1. Take the 300 steps from Dakak Park beach resort.

A spectacular view is sure to reward you after taking the 300 steps.

A compound dedicated to Jose Rizal can be found here.

source: dapitancity.gov.ph

Created by Jose Rizal, the map is located across Saint James church.

This church is where our national hero goes to every Sunday

With it’s mall-like structure, this is the ‘gimmick‘ area of Dapitan. There are stores and restaurants here.

St James church, 2nd floor

How to go to Dapitan

Cebu Pacific and Philippine airlines has regular flights from Manila going to Dipolog. From Dipolog you may take a van/jeep to go to Dapitan. Price ranges from P1900 to P2400 (one-way, non-promo fare).

In our case our itinerary was Dumaguete airport, then Dakak, then Dapitan.

How to go to St James Church

Coming From Rizal Shrine in Dapitan, the four of us hired a tricycle to take us to St James Church, cost is P28.00

What to See – Tourist Spots in Dapitan

By the time we arrived at St James church, the front doors were locked. We thought that the church was closed as it was Friday when we  came there, but thanks to my snooping skills I was able to find the open door at the side of the church.

St James church where Rizal used to go to

St James church was said to be the church that Jose Rizal used to go to when he was exiled in Dapitan during the 1800′s. The church was built in 1871 for Dapitan’s patron saint, St James. Its built is a typical baroque style church which is common with churches here in the Philippines.

One distinct feature of the church is its massive beautifully decorated ceiling. Its checkered ceiling design would make anyone entering the church look to the sky. And its blue and cream color combination is easy on the eyes.

Inside the church we also went on the second floor. Theres no ‘No entering’ sign so I figured we can go in . The only part of the church where people arent allowed is the bell tower itself

On the second floor, we found an old looking organ. We were also able to see the church from its top view.

More pictures of St James here:

(click on the picture to view the album)

Replica of Rizal's house

How to go there

Prior to our trip in Dapitan, we stayed in Dakak first. We took Dakak’s van service to drop us off at Dapitan. In Dapitan, we stayed at Villa Pillar Pension house, where we took a trike to get us to Rizal Shrine, which costs P28.00

What to See

As part of our itinerary in Dapitan, we(4 pax) head off to Rizal shrine, where the famous hero was exiled back in 18 hundreds.

Replica of one of Rizal's house in Dapitan

Rizal shrine is a big compound where replica’s of Rizal’s house in Dapitan can be found. Volunteers (mostly dressed in white) takes care of the compound, guarding the replicas of Rizal’s house along with its surroundings.

kathangisip gang at the replica of Rizal's main house in Dapitan

It also features a naturally heart-shaped rock called ‘Mi Retiro’ rock where Rizal was said to have written his poems: “Mi Retiro” and “Himno a Talisay.”

Inside Rizal shrine is a museum dedicated to the national hero. Here you’ll find pictures of the hero and his family, along with his personal belongings. It also contains artworks made by other artists dedicated to Jose Rizal.

Where to stay – Hotels in Dapitan

Coming from Dakak, we asked the Dakak crew to drop us off at Dapitan where we found Villa Pillar Pension house just in front of Dapitan’s main road: Sunset Boulevard. We took the 2-twin-sized bed room, good for 4 people which costs P950.00 There are no hot and cold shower in this room, and only a 14-inch television set is part of the amenities.

Contact Details of Villa Pillar Pension house
Contact Person : The Management of Villa Pilar Pension
Address : Sunset Boulevard, Dapitan City
Tel. No. : +(63) (65) 213 6579
Number of Rooms : 13 rooms
Classification : Pension House

source:http://dapitan.com/dapitanhotels2AA.htm

Villa Pillar Pension house is conveniently located near Gloria de Dapitan, and just in front of Dapitan bay, and Sunset Boulevard.

Other Notes

A donation box is located inside the museum.

More pictures of Rizal Shrine here:

(click on the picture to view the album)

Top view of Dakak beach resort

Next day, we asked some crew how to get there. There were lots of orchids along the area. We walked a bit further and finally found the stairs. We’re not sure if it’s our age or gravity that’s mocking us. We were tired and out of breath when we got there. But the view was fantastic. There was a little islet on one side. On the other side, there’s Dakak, and “another resort”. We never find out if what we saw was really a resort. But it was beautiful just the same. At that point, we agreed that we would not do the Dipolog’s, “walk the 3000 steps and get a good view” tourist spot. We were satisfied at our 300-steps expedition and we found a good view anyway.

