WITH summer well under way, it was going to be another long, hot weekend in the city. Wanting to escape the heat of the city, I decided to pack my beach gear and head off to the beaches of Laiya in the coastal town of San Juan in Batangas. For company, I brought along my son Jandy, and my good friend Melissa Tinonas, along with her daughter Almira. The 120-kilometer, early-morning drive, via North Luzon Expressway and Star Tollway (where I took the Ibaan Exit), still took over three hours, despite bypassing the traffic-laden cities of Lipa and Tanauan. We arrived in Laiya by lunchtime. Laiya’s beautiful, creamy white-sand beaches, though not as fine (it’s actually coarse) or as white as the beaches of the more popular Boracay, is still given the moniker by many people as the “Boracay of Luzon.” The 7 kilometer-long stretch of sandy beach, with its warm, azure and clear waters along Sibayan Bay, is backdropped by a majestic view of the conspicuous, 677 meter-high Mount Daguldol, San Juan’s highest peak.
A series of 16 to 17 beach resorts form part of the Laiya beach-resort chain. They include Acuatico Beach Resort, Balai sa Laiya Resort, Blue Coral Beach Resort, Kabayan Beach Resort, Laiya Coco Grove, Laiya White Cove, La Luz Beach Resort, Moonlight Beach Resort, One Laiya, Palm Beach Resort, Sabangan Beach Resort, Taramindu Beach Garden Inn and Virgin Resort. To ensure that Laiya develops properly, the resort owners and operators have banded together to form the Association of Laiya Resort Owners. They make sure its member-resorts follow standards for hotel operations, service and environmental sustainability. No loud noise or music is allowed after 10 pm. There are a lot of beach activities to be experienced here. Aside from swimming, there’s beach volleyball, banana boating, sea kayaking, jetskiing, biking, snorkeling, pedal boating, speed boating, fly fishing and even zumba. Come dusk, you can watch the sun set along the horizon and, come dawn, watch fishermen haul in their catch. At one end of the beach, across La Luz Beach Resort, are beautiful rock formations. The beach in Barangay Hugom is also the starting point for climbing Mount Daguldol. Guides can be secured from the Hugom Environmental Guides Association.
As with many other Batangas towns, San Juan is a treasure trove of architectural heritage. The Church of Saint John Nepomucene, built in 1894, has a pseudo-Baroque façade with a square bell tower (built between 1928 and 1935). Beside it, housed in the convent, is Ang Museo Ni San Juan Nepomuceno. The town also has number of ancestral houses that, with their quiet, conservative charm, combine Art Deco with the classic lines of Art Nouveau and even elaborate Rococo features. These Colonial America-influenced stately mansions include the Custodio Ona (formerly the Trivino-Magtibay) Ancestral House and the Sebastian Trivino Ancestral House, both Calle Mayor (General Luna Provincial Road), and the Aguedo Mercado Ancestral House near the market. Other ancestral houses have been converted, through adaptive reuse, into a coffee shop (Cafeno), a mansion owned by the Lecaroz-Marasigan family, and a hotel/restaurant (Old San Juan Hotel & Restaurant).
On the way back to Manila, we passed by lots of stalls along the highway in Barangay Palahanan I and II, selling cheap pots available in various sizes, shapes, colors, styles and designs. A cottage industry of the town, clay is taken from the mud of the creeks in faraway Barangay Libato, grounded into clay, then molded via an electric pot molder (which churns 80 pots per hour) in numerous small factories run by local residents. When the molded clay takes shape, it is then polished for an even finish, then dried in the open air.