Leyte Vacation (Galaxy S21 Ultra)

Here's some more pictures from our Leyte vacation. All photos here are taken using my Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.

We took a lot of photos using this really awesome smartphone. The phone is lighter than my DSLR and it's water and dust resistant meaning it can take more pictures especially on water.

The photos here are not edited, they're just cropped and I added watermarks. My impressions on the photos are that they look so good that I think they're not real. They're too vibrant and sometimes unnatural. That's because the photos are in HDR and the phone have that AI image processing (and sharpening, I think?) stuff happening.

By the way I have another post about our Leyte vacation where the photos are taken using my Canon 7D.

This is the view from Hulyana's restaurant. Yeah again, this view reminds me of the Windows XP wallpaper.

This is the day we went to Dinagat Island. The motorized boat ride takes approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes to arrive to our destination. It's raining a bit and it's windy on the first hour of the trip and I'm glad that the weather cleared up in the 2nd hour of the trip.

We've finally arrived at Dinagat Island. This place is located at Mindanao, Philippines. The view is so nice here. We stayed at Jelmar's resort the whole day.

We found some fishes and other aquatic life here, like this starfish.

After staying overnight at Jelmar's resort, we went on an island hopping trip.

Our first stop is the island rock formations. Again these rock formations looks amazing. It's like a view from another planet because of the terrain.

There are lots of writings on the rock formations meaning a lot of people went here, but luckily, we have the place for ourselves.

After taking a swim and taking photos we went on our next destination.

We arrived on a place where Lake Bababu is located.

Lake Bababu is featured is some travel and magazine TV shows.

The lake is pretty difficult to reach, we had to trek and climb the mountain to reach it. It's 500m climb and 500m descent so it's around 1km from the beach to reach the lake. What makes it difficult is that the Typhoon Odette toppled some trees and loosened some rocks/boulders, creating roadblocks and obstacles on the way. Good thing that there are ropes to grabbed on for better footing.

We're almost near the lake. That photo, while it looks near, we still have to descend from the mountain for around 300m.

Finally we're here. It's really peaceful here, all you can hear is the birds and insects.

There's a raft here and we can go to the middle of the lake by using the rope that's tied from here to the other side of the lake.

This is what some called "secret lake" because you have to trek and climb the mountain to reach it. There are no other people here except a few locals and our guide. Leaving trash here is prohibited because this place must be kept preserved and clean.

The water is green. It's clean and it feels heavy when you swim, probably because this is not saltwater. By the way this lake is deep.

After going to the lake, we went to swim on the beach and take some more photos and here I got stung on a knee by a Jellyfish. Luckily it's just a small jellyfish and the kind of not poisonous. But the feeling is painful it's on a scale of 7/10, it felt like a "thousand needles" or "putting hot chili on an open wound" on my knee. We just poured some vinegar to my knee and I'm fine.

We arrived on another beach, this place have a small cave to check out.

It's a normal 5 minute walk from the beach to reach the cave.

This is an underwater cave. It's small like a private pool.

The water is really deep so I left my phone before going for a swim inside the cave. The underwater cave looks amazing and the water is cold and felt good on my jellyfish sting.

Our last stop at Dinagat Island is the Blue Lagoon.

It's a lagoon with a white sand beach. The water is shallow so we can kinda go walk far to the center without having to swim.

The place is so nice and like the other beaches we went to, the water is clean and clear. There are lots of crabs here. After spending time here we went back to Leyte.

There are fewer trees here because my GF's hometown got struck by Typhoon Odette last year. Luckily their house is fine.

It's been months and now the rocks, fallen trees and other debris on the roads have been cleared.

This is the beach near my GF's house. It took 5 minutes walking to reach the beach. It's not white sand but it looks nice and the water is clean and clear. On low tides you can pick up some clams. I found a lot of small crabs, hermit crabs and flounders here.

My skin got darker because the beach is easy to access. We swam a lot here even if it's raining, sunny, morning or night.

After a few days, we went to Mainit Hot Spring. The word "mainit" is "hot" in English, so the name is redundant if you translate the name of the place.

The place have a small creek where the stream splits in to two. The other side is hot while the other is cold. The hot area is where you find the sulfur. Those rocks are covered with sulfur, which is good for the skin if you rub it on your body. It kinda smells like a rotten egg though.

We haven't traveled to other places after that. We spent our remaining days in Leyte to enjoy the fiesta and go to parties (disco).

We went back to Manila after 10 days of really fun and memorable vacation in Leyte.

The place is nice. People know each other and I felt a sense of community there because in Manila, most people don't care about you.

Our flight got delayed a bit but we got to enjoy this view while the sun is setting.

This is the San Juanico Bridge when viewed from the sky. The bridge is really bright. This is the longest bridge in the Philippines.

This is a nice view it's already night on the surface but in the sky, it's still dusk.

We finally arrived in Manila. It took around 1 hour and 30 minutes to go to Manila from Tacloban, Leyte. I already missed the place while were flying. We plan to go back as soon as possible. I hope you guys enjoyed this blog and the photos posted here.

Cheers!