Derek’s Diary

After a delay of a few months, I’ve finally posted the photos of my trip to the Philippines in February, 2006. My favourite photo is probably the one of me, Desiree, and an old Igorot woman just inside the Baguio Botanical Garden. Another that I like is the one of the schoolchildren in the village of Banugan who followed me down the road from their school. For most of them, it must have been the first time that they had ever seen a white-skinned person in their village.

I just returned home from the Philippines. I’m exhausted from my long trip, so I’ll write more later today after I get some sleep.

Tody we leave Baguio City by bus for Manila. Of all the cities that I visited in the Philippines (Boracay excepted), Baguio City is easily my favourite. The city is much cooler than Cebu and Manila, is cleaner, has less air pollution (though still very bad by Canadian standards), has fewer obvious signs of poverty, more pine tree-filled parks, and offers breathtaking mountain views.

Baguio has many tourist attractions. While here we visited Burnham Park, Mines View Park, Wright Park, Botanical Gardens, and Camp John Hay. In Burnham Park, we walked around a man-made lagoon, ate oranges, and just relaxed. In Wright Park, we went horseback riding around a city trail for an hour. At the Botanical Gardens, we saw exotic plants, flowers, and pine trees from all over the world, and took photos with two elderly Igorot, a tribe that lives in the Cordillero region on the northern island of Luzon.

Though most Baguio parks have no entrance fee, each usually has at least one “comfort room” that charge various rates, from five to 20 pesos, for using the bathroom facilities.

Another common appearance at most sites that we visited were the vendors with their little shops where they sold t-shirts, sweaters, hats, wood carvings, keychains, coin purses, knives, bags, and hand-woven wall hangings.

After taking a short, but delayed flight from Caticlan to Manila, we took a five hour bus ride to Baguio in northern Luzon. When we arrived, the first thing that we noticed was that it was much colder than Manila (or any other city thaty we visited in the Philippines) and that the locals were all wearing long clothing while we were still in shorts. Feeling tired and chilled, we immediately took a short cab ride to overpriced Villa Rosal Hotel (1700 pesos per night), the first hotel that the tourist information guide presented to us. The next morning, we transferred to a plain, but very clean and comfortable room (1000 pesos per night) at Brea Inn on Session Road.

Yesterday, we left Boracay for Manila. Though we enjoyed a relaxing week by the beach, we found that the island is crowded with tourists and very commercialized. Vendors and commissioners are everywhere and constantly ask to sell you sunglasses, hats, pearls, jewelry, massages, island hopping tours, and banana boat rides. Talipapa shops sell shorts, t-shirts, slippers, and sarongs. Restaurants are numerous and serve a mix of Filipino and international cuisine. Restaurant staff standing outside repeatedly say, “Sir, ma’am,” and invite you to try their meal. As a result of all of this solicitation, one of my favourite Filipino expressions was, “Hindi po, salamat,” which means, “No, thank you.” In short, Boracay is a paradise that mixes pleasure and business.

For our last dinner in Boracay, we decided to try something a little different. Instead of ordering a meal or buffet in one of the many beach front restaurants, we went to Talipapa and bought fresh Lapu Lapu, prawns, and eggplant (390 pesos). We then took our fish and vegetables to a nearby carinderia (restaurant) who cooked our meal for just 100 pesos. It was a very delicious dinner!

My favourite Boracay breakfast spot is the Sizzling Cafe and Seafood House in d-Mall, a strip mall just off the beach. For just 50 pesos (about CDN$1.10), you can eat a breakfast of chicksilog, longsilog, porksilog, tapsilog, or tosilog. This includes meat, garlic rice, and one egg. After breakfast, it’s off to Budget Mart to buy Yakult, a cultured milk drink that includes live lactobacillus casei, a ‘good’ bacteria that helps digestion and eases stomach troubles; and to eat Ensaymada Monggo bread.

Yesterday, Desiree and I went on an island hopping boat trip that included two stops to go snorkelling, a stop at Puka Beach for a barbecue lunch, a visit to Crystal Caves, and a stop near Crocodile Island for a final swim and snorkelling in somewhat rougher water. Though the barbecue lunch of chicken, pork, shrimp, bangus, rice, vegetables and fruit was very tasty, the rough water during our final tour around the island robbed me of my lunch after I was taken with sea sickness. Needless to say, I don’t have the stomach of a sailor.

This evening’s Boracay sunset on the beach was beautiful. I’ll post photos when we return to Canada.

We’re still in Boracay and today we had planned to go on an eight hour island hopping boat trip, but last night I felt a cold coming on and this morning I did not feel up for the trip. We’ve since postponed the trip to tomorrow and instead, did some shopping in town at the Talipapa (mall). We learned that prices are a bit lower at shops away from the beachfront.

Last night, we had a delicious but expensive meal of grilled King Fish, prawns, vegetables, and salad. Though we thought that the meal would cost only around 600 pesos, to our surprise it cost 960 pesos! We were a bit annoyed that the host had failed to mention that the two salads were not included in the cost of the meal, but were very satisfied with the taste and quality of the food. This was the most expensive meal that we’ve had to date in the Philippines.