The deserted Talaudyong beach
Back in the UK I grew up listening to Radio One and then as I got older and the DJ's moved on to Radio 2. Here in the Philippines I listen to RJ FM which plays music from the 60's, 70's and 80's, the era in which I grew up. RJ stands for Ramón Pereyra Jacinto who is a 78 year old Filipino businessman, musician and radio TV personality. He previously served as Undersecretary for Government Digital Broadcast Television and the Digitization of the Entertainment Industry Sector in Department of Information and Communications Technology. As we are in the BER Months ( NovemBER as I write this) we also get a lot of Christmas music from Jose Marie Chan. One of their slogans, when advertising their live shows in Manila is something like "Get out of the house and live life"
The picturesque Golden Hour Cafe
After a few days of rain I decided to follow their slogan and after I fed Chester we headed off to Golden Hour Cafe ( about an hours drive north of Puerto). There I had a great breakfast of bacon, scrambled egg, toast, butter marmalade, black coffee and a big bottle of cold service water. One of the things I love about the Philippines is all restaurants offer free cold water with your meal . Chester loves lying in the sun and exploring the plants and the place is always full of Bikers and cyclists, as it opens at 6 am.
Chester resting between our two walks
From there we headed off to Pakpak-Lauin Day Tour Destination where I paid my 80 peso Senior Citizen admission and we parked the car next to the beach.
I took a photo of the other prices for the site if you want to go for a day with the family and take a picnic and hire a cottage/ Tadtad or beach hut:
You can read more about my previous visit to the beach ( in the winter when the sea was rougher and there was a lot more seaweed- which Chester loved rolling in and needed a shower after!) in this earlier blogs:
Our first trip when we went to the wrong place and had to carry Chester over the bridge to the beach!
https://thebritishkabayan.blogspot.com/2023/09/tbk-travels-to-tala-beach-resort.html
Our second trip when I let Chester off the lead and he rolled in the seaweed and did not want to go back on the lead!
https://thebritishkabayan.blogspot.com/2023/09/tbk-travels-to-tala-beach-resort.html
This time Chester and I walked to one end of the beach ( past Tala resort) and back. I kept him on the lead! I put on some OFF lotion to keep the sand flies away and some sun tan lotion on my face. Having learnt my lesson from being badly bitten before I always carry it in the car now!
Before I got sunburnt!
Chester then had some water and we walked to the other end of the beach and back. That took our total steps over our 5000 target for the day.
Our steps for the day
Its about a 1 hr 10 minute drive ( 38 km ) on good roads ( be careful once you leave the highway as the road narrows and is bendy with hills and animals often wandering free or just lying in the road, and it gets a bit twisty with steep hills as you near the beach).
Chester loves exploring all the smells in the sand, trying to chase crabs and all the stray dogs, and paddling and did a little swimming in the sea. One time we came here I let him off the lead and he would not some back after he ran off with some other dogs, so now I will not let him off the lead!
You can see one of Chester's previous trips to Tala Beach in the Vlog below. That was our first visit and we stopped off too early and had to walk down steps and over a wonky bridge ( which Chester did not like). The place only had toilets and everything else was closed ( It was the low season back in Match) so we walked along the beach to Tala. On my subsequent visits I avoided the first turn off after the road down to Nagtabon beach and kept following the signs to Tala beach. Then we turned off just before Tala at Pakpak-Lauin Day Tour Destination. From there it's a short walk to Tala. They have beach beds etc but I think it is more expensive!
They had obviously been busy at the weekend ( a long holiday here for the election and All Souls day and All Saints day) as they had all the chairs stacked up and were busy cutting the grass, sweeping the leaves up etc. The place is always very well looked after and as usual, I was the only customer there. We had the whole beach to ourselves as the only people we saw were working in buildings at the far end of the beach. The water was so calm and clear and it was warm and sunny . Hard to believe we are at the end of the first week in November and Christmas is less than 50 days away.
Chester got very excited when he saw a stray dog
As I walked on the beach I remembered Mike saying he really enjoyed staying at Victoria Beach house at Alimanguan and listening to the waves crashing on the beach. It was so quiet as we walked at Talaudyong that was all we heard. It is such a pleasant change from all the noise of barking dogs, cockerels crowing, aircraft taking off and trikes and motorbikes and cars starting up or turning around outside my house .
After a couple of hours walking ( over 5000 steps) Chester and I were both tired so we headed back to the car and drove back stopping again at Golden Hour Cafe for lunch. This time we had home made vanilla ice cream ( Chester licked the containers clean!) chicken alfredo with garlic bread and cold pink lemonade ( and another bottle of water which Chester lapped up from the plastic lemonade container ( once I had drunk it all!)
On the way there Chester had been excitedly running from side to side in the back of the car and sticking his head out of the window. By the time we reached the cafe he was barking excitedly, likewise when we reached the beach. On the way back he fell asleep, exhausted, on the back seat!
We stopped at the Supermarket on the way back for lemonade, washing powder and conditioner and dog food for the next week ( and of course his favourite treats for being a good boy). Once we had unpacked we went to the bedroom ( air conditioned!) for a nap until Chester's tea time at 4 pm ( and I had some peanut butter and Turkish Orange marmalade). The joys of being retired. After that I decided to write this blog while it was fresh in my mind and then do the washing up, put the washing on and make my dinner ( reheating some chicken curry that I made earlier in the week!)
Tomorrow Joven is back after 8 days away ( he went back home over the holiday to see his family and friends in El Nido) so he will do all the ironing, change my bed and give the car a much needed clean inside ( covered in dog hairs and sand) and out. I will cook breakfast ( we usually have sausage egg and bacon when Joven is here- got to keep the poor student fed) and then I will go to the ATM and get some shopping while he looks after Chester ( too hot to leave him in the car for long) . Then I will cook our lunch and also a meal from Frythy and Noel who will be here on Thursday and who had to order food from Jolibee at the weekend when they cleaned for 4 hours over 2 days as I did not have any spare food! This week they will sweep and mop, clean the 3 CR ( Toilet /shower rooms) and do the washing up and polishing.
Friday we will walk at Baywalk where they are getting ready for the Ironman competition on Sunday.
So we had a thoroughly enjoyable day out , got some exercise, did not have to cook or wash up, saw some more of Palawan, breathed the sea air , and had some lovely meals ( the staff at Golden Hour Cafe are very friendly, Chester is made welcome there and the food is quickly and freshly prepared and cheap). I can thoroughly recommend it. Below is the map of how to get there. It's about a 40 minute 26 km drive from Puerto , all on the National Highway. However when I left home around 730 am everyone was going to school, work , university so the early part in the city was quite congested.
The next day it poured with rain so I stayed at home and caught up on emails, renewing my SRRV etc and did some shopping and cooking. With the unpredictability of the weather here its best to get out and enjoy when the sun shines!
On Friday the sun was back out so we went for a walk at Baywalk and did some more cooking ready for the weekend.
Have a great weekend , wherever you are, and if you were thinking of lazing around at home I suggest you "Get out of the house and live life!"
Hello, I am The British Kabayan! Feel free to read my stories.
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