Few months ago my cousin who works abroad and my travel buddy during summer asked me to join the summerfrolic party in Mindanao. I've been raving about this annual party in Dahican beach because of its good reviews from my fellow bloggers in Mindanao. It's been awhile since I last attended this kind of party. It's not about sign of aging! Let me correct that, I just have a lot of priorities now that I'm married.Defensive! hahaha.
Dahican beach is the surfing capital in Davao Oriental. The place itself offers a lot of activities and beautiful views. Plus the road going to Mati is just so breath taking. Mati City is just 2-3 hours away by private car from Davao City proper and 5 hours by bus and less than 5 hours by van ( I will be sharing more details below ). We hired a van a month before and reserved a local house for very obvious reason, convenience. I was with my wife and my boy so I have to make sure that everything is ready and they will feel comfort while travelling.
We left Davao almost 11am, dropped by in Sm Lanang to buy sunblock and whatnot then off our way to Mati. We arrived in Mati City proper around 3pm. FYI Davao City implements 60 kilometers per hour so ETA are just ETA ( estimated time of arrival ). On our way, we saw this famous tourist spot, the so called sleeping dinosaur ( look on the photo below to find out why it's called the sleeping dinosaur ). When we got to Mati we looked for a restaurant where we can take our late lunch. To my surprise, they have my favorite resto Mandarin tea garden. Our tummies were growling for food so we didn't bothered looking for any local restos. We just wanted to sip a warm soup and eat asap. After eating, we waited the contact person for the local house where we are going to stay. We also went to Lanes hotel nearby to get our baller id as our ticket to summerfrolic. We left Mati city around 6:00 pm and arrived in Dahican beach around 6:30pm. Yes, Dahican beach is still 30 minutes away from Mati city proper. It was dark already when we got there so we didn't have the chance to the see the beach. When we arrived in the local house, which was a few blocks away from summerfrolic venue, I was surprised when I learned that it is owned by the renowned local surfers in Mati, the Amihan boys, The place itself is ideal for barkada but there's also downside of it which I will share later in this blog so keep checking. For now, I'll share some of the photos on our first day. The summerfrolic event will be on a separate post.
The CONTACT DETAILS of the van and the house will be posted on the part two of this blog.