Maragondon · PH

Kaybiang Tunnel

Kaybiang Tunnel is a 300-metre road tunnel bored straight through the mountain ridge between Maragondon in Cavite and Nasugbu in Batangas, and it is the reason this stretch of the western Philippines became a weekend magnet for Manila drivers, bikers and photographers. Completed in 2013 and part of the Ternate–Nasugbu Road (National Route 407), it was sold as a "tourism road" because it slices through a rainforest massif instead of over it, cutting roughly an hour off the old run to the Nasugbu resorts via Tagaytay and linking two provinces in one smooth, dark, dramatic push. The appeal is less the tunnel itself than the drive that carries you into it. The road zigzags through the Mounts Palay-Palay–Mataas-na-Gulod Protected Landscape, which holds remaining patches of lowland tropical rainforest on Luzon, with pull-outs and a viewdeck near the entrance that open onto hills and coastline. Stop at a roadside kiosk, watch the wild monkeys that live along the shoulder, and carry on for the coves of Ternate and the beaches around Nasugbu and Pico de Loro — which many riders treat as the real reward for making it through the mountain.