Day 2 At Haven Of Fun, San Antonio

I took this photo the morning after (about 6AM). Nice "texture", right? Sunrise!
Like the other two, and like many resorts on this side of the country, the real water-front – that part of the beach touching the water, is lined with the resort’s cottages for day time users (those that do not come to check-in on a room). So any room’s view is them commercial cottages, that as said earlier, are rented out separately! Not an issue during my stay though, since I could have any of them cottages! Mamingaw!

Except for that room above the eating area. Yes, it's a room - an attic room!
Now that would be what we can call a real "unobstructed sea and sunrise view"!

It's this house (building, structure, whatever it is called). That's just 1 room up there.
The eating area below is like a restaurant. Probably it is (with a kitchen faaaar away)! Where you see that girl walking, that is the frontage of my room. She's going to their front desk and probably onwards to their very faaar kitchen in another building!

Anyway, I went up to see that attic room. This is it viewed from the entrance / stairs:
Looks nice and comfy enough. Good for 6 people. The catch is, there is no CR. Occupants will have to use the public toilets and showers at a building beside, almost back of my room. Hmm, how do you do that in the middle of the night? Duu!

My room? You saw pictures in the previous story. But here it is form the outside:
The one on ground level, I mean. Up there and behind are other rooms.

Here's another view of my room, with a nice wash of the morning sun on the porch:
You can see the public toilets to the right (white structure behind the plants). That's behind my very own room's CR. But mine had hot and cold showers, yehey!

Here is that reception area cum tindahan cum tambayan of the resort's crews:
This side faces the sea. And my room is just a few feet from right edge of this photo!

This is how it looks on the other side (entering from the main road):
Here's a funny reality about this little spot: There would usually be 6 of those black monobloc chairs. You see 4 of them in this pic, the other two are on the other side facing the sea. There are 2 more inside that kiosk, so that makes a total of 8 chairs. In any one of those, you will usually catch sight of an older personality (50s to 60s), male during the afternoon into evening, female early mornings to noontime. What do they do? Nothing other than irritate you! Why? Because, they do not do anything, nor do they talk to you, but they listen intently at every word you say, and they constantly look at you as if you are going to spirit their cash register! You get to feel there is an atrevida on the side who has no business with you but eavesdropping on howsoever you transact with the crew.

First I saw (in the evening) was the Lolo, who I noticed was asked by the crews (for authority) when I had the non-cold bottled water and Coke predicament. I asked the boy who delivered my food to my porch who that old man was, and I was told he was the owner. In the morning, there was a Lola (probably wife of the Lolo) who was also just there - Supervisor hehe. What irritates is that they are just there looking and listening at you but wont respond when they are supposed to be the best in the know and the authority. But, I knew better... after reading the menu, I ordered my breakfast and asked some questions with the Lola instead of the girl in front of me. Da, she had no choice but to respond to me hehe! She just hollered my orders to her crews passing by going to their kitchen! Aliw!

My message to Lolo and Lola: in proper business (customer service) protocol, wag kang nakiki-dinig or nakikitingin if you are not the one entertaining a client. Don't look nor listen. Otherwise, makialam ka. Respond Actively! You are the owner anyway.

Anyway...

Hey I mentioned about breakfast, right? Well, let's talk about that. This was grand! After ordering what I wanted, they asked me where in this wide facility did I want to have breakfast. Hard choice as this is a big wide place! But, I pointed to this little hut!
I sat savoring this wonderful morning view! That's mainland Samar across the sea.
It came w/ a free sachet of 3-in-1 coffee they won't change to a free sachet of Milo :(So, I instead ordered Coke and left that cup of hot water untouched. Hmp :(

Not yet in this pic, but, this required an extra cup of rice. Wanna guess why?Yeah, the 'tuyo' upped my appetite, always does! I begged for kamatis - wala daw?! :(

Well, that was such a meal enough (kasi me Coke hehehe)! And, burrrp!

I sat there a while, like a pig hehe, until I saw this army about 3 feet away...That rope is some kind of a clothesline by that tree near my hut. I asked that man if those ants are "hantik" (weaver ants), and he said yes but they're not the ones with the most painful bite! Wheh, I did not wanna test hehehe. He was by the way tending to the structure of the stairs going up to that attic room I mentioned above.