With that bit of hiking, we were tired (are we getting old for such stuff??) and decided to have an early lunch. It was our first taste of fine dining (during this tour) and spent P1219. We ordered chicken and pork adobo, baked oyster, pinakbet, fried rice and buko juice. Btw, we make it a point to eat at least one very satisfying meal either to boost up our energy in the morning; or as a reward after a full-day tour in the evening. Frankly speaking, the food wasn’t worth our P1219. The serving wasn’t meant for sharing, and I think we ordered pork ‘fat’ and chicken adobo since there wasn’t any meat at all. Anyway, Dakak was decent enough to change all those fat to meat when we asked them to replace it.

We checked out and our Dakak tour was finally over. We asked our van to drop us somewhere where we could find a hotel. We ended up at Villa Pillar Pensionne at Sunset Blvd. The room was cheap, clean, and spacious enough so we didn’t look for another hotel. A room for 4ppl only costs P900/night. Armed with our maps and printed itinerary, we got out of the hotel and started our tour.

Rizal house replica

Instead of our usual “hire-a local-mode of transpo and ask driver to tour you all over the place” method, we decided to commute directly to the tourist spot so that we would just pay the normal fare. The tourist spots of Dapitan were few anyway. We saved a lot that day because of that. We started at the Rizal shrine. This was the infamous site where Rizal was exiled. The place doesn’t look anything like a prison cell at all. Rizal even taught children and cure patients in his “cell”. Unfortunately, only replicas of the Rizal house, kitchen, clinic, etc could be found. I haven’t checked the history yet and I don’t know when the original structures were destroyed. The Rizal shrine was well-maintained, thanks to the faithful Rizalistas who constantly clean the area. The Rizalista women wore white dresses so outsiders might find it a bit eccentric.

St. james church

Next we went to the Mindanao relief map made by Rizal. We were a bit disappointed when we learned that the “map” was simply some grass and cement shaped like Mindanao. We haven’t taken any picture of it. We then headed to St. James church which was built in 1871. It was different and beautiful. The ceiling looked like strawberry-striped candies. It was different from old churches I’ve been. We looked at our itinerary and found that there’s not much to do in Dapitan. Since it was still early (around 3pm I guess), we took a 30minutes-van ride to Dipolog city.

We looked like lost little girls in the Dipolog terminal. As usual, barkers surrounded us and asked where were going. We have hardly any idea where we’re going. We knew a cave in Dipolog (Libuton), and said we would like to go there. The barkers have no idea how to get there as well. In the end, a police told us to go to the tourism office in the city hall.

In the city hall, we learned that Sungkilaw falls, Situbo falls and Libuton cave were worth touring. We asked for directions on how to get there and learned that the 3 sites were far from each other. We decided that we’ll take Libuton first and if we have time, we could go to Sungkilaw falls before going to our next destination: Dumaguete City. The tourism officer gave us a leaflet of the lifestyle travel agency and said that we can contact them if we would like to tour Libuton. We asked if we could get there first and ask for local guides to accompany us in the caves. They’re not sure if that’s possible. We thought that since Libuton cave is a tourist spot, locals may be probably well-equipped to tour backpackers like us….. and so we thought we’ll do that….. (horror-movie theme playing in the background…hehehe…) [Our adventurous and “mentos moment” trip to Libuton cave on next post….]

Dipolog Cathedral

So we’re off and walked to Dipolog Cathedral which was built in 1896. It was said that Jose Rizal designed the main altar. I’m not sure if he designed the church itself. But before going to the church, we went to buy pasalubong in Zaragoza’s which is near the city hall. We bought some bagoong there. Afterwards, we took a tricycle and went to Montaño’s. Unfortunatey, their Spanish sardines were out of stock, so we bought their other products, which were also good.

Dipolog sunset

After that, we asked our tricycle driver to take us to the Sunset boulevard. The sand and the little crabs were black, but the sea was clean. The sunset boulevard is the “clean” version of Manila’s baywalk. Our timing was right. We’re just in time for the sunset…and it was beautiful. After some tambay-moments, we went to the barbeque stalls in the area for dinner. The rice is called a “puso”, perhaps because it was wrapped like a suman, and was supposedly shaped like a heart… I’m not sure. We ate our dinner compsed of “puso”, tiny barbecued longganisa and other barbecued products. The food tasted good, and it was cheap too. ?

