Thread opener for La Union province.

La Union is about 170 miles north of Metro Manila. There is no highway north of Tarlac so your trip is going to take 8 hours from Manila and about 5-6 from Angeles in a private car. These are all single lane in each direction roads that are filled with slow moving buses, trikes, pedestrians, and bicycles. It is fast, slow down, fast, slow down, fast, slow down all the way there.

The province is home to a former US military installation called Wallace Air Station. There is surfing at San Juan a little bit north of San Fernando City. There are several resorts in Bauang south of San Fernando City. This is also where a small western oriented nightclub/Go-Go scene is located.

There is also a small Pinoy oriented scene of videoke shacks along Pennsylvania avenue near Airport road at a place called Poro Junction. Some of these places have bold (meaning nude) shows. They are generally western friendly and safe for foreigners to visit without an issue. If you are expecting cold beer or air conditioning in these places you will be disappointed.

I will populate the coming threads with some information about the hotels in the area, the western oriented nightclub/Go-Go bars, and the local videoke shacks.

This is great, Xenono! A thread on a new destination.

Thanks for being a CH pioneer!

Excellent info!

Looking forward for the details and good luck on your scouting mission!

i had included a section on la union in my PI trip report back in 08. that was the trip where i made the biggest blunder in CH history - paid twice the going rate in AC. i just checked that trip report and see some of the same guys commenting here.

BD - after my AC blunder you said i should change my name from 'buick' to 'mercedes'. i think i was shellshocked at the time and never responded. i like that comment. the good news is because i drove a buick, i was able to absorb the overpayment situation. if i had a mercedes, i probably could not have afforded the trip at all !! but that is great humor, i like it.

concarne - in that report, you asked about the girls compared to AC and i never saw that question until now. i thought the ladies were better in la union than AC. i really can't enjoy looking at 100 ugly girls in order to find one good one. i'd rather look at 10 and find 1. i just get sick when i see 100 uglies. obviously far fewer in number but i'm picky and i found a few in la union w/o a problem. and i just viewed some photos that my friend took in la union. he got some quality gals (see below for more background). maybe i can get him to send me the photos.

a friend of mine from HK married a gal from la union. he built a super mansion up on a hill just south of the city. at least 10,000 SF. he moved there permanently about three years ago. when i went in 08 the house was almost finished but no furniture, no pool, etc.... he just had his 50th bday party and 30-40 people went. so i saw some photos of the ladies from a guy that did go.

i didn't go for two main reasons (i) i'm not a big fan of the PI and (ii) it is a tough journey to get to la union (the road is the worst i've ever seen). i was planning to go if i could fly from mnl to san fernando (the airport right next to sunset bay hotel) but the flights were halted two months prior to the event. they also stopped flights to baguio. so you had to drive, most flew into CRK via HKG and drove about 4 hrs. that road is one lane each way but they tend to go 3 wide in each direction. buses on the far left, then cars kind of straddle the road and the dirt, and then trikes ride in the dirt. so you can be six wide on a two lane road.

i see that xenono has provided some trip times. i think it is more like 6 hrs from mnl and 4 from AC/CRK. my friend that lives there drives to mnl a couple times a month, usually stopping for the night in AC. maybe xenono hit a bad traffic day.

most of the guys stayed at china sea. i'll ask around and see if i can get more info on hotels/ bars to build the data base xenono has started.

i don't really like mnl or ac but i would go to la union again if i could fly in.

San Fernando Airport is currently only a general aviation airport. There are no commercial airlines currently serving it. (I actually didn't know commercial airlines once served it.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Fernando_Airport_(Philippines)

I had my driver pick me up at the Wild Orchid at 7am. We were on the road by 7:05am and arrived just before 1 so a little less than 5 hours. (And he drove like a total maniac the entire way there.) I imagine the bus would take much longer.

Overall I would say the talent in La Union was NOT significantly better than Angeles. And most of the foreigner oriented Go Go bars were void of both customers and ladies. (With the exception being Cheerleaders.)

I would say on my trip the talent in both the Go Gos and the Poro Junction videoke shacks was only fair at best.

X - have you been on road worse than that one ?

my buddy drove like a maniac also, using the horn every 2-3 minutes to alert people that he would be passing on the right then the next time he'd pass on the left, etc.. etc... and he wasn't the only one driving that way, it was crazy. i swore i'd never do that drive again. i was told that there is a new highway(s) under construction that will improve the trip time from AC (cut it by an hour or so). who knows when that will be done.

the airport was not open for commercial planes for very long. it was closed to all planes when i was there in 08 as they were 'improving' it (new runway was part of it). i think that project took two years. i'm pretty sure they 'improved' the airport so that it could accept commercial flights and generate some tourism. but the planes still had to land by sight and often had to return to mnl as they couldn't see well enough to land. so they spent a bunch of time and money on the improvement and then the whole plan went by the wayside. i had checked an airline website back in early sept 2011 for a nov 2011 flight and they had them. but by early oct 2011 commercial flights were halted.

