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Sept Cascades Tamarind Falls in Mauritius

Cliff jumping in Mauritius

Only the day before I had witnessed a purely South Indian festival of Thai Poosam in the exotic island called Mauritius. I was exhausted after the festival and later driving round the island with some friends.

When I woke up next morning I was as fresh and energetic as ever. I was poring over the map to look for some off beat places when I spotted Sept Cascade. Literal meaning is 7 waterfalls. It sounded interesting. I checked with hotel reception. One of the guys had not seen or heard of it; the other one said no point going there since it is not been raining. The falls are beautiful only during and after rains.

Well I had already made up my mind. Asked him how to get around using the local bus and got some tips. He said rarely do tourists want to go to there and that too in a local bus.
I smiled “This one does!”. 😀

sept cascade @lemonicks.com

Do you see 3 levels of ponds? There are 7 of them.

Not really a

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Hiking to Tappiya falls

It was monsoon season when Vasu and I had landed in Batad in Ifugao province of Philippines.
Batad, as we all know, is a UNESCO Heritage place in Philippines and its claim to fame is its many hectares of tall rice terraces; all of them hand built over thousand years back and their descendants still farming here!

During monsoon reaching Batad itself is very difficult with only one trip of Jeepney per day on a muddy one lane road on mountains. Invariably it gets stuck in the mud with no one in sight except its passengers. I won’t go in details as how we reached our guesthouse down in the valley. 😀

rice terrace @lemonicks.com

View from our window. Yes, in spite of incessant rains we crossed and went to the other side. 😀

The view

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How to go to Pagsanjan Falls

This post is an outcome of those queries asking me for directions & tips to visit Pagsanjan falls, pronounced as Pag-san-nyan.
You can also watch a video of the falls to feel how pleasant is the journey.

I give here comprehensive driving directions and tips to visit Pagsanjan town from Manila. You can do the round trip the same day. It is not too complicated really.

rowing to Pagsanjan @lemonicks.com

Some people under the waterfall.

1. Start early, not because

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Facts & tips about Pagsanjan Waterfall trip

Read here about the trip experience.
1) Pagsanjan is pronounced as Pag-san-nyan.
2) The name of the river is Magdapio.
3) The stretch is of 6 KMs before we reach the falls. First 4KMs are done by a motorized canoe and then the boatmen (they are called banceros) take over and paddle the canoe against the powerful flow.
4) There are at least 10 sets of rapids in last 2 KMs.

rowing to Pagsanjan @lemonicks.com

Some people under the waterfall.

5) There are around 980 boats with

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Rowing to Pagsanjan Waterfall is fun

I must say rowing to Pagsanjan (pronounced as Pag-san-nyan) waterfalls at Laguna bay was much more fun than standing under it. Here is my take.
– – – – – – –
“Gentleman first, please” I almost lost my control on those steps to the river. Till now I had always heard “Ladies first” and it has been well programmed into my system so when I heard these words while going down to sit on the boat, it took me off guard.
Okay, I let V to be the guinea pig this time. I adjusted my life jacket and helmet, consoled myself without arguing with the two boatmen. Oh wait ! Gone are the days of wooden boats; it was a locally built fiberglass canoe.

They helped us take our seats on the narrow canoe with me sitting almost on V’s lap and before I realized, our canoe was attached to a motorized canoe which appeared from nowhere. It already had some boats as its wagging tail and then we also became a part. The ‘engine’ canoe pulled us and two more boats got attached along the way. And so our boat train ‘chugged’ forward. 😀
Why motorized canoe? We were going upstream and the flow was strong. We were told the whole stretch was around 6 KMs. The river is not very wide and looked like a canal to me.

rowing to Pagsanjan @lemonicks.com

Can you see how relaxed our boatman is? One motorized canoe was pulling all the boats.

The atmosphere was very

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