Settling-in At San Carlos

My Negros Oriental Tour: San Carlos City, Negros Occidental

I said this was a tour of Negros Oriental, alright. And you’d probably be wondering why I was all of a sudden in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental. What happened to the five other towns and one city after Bindoy? Well, don’t panic… this was both planned and unplanned. I consider these such incidents as part of the excitement of my travels. Things could change depending on how I perceive circumstances. And I think am getting good at this. From the previous post I said I took a bus at Bindoy because it suddenly rained (again), right? Well, Ayungon, Tayasan, Jimalalud and La Libertad are nearby towns of Bindoy – which meant, it was also probably raining there. Plus, it was getting darker fast courtesy of the clouds. So, I zoomed all the way through to San Carlos and sought accommodation there, with a firm resolve that following day or the next few days, I would backtrack to all those towns, plus nearby Vallehermoso and Kanlaon City up in the clouds. Aight?!

So, I arrived at San Carlos City in the darkness of an early evening like between 6 and 630PM. Wohoa! It felt like I was in Catbalogan or Calbayog all over again! Why?! Because the most dominant mode of transportation in this city is the pedicab of yesteryears (yeah tricycles powered by bicycles instead of anything motorized). Why do I say yesteryears? Well, it’s the use of bicycles that have big wheels as in the past instead of the more recent BMX and other such smaller bikes. Plus, the use of the "pot-pot"! While there too are tricycles powered by motorbikes, those are few compared to their pedaled cousins. In this city they are called 'trisikad' or sometimes just 'sikad'. And I actually hopped on one trike to find accommodations.

Mom’s Small Hotel & Restaurant (not this picture). That was my first choice due to its location – near Gaisano, the new city hall complex and bus station. Also txtd a friend and learned that this is where most roving businessmen stay when in San Carlos. Arrived there and alas, no rooms available – on a November Wednesday night at that ha?! And I saw that the restaurant was bustling. Oh well. But they were so kind enough to have referred me to one of their competitors – YM Business Inn at the more central area of the city. So I went for it! On arrival, only the many colored lights of a Christmas tree were flickering in the rather dark front desk. But the girl switched real lights on when I approached. I asked why the darkness, she smiled and said, they were savouring the wonderful Christmas lights. Cute! Anyway, no available rooms too, except for a ‘good-for-three’ (yep, this picture) that they could give to me at a single room’s rate for the night, then I would be transferred to an SGLB following day when hopefully other guests were scheduled to check-out. Lovely!

Ah, I did not feel like I still had the energy to move again and look for Lola Nitang’s. So, I got the deal. Aside from the good value, my decision to grab the offer was inclusive of my observation, that YM actually looks better than Mom’s! Okay, settled in to hit the sack… for 'tomorrow is another roaming day' hehe. Let’s cut it here, okay? Don’t worry, I will have separate entries for YM Business Inn, San Carlos and other things around. Promise!


If you want to read the chronology of all stories on this tour, click the following:
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35
36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

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