Paradise in the Pacific

The Nautical Highway

THE NAUTICAL HIGHWAY

The Philippine’s nautical highway is a roll-on-roll-off land transport system which is shortened for RoRo. The system is a combination of both land and sea transport of passengers by bus and the bus is ferried island to island until it reaches its final destination.

There are three main Nautical Highways that traverse the entire Philippine archipelago serving transit passengers going to and fro in all the island provinces. The oldest and the pioneering Nautical Highway which is otherwise called as the Maharlika Highway spans from Apari, Cagayan all the way to General Santos City or Zamboanga City in Mindanao. The highway is in the eastern seaboard of the Philippine archipelago.

The second Nautical Highway which is now nicknamed as Strong Republic Highway is in the western seaboard. The system which basically starts in Manila and ends in Mindanao has been established to promote the development of the western side of the country mostly in the field of tourism because it passes through the island of Boracay. In fact, you can reach Boracay island by bus for as low as one thousand two hundred pesos. If you travel by plane, that is only one third of a one-way ticket. And yet, before, there was no way you can reach Boracay by land transfer as an alternative to air travel. This was only possible through sea voyage overnight in twenty hours. With the Nautical Highway, the travel only consumes about seven-eight hours or less.

The middle Nautical Highway is at the central seaboard of the archipelago that begins in Manila upto Mindanao. The central Nautical Highway has less frequency of travel schedules due to a longer sea lanes in its route unlike the other two. The Maharlika Highway has the shortest sea lanes in its route with only two ferries while that of Strong Republic Highway has four ferries en route to Mindanao.

The ferries are wide-bodied vessel that transport the busses port-to-port from island-to-island. The central hub of the buses are in Manila and it spread out to the various towns and cities in the provinces. Bus travel is an enjoyable experience for it gives the traveler a chance to see the provinces in the route. When the bus is ferried in the sea, you can enjoy whale watching and flying fishes. You’ll also the experience of the various linguistics and cultures of the Filipino people. A province or two may speak different dialect each and they could only overcome language barrier through their common tongue – Pilipino, the national language and based in the Tag-alog dialect. Most Filipinos speak and understand English.

And if you look like a foreigner, chances are they will speak to you in English especially if you look like a Caucasian. Filipinos tend to identify brunes and brunettes as Americans even if you are a Russian or European. So traveling by land is always a pleasure for you!

posted by Marlet Badeo @ 11/08/2005 05:49:00 PM