It was our daughter’s birthday last week, and with our men folk off about their own business, we decided a Mother/Daughter road trip might be fun. We packed the car and headed south for her favourite spot: Stilts, in Calatagan, where we celebrated her twenty-first last year. On the way we decided to check out Villa Escudero, which has been on my ‘to do’ list for ages, and would make the perfect overnight stay.
Villa Escuadero was originally a hacienda (estate) belonging to agriculture industrialist, Don Arsenio Escudero. Here, in 1929, he built the Labasin Dam to power his hydro-electric plant and supply electricity to his coconut factory and the large Escudero family home. The estate was opened to the public in 1981 and established as a tourist attraction. Villa Escudero now provides accommodation, sporting activities, a cultural show and a museum of family memorabilia and holy relics housed in a reproduction of an Intramuros church. And of course the restaurant below the waterfall.
Villa Escudero is a two hour drive south of Makati, on the far side of San Pablo. The resort is well sign-posted and only minutes off the main road. The drive was not as long as I had expected, but once off the Expressway, it is the usual game of dodgem cars with the tricycles, jeepneys and trucks past endless sari sari stores and kamikaze pedestrians, which can be quite draining. We arrived just before lunch, hot and dusty. A carabao (domestic water buffalo) pulling a large, heavy cart collected us from the car park and then trudged sedately round to the resort, its dark skin surprisingly glossy, almost hippo-like, while a guitar player and singer performed on the back of the cart. Popping back to collect something I had forgotten from the car, I got a chance to ride in the somewhat swifter kalesa, that petite, eighteenth-century, horse-drawn carriage.
Our cottage was a lovely bamboo and thatch construction right on the riverfront, with a broad lanai or veranda overhanging the water, and brimming with fresh air and bird noises, a far cry from the polluted, bird-free skies of Metro Manila. While it was not five star glamour, the appeal for me was its utter rustic simplicity. With just one double room, there was also space on a mezzanine for a bunch of kids on mattresses. While these riverside rooms had no air-conditioning, this was hardly an issue in mid-January: high ceilings and fans were perfectly adequate, and there was a full mosquito net draped over the bed if we had wanted to sleep with the windows open.
The setting is simply beautiful. Lazing in deep wicker arm chairs, we looked across the river to the thick jungle on the 
opposite bank, while tiny birds ducked and danced out from under the eaves and over the rippled water. Chatty geckoes clucked at us contentedly from under the thatch. (Later we would have to deflect a pair of tiny, over-excited bats dodging through pools of lamp light to hang above our front door like a bell-pull.) Meanwhile, we dragged ourselves from our perfect view and made our way downriver, through pretty gardens and around the cool, landscaped swimming pool to the waterfall restaurant.
Not a natural waterfall – actually a man-made dam wall – it is nonetheless a clever construction, the water gushing over the dam wall and rushing under the feet of the diners, who must clamber down a steep staircase and out through clear, calf deep water to the dining tables that are set up midstream. Take note, maxi dresses may be a fashion statement, but here they are a nuisance: it is very tricky to tuck your skirt up out of reach of the water while balancing a plate and a fresh coconut in your hands. On the other hand, as a ten-year-old on a hot day, I imagine I would have loved paddling over to the dam wall to lie under that deliciously cold deluge of water.
The buffet is also set up in the water, with a generous display of local dishes to choose from. Served on paper plates, it is a far cry from cordon bleu cooking, but the location is all. We chose a table further downstream, away from the conversation-drowning avalanche of water. Beneath the overhanging vines and leafy branches of the riverside jungle, we watched from a distance as the river hurtled over the falls and rushed beneath our seats heading off to who-knows-where, while we nibbled lunch and cooled our feet in the stream.
Dinner was another buffet in the vast pavilion above the waterfall. Apparently this is where the cultural shows are held, but only on weekends. Again, the food was mediocre, and we struggled with frozen beers (why would you keep beer in an ice chest with the ice cream?) but eventually the barman from next door brought us more temperate ones that did not erupt like frozen volcano upon opening.
With less than 24 hours at the resort, we were happy to drift about gently, taking walks through the garden or a ride on the kalesa, or simple wandering across to the bar for coffee or a G&T on the balcony. Several braver souls than we explored the quieter end of the river on rather precarious-looking, home-made rafts, trying to get the hang of paddling in a straight line while going round and round in circles to shrieks of laughter and loud instructions. It was highly entertaining to watch their efforts.
In conclusion, don’t go to Villa Escudero for the dining experience, unless you are happy with basic Philippine cooking, nor in the expectation of a five star tourist attraction, which it really isn’t. However, for a peaceful, rural retreat, I would happily visit again. And I would willingly set up house in one of those lovely riverside cottages, to enjoy the wildlife and the water.