The following day, December 24, we woke up early and prepared for the highlight of our stay—island hopping. The day was bright and from my window, I could see the blue Lingayen Gulf peppered with the green islands, popularly known as the Hundred Islands. We were going to see those islands up close.

The lodge owners were very kind; they lent us a big cooler in which we kept our prawns and other food, Lee’s cans of San Mig Light and my cans of Sprite and pineapple juice.

First, we had to go to the tourist center to register. After the registration, we were oriented not to leave any garbage at the places we would visit. They gave us two bags–one for biodegradable garbage and one for our non-biodegradable garbage.

Our boatman was a sun-kissed towering guy with bulging biceps and triceps,  obviously someone who grew up and grew old in the sea. He kindly assisted the clumsy me while I was climbing on to the boat. He gave Lee and me a vest that would keep us afloat in the event of a boat capsize.

The engine of the boat sputtered and soon, we were heading for those green islands. The boat was in full speed—and crazy me wanted to have some thrill so I insisted on going to the front part of the boat to have my picture taken. In the pictures, I was smiling for the camera but I was really scared. It was a challenge to maintain my balance.

After going around those islands, our boatman stopped at one island. It was the Governor’s Island. Lee kept on urging me to try the zipline, but I refused so many times. A year before our travel, he also traveled to this place with one young Korean guy and one Italian guy. I saw his picture while ziplining, and he remebered how hard I laughed at the expression on his face while he was up there, on a harness. I told him that when I do ziplining, I would be flashing a beauty queen’s smile and I wouldn’t be scared. He remembered my words and insults, so he kept on pushing me to be true to my words. I kept on telling him that it was too expensive. The real reason? I was having my period. It started on December 23, the day we left Baguio for Hundred Islands Pangasinan.

From Governor’s Island, we went to the nearby island–Virgin Island—by walking on the floating bridge. It was a bridge made of floatable bright orange containers attached to one another. I don’t know how they were attached to one another. Walking on it was not easy. Just a little movement would make all those floating containers move and move and move above the water, so I was (we were) walking and swaying at the same time. In order not to get dizzy, I just looked ahead and concentrated on taking one step at a time. The water down below was so crystal clear that at one stupid point, I was tempted to jump into the water. It would have been fatal. The water looked shallow because I could see the sand down below, but the water was much, much deeper than it looked.

Finally, after much struggle walking on the floating bridge, we reached Virgin Island.

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