly functioning toilet.
The third time I was there was more for work. I was part of the production design team of a music video (the client termed it as such so they can lower the production cost) cum TVC (but it was actually used and broadcast as a TVC so we got kinda ripped-off ) shoot for San Miguel Beer’s Sarap Magbabad summer campaign some years ago. We were there for an overnight and was driven by a truck and got stopped by the highway cops on the Star toll way twice for overloading – going there and coming back to Manila. It was an ironic set-up as there were the girls in bikinis, truckloads of beer, barbeque, bonfire, water guns and all the other props for a tropical summery beach party – but it was no party – the beer was too warm and I had to chuck out the contents of the bottle before handing them to the shoot extras or else they get drunk even before the shoot has started, one of the girls just had her period, and the rain effect was produced by two water tanks and a hose. Anyway, it was a commercial shoot. So what do you expect but all the fakeries of a fun summer. But it was fun and memorable though really tiring. The compensation we got was at least the scenery was beautiful and the expanse of space to take in the sea breeze easing out all the tension from the shoot.
So for this fourth time I really had my mind set on relishing my stay at La Luz. The road going there was still bumpy but now they have opened a parking space on a small plateau above the cottages and stationed a reception area there where we were immediately greeted by one of their blue-shirted staff and advised us to have our lunch first before we go and put our stuff in in our reserved cottage.
There were stark improvements made on the cottages – now sturdier being fully cemented but retaining some rustic touches here and there of nipa and bamboo – pointedly the on the side tables and beds that noisily creaked and whose headboards easily snapped. Their buffet spread was superb, it almost felt like a wedding reception every meal time especially the dinner spreads. Breakfast was a variation of the Pinoy silog meal plus white gardenia bread, a selection of boxed cereals and their local barako brew.
The only exception was the merienda set which consisted of basic merienda stuff such as pancit bihon, native rice cakes, fried saba, turon and sandwiches spread thinly with a mixture of sandwich spread with some bits of chicken or canned tuna to be some semblance of such sandwich.
More memorable buffet offerings were the ginisang ampalaya with shredded kani which evened out the bitterness of the ampalaya which was also crunchy dewy. The meal I enjoyed most was the dinner we had on the 2nd night where they had breaded pork cutlets, potato croquettes, some soup (they always had soup but the chicken noodle soup was bland and very procedural, like just so they have soup, like adding another period to a sentence), cucumber apple salad, steamed sea bass and penne pasta which was rather a disappointment as its sweetness was so akin to Pinoy party baked mac. The other disappointments were the chicken with tausi sauce which I found incongruously paired, and the other fried fish I had for lunch which was not as fresh as it should be as it smelled and tasted like mud.
The bar prices were a bit high, they charged 50 bucks for beer and cigarettes for 60 bucks/pack. So I settled for a double shot of gin (60 bucks) in my Tang which was rather desperate as the ice melted quickly and I was tasting plastic and helium as I neared the bottom of my plastic cup. Good thing there was a sari sari store beside the newly built wing of the resort. We got a 700ml bottle of Tanduay there since the resort only sells the whole bottle at an expected higher price after 5PM. Cigarettes were also cheaper at 40 bucks/pack, and beer was 25 bucks. We were chatted up by a Fil-Am boy who were also buying beers from the same sari sari store and told us how cheaper everything was in that store. He was with his hot girlfriend and came to the resort just by commuting. They were told that all the cottages were occupied even though obviously no one was staying at the cottages by the annex where the sari sari store was. The manang who was tending the store had an air-conditioned room in her small house behind the cottages and offered it to the couple for 2,000/night. That was way cheaper than where we were staying and we got curious to how the room looked like, but I told my companion it probably looks like your typical budget apartelle room, plus the toilets are located outside. But it’s a reasonable deal as the Fil-Am guy quipped in his thick American accent tinged with cono brashness “it’s the same ocean, it’s the same shit you’re swimming in anyway that you are really after.”
nice beach and hot foreign girls
wild foliage behind the rocks
this could be anywhere between earth and venus and mars
A manong even offered a boat ride for 800 for 3 hours and to take us to the farthest cove we’d like to go. We should’ve taken up that offer but we were a bit short on time. Next time we go back here that would definitely be the 1st thing that we’d do or opt to kayak over to the next shore and dive for the corals and sea urchins.
I thought I’ll have another Bourdain moment when I saw sea urchins ensconced in the cubby holes of the rocks near the shore on a low tide afternoon. I was tempted to pick them up and open them and eat their yummy mushy insides right then and there. But they were still the size of golf balls, not ripe enough for devouration, plus their deadly spikes made it impossible, nay illogical for them to be picked up by bare hands, and when they sting it’s seriously deadening dreadful pain. So you wait for these thorny bastards to mature to exact your revenge in slurping them with gusto.
