Back in 1994, I spent five weeks in the Philippines working on a video game adaptation of a pretty bad D-list Michael Dudikoff action movie called Soldier Boyz (along with future directors Darren Aronofsky and Jed Weintrob).
At one point during my sojourn, the cast and crew of the game and movie lodged at the Pagsanjan Rapids Hotel, where (I was excited to learn) Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper and Francis Ford Coppola had all stayed during some of the endless production phase of Apocalypse Now. Later, of course, I learned that just about every hotel in the Philippines claims Brando, Hopper and Coppola slept there, but there’s no doubt the Pagsanjan River was one of the key locations in the film, and a darn fine destination for the cinematically-inclined adventure travelers amongst you.
If you wind up taking this particular Screengrab Movie Vacation, you could do worse than the Pagsanjan Rapids Hotel. The open air lobby features a bar stocked with San Miguel beer and looks out on a majestic, exotic tableau like the opening scene of Apocalypse Now, just before the napalm explosions: palm trees, a raging river, water buffalo grazing in the distance and, if you’re lucky, a rainbow.
You can book a boat ride on the Pagsanjan River and leave straight from the hotel, drifting downstream like Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard past dramatic, vegetation-choked steps (the only remains of Colonel Kurtz’s Temple of Doom), surrounded on all sides at all times by hucksters in canoes trying to sell you trinkets (like the carved tiki-head ashtray I purchased that blows smoke out its mouth when there’s a cigarette in the dish).
The river ride ends at Pagsanjan Falls, where your friendly, hard-working boatmen will probably expect you to buy them lunch...and trust me, several miles downriver from your hotel in a foreign country isn't the best time to suddenly turn cheapskate...then its back upriver for garlic adobo rice (mmm!!!!) and more San Miguels. For more information on Pagsanjan, check out backpackingphilippines.com, and stay tuned for our next exciting Screengrab Movie Vacation destination: Devil’s Tower, Wyoming!