After a hearty meal, we wanted a good dessert. We saw some blogs where a mocha frappe was a specialty in the Good times café, so we went there. We were surprised that the Good times café was not a restaurant at all. It was like Enigmata of Camiguin, a structure inspired by arts. The place was a mini-gallery of art works, and there was no Mocha frappe at all. We were disappointed that we haven’t tasted the Mocha frappe. It was about 8pm, so we headed back to Dapitan. Btw, our timing was right. We were able to get the promo fare where vans heading to Dapitan costs only P10/person.

Banana Split at Gloria de Dapitan

Our day doesn’t end there. Since we were unable to have dessert, we walked to Gloria de Dapitan (just outside our hotel), and checked the stores and amusement park. We ate banana split, before we finally went back to our hotel. Our looooong day, and this looooong blog is finally over.

Places of interest for the day:
Dapitan:
-    Dakak’s 300 steps
-    Rizal Shrine
-    Mindanao relief map
-    St. James church
-    Gloria de Dapitan

Dipolog:
-    Sunset Boulevard (and their bbq stalls)
-    Dipolog cathedral
-    Montaño’s
-    Zaragoza
-    Good times café

Tips:
-    For Dapitan tourist who wants to go to Dakak, you can hire  vans and habal-habals in the Rizal shrine
-    When going to Dapitan to Dipolog (or vice versa), vans are faster than buses. They cost a little more, but it’s worth it
-    There are “promo fares” for Dapitan-Dipolog vans and buses. They are usually offered at night.

Expense breakdown for Day 2:

More pics here:

Dakak Beach Resort

On our MNL-DPL leg, our flight was delayed. Instead of leaving at 1045am, we managed to flew at around 1pm. Our original plan of eating at Dakak was spoiled. Instead, we eat at one of the food bars at NAIA terminal 3. There’s not much to do here so we just window-shop and fool around to kill those down time. It’s good that we planned touring Dakak on or first day, so we have plenty of spare time for mishaps like this. There were a lot of people complaining at the Cebpac crews… but hey, what can they do? Poor crews! Instead of complaining we joked around and asked if there were any free lunch.hehe.., too bad, there wasn’t.

Tip: Check in your tripods since Cebpac personnel will force you to check that in anyway.

When we arrived at the Dipolog airport, we were greeted by crews of the Dakak beach resort. They even hung orchid-necklaces to each of us. Other crews asked us for our bag tags and get our checked-in bags for us. We weren’t used to being welcomed like this…hehe During our last trip, I even carry a huge box while trying to run away from some haggling CDO taxi drivers. Hehehe

Using their van, we headed to Dakak. We ended up in the back row since we took some pictures of the airport and we wanted to make sure that none of our bags were missed out. When we arrived at the resort, we were given welcome drinks. The drinks were simply Tang multi-flavored juice, but it’s a great thirst-quencher anyways.

Our room was situated away from the pool and the beach. I think all rooms were designed like this. The room looked like a modern “bahay-kubo”. It was made of nipa and cement, and was spacious enough for 4 people. There was also a mini-living room inside, and veranda overlooking Dakak fields. We fought the urge to sleep and tour Dakak.

There weren’t much to do here. I think this resort is created for family and couple vacations. The ambiance is soooooo relaxing that we were on the verge of boredom. There are many water sports activities; however, they’re expensive, so we didn’t try them out.

View of Dakak from the Globe tower

Anyway, the sights were great so we ended up picture-taking before taking a dip at the beach. Even the beach was sooooo calm, there wasn’t a wave at all. At night, we tried the bowling and billiards for P30 each. Fun, at last! Hehehe. We were unable to use the free videoke machine since it closes at 11pm.

Things to do in Dakak:
-    banana boat ride
-    kayak, jet skis and such stuff
-    swim (pool and beach)
-    use the spinning Jacuzzi (upto 6pm only ? )
-    play bowling
-    play billiards
-    sing your hearts out using the videoke machine
-    relax/sleep
-    enjoy the sights
-    dine
-    annoy the doves and frogs abundant in the area. hehehe

Here is our expense breakdown for day 1:

Fast facts we learned while in Dakak:
-    Pres. GMA were supposed to visit DAKAK day after we checked-in
-    Dakak is owned by Romeo Jalosjos
-    Dakak is short for “the cock”. Dipolog and Dapitan are well-known for cockfighting

Other articles about Dakak:

Dakak Park Beach Resort, as seen from the commercial