I can understand Claude Tayag’s frenzy for harvesting sea urchins in Davao and steaming rice in their opened shells and eating them with their mushy roe. and I want to do just that, when I get to go down deep South for a change. But I’ll have mine with wasabi and a wee bit of calamansi and lots of fermented pickles.
My friend Jet who got bitten by a sea urchin has wondered why things that are on the verge of rotting are usually the most divine things to eat. Well, the fish I had for lunch was an exception it just stank rotten and flat.
It’s like a combination of death and life as the enzymes and bacteria work their way through the insides of a decomposing body and though flies breed the maggots that eat up the flesh, these maggots are actually clean, fighting out the germs as they devour and eat their way through the muck of rot.
He also theorized that mushrooms are actually spores from outer space since they only come out or suddenly sprout after a lighting storm. There’s plausibility in his hypothesis since I have encounters of mushrooms suddenly sprouting on wet toilet rags and on cows shit and on grassy knolls and on rotted wood after a storm. The friction or the combination of electricity, air and moisture spawns these weirdly-shaped out-of-this-world things that are also heavenly confections, and because they also possess a certain amount of poison that makes them an equally rare and forbidden treat. Hmm maybe those shooting stars that we saw while drinking on the shore are vessels of such weird but tasty delicacy. (pretty much like the yahoo story on how scientists have formed a hypotheses on how life was formed on earth, story here )
It’s totally hedonistic to be here as the only way to tell time is when the staff tells you or knocks on your cottage door when it’s time to eat. You wake-up, you eat, you swim and sun yourself a little and then it’s lunch already, then you head again to the beach to sleep or wait for the masseuse for your massage, have a nap, swim a bit and off you go to the dining area for merienda, then you go back to the shore again, do some exploring on the rocks, cool down with a beer, shower, and wait for dinner, and have rounds of rhum and whiskey, gaze at the stars on the velveteen night sky scratched intermittently by lightning seen from the bayou where the commercial fishing vessels were docked, and gleefully wonder what those tiny flashing luminous things were when the foam hits the shore,and cringe at the Ibiza-type muzak or the Mike Francis (or the soundtrack that played in many-a cotillions in the 80s )medley being played over the PA system while the contingent from a company outing snap pictures of themselves around the bonfire, and waddle back so alcohol soused and tranced to your cottage to sleep. That’s just about what we did, well almost. I didn’t get a massage, I was distracted with balancing my foothold on the corals and the shales and being amused like a child seeing fish and anemone and starfish on ankle-deep clear sea water. You don’t even need to scuba dive to see them all, that is if you’re content with just skimming the surface and not want to have a face to face encounter with a sturgeon which I’ve eavesdropped on the 2 divers as they were chatting soon after they rose from the water.
fishy-fishy
On the way home we followed again another truck for some tasty cheap lunch.
We were looking forward to another round of smeltingly good bulalo at the carinderia somewhere in Rosario where we had it. We were too late, the carinderia seemed to have run out of food already as only 2 huge aluminum pots were there left sitting on the makeshift counter, and it’s not yet even 1 PM.
We eyed again another truck stopping over another carinderia. This time it was just guts and real hunger that determined our choice to stop by this carinderia decorated with liquor pin ups and posters of fruit arrangements all humbly taped on their electric mint green walls. There we had bopis, a dish made from finely chopped pork lungs and heart sautéed in onions, tomatoes and bird’s-eye chillies. We both haven’t had this dish for a long time and we were lucky that this was a bopis that came up to our expectations – tender, chewy, spicy, its saltines calling for another cup of rice but we didn’t, we were not that ravenous as the truck drivers on the table next to us who also had bopis.
Despite that lunch I was still craving for Batangas lomi. Oh where in Batangas is the best to have that? We passed by several wooden shack eateries that advertised of such through the small sitios of Rosario, San Jose and Ibaan but can’t decide where to blindly have it, just have it, just to sate the craving but not wanting to be disappointed at the same time. There’s another reason to come back to Batangas then - for the best tasting lomi, and of course the beach.
That is after surviving our crashing through the white noise and zero visibility of the freak thunderstorm in the middle of the long boring star tollway on the way to Manila. No rain or thunder or lightning or traffic jam would stop us for the next adventure.
the long boring drive through the star tollway
like crashing through a storm or fumbling through a dream or caught up in a David Hamilton picture minus the prepubescent models
Tags: Batangas, batangas beach, bopis, buffet, corals, diving, fermentation, fermented food, La Luz resort, Laiya, lomi, mushrooms, San Juan, sea urchin, star gazing, uni
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