Xen,

It sounds as if the punting is not all that. But perphas good enough to keep bed warm for a couple of days? Sounds like talent was at least as good...numbers lacking however?

How is the beach, surfing, fishing?

I just need more options to escape AC other than Subic. A few days somewhere more scenic is always welcome.

I will be coming in more regularly for work and I want options...options...lol

TIA

i spent 10 days in la union in late april/early may. stayed at my friend's place detailed in this thread. here are some items that might be of interest:

getting there: they have a new toll road (since my trip in 08) coming out of AC which really cuts the drive time. i think it was called TLEX. we left AC at noon and i was in la union by 2:30pm.

golf course: 700/1000 weekday/weekend for 9 holes (may expand to 18 at some point). 250 caddie fee. course is next to casino, i think they call it thunderbird.

girls: best bet is poro point. 1000 s/t and 1500 l/t. there are several bars on each side of street, hard to miss them.

disco: place called grandma's, also at poro point (aka poro junction).

there are a bunch of expats in the area. many are part of a pool league. mix of old and young guys. most of the young guys are still working but they work abroad on jobs that last a month or two at a time (miners, divers, etc..).

if you love the PI, not a bad place to retire.

Buick,

any comments on the quality and number of the babes?

my best estimate on the number of girls at the poro junction is 80-100. there are 8-10 bars with roughly 10 girls each. one good thing is the bars aren't filled with old hags. the bad news is many of the young ladies had the dreaded baby belly. for me 'quality' would be a decent looking face w/o a baby belly. maybe 1 out of 10 for that and you might have to get there early to catch it.

one gal i liked, had baby belly but really nice face so i bought her a drink and chatted a bit. she didn't seem all that excited so i took a pass. stopped by another night and talked with a different girl at same bar and found out this initial girl only goes with korean guys.

i'd stick with AC for a monger trip but if someone is serious about retiring on the cheap, la union could be a decent spot. most of the guys there used facebook to conduct their business with the local ladies, one might call them non-pros. but of course i would call them super pro. they don't work in the bars but have regular customers anyway.

the san juan area has a couple decent beaches.

a blurb on the pool league (some of the resort names have changed, this is from 2007)

The La Union Pool League was originally formed by a few resort owners in about 1989, the idea was to give visitors of their respective resorts a chance to visit other resorts in the area and meet new people.

Free transport was laid on by the resorts for their visitors to travel to other resorts on the ‘Beach area’ to give them a chance on Thursday afternoons for a general social gathering, play a game of pool and have a few beers and snacks.

A number of resorts have been involved over the years namely; Sunset Bay, Seamens, Cabana, Coconut Grove, Southern Palms, Ocean Paradise, Ocean Deep, Green Light, Ocean Breeze, ‘The Sportsman’s (now VFW) Bali Hai, The Hideaway, Galaxy, Ellen's, DJ Body Shop, Seabreaze, Three Balls & Mc Grity's, Nalinac and Finnegans.

Because the idea was successful it was thought that a pool league should be formed hence ‘La-union Pool League’ was born.

The League is generously funded by the participating resorts and Bars

In recent years the following teams have played in La Union Pool League, matches are played each Thursday at 1.00pm at the selected resorts.

to get oriented on the town/venue layout, you can google 'jd's (formerly green light)' and 'granda three san fernando city'. this will bring up maps on wikimapia.org. JD's place is toward the southern end of the town and grandmas is at the poro junction.

on the grandma map, the poro junction bars with the women are to the west of the road running north/south. both sides of the street (street name is pennsylvania).

a good intro might be this:

tues afternoon - go to JD's place for a few beers and confirm your intel with some of the guys there.

wed afternoon - cheerleaders has a 'wild on wednesdays' party. flat fee of 500p for all you can drink and a decent dinner. i think it goes from 4-7. you need to get there near the start time as they don't allow new entrys at some point (not sure why). they do a raffle and you'll likely win a couple free lady drinks. the girls do a special nude show that day.

thurs afternoon - stop by the pool league game to get an idea of the characters in the area.

and of course swing through poro junction every night.

I'm heading over to la union/san juan in a couple weeks as a potential place to call home for a while. Not that I mind life in AC too much, but I like being near the surf and it's a great community as well to live.