Palm City Capital of the Philippines: Tagum

What to do. Where to eat. Where to go. How to get there.

Tagum City: City of Palm Trees

Day 1 of my last hirit for summer, my bestfriend Belle and I planned to backpack Tagum, Davao and Samal. Originally, it was Cateel, Tagum, Mati, Davao and Samal but her folks changed their mind days before our trip. I was so disappointed to the point of wanting to cancel going on the trip but I'm glad I pushed through because I had so much fun despite the change of plans.

Gensan to Davao (P190) to Tagum (P80) took about 6 hours. By around 11am, we finally reached the city. Starving.

We ate lunch at 823 Kitty Coffee Shop (P7 for tricycle + P145 each for food). If we had the luxury and Belle isn't allergic to seafood, I would've loved to try Punongan - you will pass by this if you're going to Davao.

Read about my experience here: 

http://helloteni.blogspot.com/2016/07/823-kitty-coffee-shop.html

From the coffee shop, we headed to the terminal (P7) to ride a jeep (P25) to New Corella.

I would've loved to topload but the sun was at its peak :(

Tagum to New Corella took about 50 minutes. The jeep will drop you off at the town's palengke where you can either ride a tricycle or a motorcycle to Panas Waterfalls - both P25-30/head. It will take about 20 minutes. 

New Corella has other attractions like Balaang Bukid and Matin-ao too!

Pay a P20 entrance and you're good to go exploring the parts of the waterfalls. Sadly, we didn't get to see the beautiful parts because we went south instead of going north huhu. We were chasing time since we went to New Corella late :(

I suggest you bring a lotion for bugs because you will get super itchy after. Also, last trip back to Tagum City from New Corella is around 6pm but try not to cut it too close or you might get stuck.

By 3pm, we were back at Tagum terminal. We headed to the New Christ the King Cathedral which housed the World's Largest Rosary whose beads looked like those floating thingies in beaches keeping you from going too deep. We actually knocked on the beads to see if they really were... found out they were made out of cement.

The church's exterior is really something. I loved how symmetrical the front is!!! The interior, they could polish and hopefully have a Sistine Chapel-like ceiling.

Chase doves at the back of the church and feel like you're at Roma. Bring dove food for bribe.

I'm sort of a history slash conspiracy buff and this church's gate was shaped like an eye and at the center of the front facade of the church was a circle-shaped religious design. So me trying to put two and two together, it looked like the eye of providence idk. Tell me your thoughts when you do go visit.

Marvel architecture, landscape and sculptures at Tagum City Hall (P10 from New Cathedral). It was one of the most welcoming city halls I've seen. They were streaming Duterte's SONA at the lobby when we visited!

We went back to Davao after this, checked in at D'Morvie and ate at Outback grill. I will be writing about this on my Davao post. Stay tuned!

Here's a breakdown of our 1 day backpacking expenses to Tagum, from Gensan:

 Plus P312 for food (expenses for this really depends on the kind of traveller/eater you are).  The key to budget travelling: ask people (about 2-3 persons) the regular fare rates, bargain the price and make use of your student discount!