After a long period of no operations, the PNR Bicol Express opened up it’s overnight train service going to Bicol in August. A train ride! A super-long overnight train ride! What a great and fun way to explore the south.

Bicol is a province in southern Luzon, Philippines. It’s approximately 350+km away from Metro Manila. If you take a bus, the ride takes 8 hours. The train takes 12 hours! Whatever! Riding the overnight train let’s us Filipinos experience taking a bike on a REAL train… like the Amtrak or those in Europe.

Pia handled all of the train reservations but somehow in the manual process, our booking got screwed. There weren’t enough beds to accommodate all of us, so half the group took the train and half took a sleeper bus going to Bicol.

The group lucky enough to ride the train and I met up at PNR Espana Station to get on the overnight carriage. Only one carriage has the sleeping bunks. The rest are economy and business class seats.

The overnight train carriage is separated in many sections of four. Two bunks face each other with a bit of space in between. There’s a small table at the end, and a pullout ladder for people to climb the upper bunks. The upper bunks have a couple bands from the bed to the ceiling — presumably to prevent you from rolling down.

Here’s a shot of Kris up top. That’s his Brompton bagged up and shoved in a corner. To be honest, I was kind of worried for him because the ride was extremely bumpy. His bike could have fallen on him at any time. He slept with his head on the other side of the bunk, and at bumpier sections, he used his feet to keep the bike propped up.

I got the lower bunk. Papa Rocky took the bunk across mine. The Vector X10 and the Tikit slept on the area between our bunks.

My cousin Chikee and I hung out at my bunk for a while.

The Gogobike at one end of the bunk. When the train started to move, I lay the bike flat with the chain facing up instead of keeping it standing upright.

The overnight train ticket only cost PhP 665 (approximately S$20). The only problem is that you can’t book them in advance. PNR doesn’t want to have to deal with last minute cancellations and REFUNDS, so they’d rather you buy the tickets a couple days or on the day of your trip.

Another bad thing is that the whole booking process is manual — you have to go to the office/station to get them. Kris said that there was a single guy writing down ALL of the tickets — local ride or not — so it took him an hour just to get ours.

Some notes on our train ride: IT WAS EXTREMELY BODY JARRING! The train went over many bumps, took sudden turns to the left or right and would make banging noises when tree branches hit the carriage. If you’re a light sleeper, this is NOT for you. Remember to take a jacket or a blanket with you. The train ride to Bicol was ridiculously cold.

Val, our ride leader, arrived in Naga a couple days in advance so he arranged with the resort to pick us up on arrival.

We stayed at the Camsur Watersports Complex. Most of us got cabanas which were a steal at Php 1,200 (S$35!) a night, with cable tv and aircon. Pia, Chikee and I shared one.

Here are our bikes sunning themselves at the resort while we have breakfast. 14″ to 20″. Single speeds to a bike with ten gears.

Many Bicolanos are devout to Our Lady of Penafrancia. You can find her everywhere. It seems like every single church we cycled by had her statue or was built in her name.

The roof inside Our Lady of Penafrancia church.

I love stained glass. Stained glass depictions of the Stations of the Cross.

Even more beautiful stained glass at a nearby grotto.

Bicol is famous for it’s food! A lot of their dishes feature taro leaves and coconut milk. We had lunch at Geewan. Here’s pinangat (taro leaves, meat, coconut milk), lechon kawali (deep fried roasted pork with liver gravy), bicol express (shrimp paste, pork, coconut milk and chilies), and kinunot (shark/stingray with coconut cream and malunggay leaves). They might look gross but in reality, they’re YUMMY! I’m drooling just typing this.

Our bikes parked inside Geewan’s. A must try restaurant if you ever drop by Bicol!

The Porta Mariae, built as a sign of gratitude of Bicolanos for three centuries of intercession of the Lady of Penafrancia.

Between the Porta Mariae, the grotto and the Cathedral of Naga.

I love little surprises like this view from inside the Cathedral.

Ya’ll know I can’t ride and take photos at the same time… Good thing others can. The weather was good but it was quite sunny, so I’m sporting my biker ninja look. That’s rice growing in the background.

The San Miguel bay was our furthest cycled point.

Here’s Val. He is the BEST ride leader/organizer ever.

From this point, we took brought our bikes aboard a jeep and headed back to town. I freaked out because they had to put the Tikit on TOP of the jeep. Ugh, this is why a more compact folding bike like the Brompton would be more suited to the Philippines. Because of the jeepney ride, the Tikit ended up getting a couple of scratches. I think I died a little inside when I saw them.

Val took us to a little hole-in-the-wall called Kinalas Twin to have dinner. Kinalas is a delicious pork based egg-noodle soup with eggy bits, best eaten with puto. It’s famous in that area the way batchoy is famous in Ilo-ilo. It was a perfect ending to a great day.

After eating, we took a bus from town back to CWC where the Tikit was thrown in the luggage area at the back. *Cringe*

This was truly a multi-modal ride. Car to train station. Resort van. Train. Jeepney. Bus. To top it all off, Kris flew back to Manila.