The Little Things in Batanes

Batanes, a highlight of my 2019. Other than the 360 views I couldn't seem to capture in my camera, Here's what I remember of it.

Government, together with the locals, is doing their job

The tricycles (BATODA) have a system and can be texted. Funny story, I thought it was just this one driver I was texting and as it turns out, well, it's not 🤦🏼‍♀️. Still it wasn't that hard to find him even if the only number that I have is the BATODA number. 

There's a lot of police visibility. Specially in the port of Sabtang (to and from). It can get scary that we are at a very far place that does not have a lot of people. Still I feel safe.

There's a fee you have to pay once you reach Batanes. I've read about this in the blogs. Apparently it's not in the airport and the van that took us to where we will stay (just a 5 min drive) didn't take us there first and our trycicle driver thought we already did when we started our tours. Also, it is the only place in Batanes where you can get a brochure ✨. We only found out we have to pay when we went to Sabtang. They were looking for the brochure (to stamp something I think) and called somewhere the moment they found out we were not taken there. 

Everything feels like they're in order ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Chillin animals

There's a lot of chicken! 🐓🐓🐓

This is what makes the destination great, seeing the animals live their life. Horses, carabaos, cows, goats. (This also means there's a lot of poop tho 💩)

Simple but not cheap

This is the aura that I see every time I look back to this trip. There's wifi and internet all over the place but you don't see the locals on their phone. There's not much cars or vans which I usually only see are used for tours.

I noticed an abundance of resources and yet they are not taken advantage of. ✨

Metal and paper straws

Just when you think Batanes can't get any better, you notice that most of their restos (which are usually family businesses) use metal and paper straws instead of plastic 😭

Art everywhere

I think Batanes is not targeted for their art, which they should be! (If they are I'm not aware 🙈). Murals and paintings are everywhere. Something that I didn't expect. With a great view they call their home, no wonder they turn out as great in their art. I could just imagine the inspiration they get that's just outside their door.

When I become rich and start my dream of buying art pieces, this is where I want to start.

Religion is evident

The tours are really nice. We stopped at a lot of Catholic churches. The best one was the one made of stones. The others I find we could've skipped. Also some of them has entrance fees. So for those who plans to go, specially those who aren't catholic, tell your driver to skip these. 

It was nice though to see that religion is alive in a location that's a bit isolated from the rest of the country.

There's not a lot of tourist 

If you go to Bangkok the first thing that makes it unbearable was the other tourists like you. Batanes is the opposite. I think it's their government that limits the allowed number of tourists that can go here, making it more attractive.

What I learned is you go to Batanes because it is peaceful. No lines. No traffic. No chaos. 😍

If you notice how there's no photo bombs in almost every other photo of a tourist that goes to Batanes, it wasn't a camera trick. I don't even have to wake up early to avoid other people.

Since there's only a few tourists, I noticed it was also very clean and maintained 💯! Something we hate to see every time we visit a tourist location. There wasn't any trash at the side of the road. The problem is the people.

Which is to say that the best time to go is now 📣📣📣. Now that it's expensive and trickier to get to. There's a possibility that it won't be like this one day.

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