Galera Galera

June 11, 2008

My cold may have something to do with this, but I was not contented about our company’s Puerto Galera (PG) outing. I had fun, on occasions. I thought some of the places we went to were great. But for a vacation, this just wasn’t revitalizing enough, as I didn’t feel my stress go away as I would when I go elsewhere. Someone I like was missing too, and… 

Well, nevermind that.

The roads were big reasons why this PG trip was tiring. If you wish to go to different places in PG, you need to take the jeep, and that means you’ll spend hours sitting inside moving vehicles (and that’s without considering the boat from Batangas to PG, and the ride from wherever you’re from to Batangas) until your buttocks are sore. Good luck enjoying the PG’s roads too, as they’re rocky and they zigzag too often, and they can easily give you motion sicknesses. Some of my coworkers grew so sick of the traveling, they puked. I didn’t, but I was dizzied for a long time.

That’s the summary. You want to read the long story? Then have some coffee with you, for this may take a while to finish.

Around 10 AM, we were at Puerto Nirvana Resort. Because we guys were so gentlemanly, we chose the rooms that were cheaper (and worse) than the ladies’. Ours resembled a cabin, and the beds were double-decked, which meant that the person at the bottom bed will be disturbed by the movement of whoever was on the top. And I was at the bottom. Great, noh? The rooms were so cramped, that I half-believed that I was on a ship complete with a captain who’d bark us orders during the morning’s wee hours. The air conditioner looked old too, and when someone turned it on, he was shocked to find a mouse scurry out of its louvers.

The resort wasn’t bad though. It had a videoke machine, a table for table tennis, a small eatery, a swimming pool barely the size of a Honda Civic, a half-court basketball court, and a half-assed billiard table with torn felts. It was adjacent to a beach too, although that beach wasn’t a top-notched one. Still, it’s always soothing to hear the surfs, and I spent long time doing just that.

Anyway, we had our team-building activities. The instructor instructed very vaguely, and his English was broken like Janina San Miguel’s. We barely knew what was happening, but the good part was that the activities made us go to Bulabod Beach and Tamarraw Falls.

Bulabod Beach was an under-populated beach. The only people there were its few inhabitants and us. There were no other guests. Although the sands were more like pebbles, nothing else about it makes it different to all other beaches. I don’t know why, but I never went to swim. All I did was lie down and play with a few beach-comber dogs. They were unusually friendly.

Tamarraw Falls is a cascading waterfall. I liked this place. We goofed around while bathing under the falls. The water was very cold and very clean.

The rest of the day was boring. Everyone went to our resort’s eatery and then got drunk. I’m an exception. I never am much of a drinker and I prefer enjoying the night doing different things, so this was the part where my Black Boy came in handy. I also played a few rounds of billiards and I didn’t do so badly at that.

The next morning’s activity was exciting. We went snorkeling! Yay! Step aside, Kanye West, this is how we use our killer mouth-breathing skills! The snorkeling lasted long, and I saw many kinds of marine creatures: starfishes, fishes of different sizes and colors, and coral reefs. So I didn’t see Lochness Monster and Kraken; still, I was spellbound with the sights of the undersea. That’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing for a longer time.

And then the time just fast forwarded like it’s nobody’s business. Nighttime came before we were even prepared for that. To enjoy our last evening at PG, some of us went to White Beach to chill out there. I decided, what the heck, I was bored with reading, so why not follow along. So I followed along.

In White Beach, there were a lot of what looks to me like outdoor bars. I wasn’t crazy about them. The last time I went to White Beach, which was in the late Nineties, it was quaint, and you can, in quiet, enjoy the sceneries of the beach. I don’t understand why people think it’s a good idea to “develop” this beach into one establishment of bars after another, and then make the whole place a gaudy convergence for lonely Caucasian singles in search of “exotic” Filipina brides. Just imagine if the same thing was done to Mt. Everest. You have people climbing to the top, so they can peacefully enjoy the panoramic view from the world’s highest peak, but then it has this bar that plays LOUD ASS TRANCE SONGS BY DJ TIESTO, as if the point of climbing a mountain that high was so that you can par-tayyyy. Anyway, I don’t give a damn about all the crap hiphop and the crap trance music these bars blast on their speakers. I don’t give a damn about drinking too (why go so far from the city doing things you can do inside the city?). And since there wasn’t anything else to do in White Beach, I hated that place.

I went back to our resort, and in my room I went. I tried to sleep, but only twisted and turned. People in the room were simply too noisy in their sleep. The person beside me snored like an elephant with a cocaine overdose. The person my feet points to talked in his sleep. And somebody from farther away also snored like the yawling of an angry chimpanzee. I couldn’t sleep! I really couldn’t! The best I could do was steal a 30-minute nap only to be awakened by an unbearably loud snoring. Before I knew it, the sky was already bright.

So the third day came, and I went home sleep deprived and with a rotten mood. And sick too.


Posted by nightdreamer at 5:57 pm | permalink

Previous Comments

At least you saw Galera. I haven’t been there. I haven’t been outside Luzon.

Posted by J at June 12, 2008, 1:35 pm

Hi again Nightdreamer. I’m so sorry you didn’t enjoy White Beach in Puerto Galera. It used to be one of my most fave beaches in the country…well, that was before we discovered Boracay (in spite its being not-so-virgin anymore), Bais Bay in Dumaguete and Moalboal in Cebu.

Anyway, I honestly don’t believe in team building or company outings for that matter. And maybe if I were there, I’d feel bad too.

Posted by Sexy Nomad at June 17, 2008, 3:57 pm

@J But you’ve been to japan so shut yer trap! ^_^

@Sexy Nomad I used to like White Beach too. When I last went there, late in the 90’s, it was quaint, low maintenance, pretty, calming and quiet.

Then it just turned to one extremely noisy and un-orderly place with loud (and bad) music blaring all over the beach, and I can’t stand it. The service of its bars is slow too.

In terms of beach that are similarly un-virgin, or commercialized, I prefer Boracay by leaps and bounds. I think Boracay is more orderly.

I’ve never been to Dumaguete. How’s that place? As for Cebu, I’m not sure if the beach I’ve gone to was Moalboal.

The team building sucked, and there wasn’t any rewards. Last year’s - which happened in Bora - was better.

Ultimately, the reason I think this year’s outing can be summed up with this: when a company try to build teams but retains a clique-mentality, then all the efforts will be for naught.

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