Taking the Banaue-Manila bus took us only 8 hours, but we were pretty lucky with traffic. When reaching Manila we stormed out to check our emails. It might surprise some people that parts of the Philippines actually are connected to the internet, but one can discuss if this is a good or a bad thing. After all has the country not produced any successful internet companies, yet they gave us the "I love you"-virus. Perhaps someone better cut off their connection (just joking!).
Mindoro used to be part of a land bridge between Palawan and Luzon a long, long, very long time ago. Since then the island has had a rather boring history, the only interesting figure is probably Hiroo Onada. The latter was a Japanese soldier who did not know that WW2 had ended, so he remained on the island for 30 years. In other words he can not have been a very bright fellow, and according to rumours there should still be some Japanese fools left on the island. Yet, there is no reason to panic, this as the soldiers should be around eighty by now, and any surprise attack is not likely to scare anyone but local turtles.
One can take a bus from several different locations in Manila to reach the island of Mindoro. We took a bus from outside the Centrepoint Hotel, and it cost us a total of 600p including the ferry from Batangas to Puerto Galera (picture). The latter is the only town of some size on Mindoro, and had during at the time we were there three computers connected to the internet.
We went to Mindoro because Dougie did not have much time left in the Philippines, and Mindoro is convenient since it is located only a few hours away from Manila. The two main beaches on Mindoro are Sabang and White Beach. The first is located to the left of the harbour, and is infested by fat Germans with rented Filipina "girlfriends". We therefore went to White Beach, which is located on the eastern side.
Prices at White Beach varied from around 250p for a cabin (single) to around 500p for a double. Expect prices to have risen, this as we never discovered any prices that had actually gone down while in the Philippines.
After a couple of days in the Philippines we met SuRim Kim, a nice Korean student vacationing in the Philippines. We understood about a quarter of her English, and she probably as much of what we said, but having traveled extensively Philippines she was able to teach us a lot about the country.
On Mindoro we got exposed to the sun for the first time, and it had dire consequences. Dougie can here be seen with a stomach so red it scared away both local children and pets, and since he was not able to bear the pain he spent a couple of days doing household chores. Remembering to put on sun lotion is important, and vital if you plan to survive a couple of days. Except from reading there is next to nothing to do on Mindoro, and most of the other tourists are not of the very intellectual type. You can consider yourself lucky if you find someone able to read his or her own name, and even luckier if you find someone capable of participating in an intelligent conversation. Fortunate exceptions were SuRim and two American university professors we were lucky to meet.
Of food, the breakfast at Bueno Lynnes can be recommended. The home-made brown bread was excellent. Remember to say hi to White Beach's prettiest girl, Emily, for me. Melody, Maira and Roseline at Traveller's are much nicer though, and their food is overall the best on White Beach. Prices are about the same everywhere, this as all the owners are related in some weird way or another. The price for a massage on the beach should be 100p, not the 200p they charge most tourists. SuRim informed us on this, and because she had visited Mindoro many times before, she enabled us to save a lot of money.
Finally a picture of White Beach, and then to some reasons why you should not go to Mindoro. First of all the island is best for those who depend on prostitutes to provide daily relief, so it certainly is not an ideal place to bring kids. Additionally is the island slowly becoming overdeveloped, and several new restaurants were in the building process when we were there. The restaurant that now exists in front of Traveller's was for instance not finished at the time we visited, but should by now have managed to destroy much of the beach. All the restaurants do additionally all serve the same food at the same prices, so it is great material for business students interested in imperfect markets. Finally are the conditions for snorkelling and scuba diving very poor, so I would advice anyone with time and money to skip Mindoro and head straight for Palawan.