And now some tsismis...

Behind that man in the picture above is the eating area/restaurant/whatever of the resort. At the time I was about done with my breakfast, there were some 5 people (guests) who settled at a table on the farthest end from me. To have their breakfast and swimming, of course. They came from adjacent rooms just few meters from mine.So what's the juicy news? Well, ehem, the 5 people were 2 sexy ladies of the provincial caliber, 2 priests and a utility man, aide, driver alalay, whatever! I don't want to tell details on 'who was rather sweet to who'! But OMG they were having real fun as couples haha! How did I know the 2 guys were priests? Well, I have my ways!

The even more weirdly funny part of it all was: the older priest made a call on his cellphone, and trying to stay away from hearing distance of his companions, he walked towards my hut and I could hear... "hello mayor, hi Fr. _______ ini... okay na an isda ngan alimango dadad-on ko niyan ngada..." Not sure if his speakerphone was on, but I could overhear the mayor (female). She asked if the dear priest can also bring about 5 kilos of "pasayan nga itum, bayaran ko nala didi pag-abot mo" (tiger prawns, I'll just pay you here when you arrive), to which the padi answered affirmatively!

Whohoa! After their conversation, the priest immediately made another call (to another woman) and gave instruction about the prawns and how to pack everything that he'll pick up later in the day! Nice this priest ha? Enterprising!

I think I even got caught by the younger priest while I trailed my camera at him and one of the girls as they frolicked in the water. So I quickly erased the 'juicier' pics! Hah!

Anyway again... let's see more of this resort before I finally leave for Victoria.

A nice wide space towards the far end (north) of the facility. Team buildings? Pwede!
Even more rooms further out...
I laughed hard when this cottage was offered to me at P1,400 I thinkWhat was the hard laugh all about? Ah well, the whole up and down areas are yours.But the bed(room), probably good for 6 to 8 folks, is only upstairs. What is downstairs then? Ah, a living room, dining room, kitchen and toilet/shower. The catch? Your only connection between up and down is that external stairs - even if you just need to pee at midnight. Now that is utterly hideous hahaha! Its a 'travel' from your bed to the CR!

Let's do this architectural nth-sanity again for clarity...1) your bed is up there at the attic; 2) feeling the urge to urinate at say 230AM, you dress up as you cannot be seen outside of the house wearing your 'nothingness'! You're a respectable member of society, right?! 3) you go out the door and groggily climb down the stairs; 4) then you enter the ground level door to your cottage, did you bring the key, btw?; 5) inside your 1st floor, you maze through to that right-back corner of the house as the only CR is there; 6) you finally relieve your bladder! 7) you maze your way out and up to reverse this 'unholy travel'!; 8) you finally arrive back at your bed and realize, oh it's breakfast time! Hahaha what a wonderful world to live in!

These 'houses' look cute btw, especially w/ those plants growing on the thatched roof!

Now now... even further to the north edge of this resort are more cottages that will make your eyes grow wildly wide! These were also shown to me and offered at P800 a night by the kids - yep, the apprentices, the OJTs, that make up the majority of this resort's crews.

I could not believe my ears hearing them tell me "800 la sir, pero mahugaw ngan harayo"! In my mind, I was short of lambasting them with "eh kung mahugaw, bakit di nyo linisin? Ngan kon hirayo, why don't you station yourselves near them?"! Yep, take note folks, in all of these rooms, houses and cottages, there are no phones or intercoms. You go by the holler system hehehe!

Conceptually though, these cottages are actually more 'rustically attractive'. The design and make mimics those of some aboriginal villages in the northern parts of the Philippines.

But oh how I itched to confront the owners of this resort and tell them "being native does not mean being filthy"! Check out the pictures below...

This is the upper portion of the native hut. Looks nice, right? Native!But I did not anymore care to see the insides when I saw this lower level (below):Would have been a nice rural kind of feel to stay in there. But my goodness it looks and feels and smells dirty! If its any consolation to the owners of this place, when I saw this, after squirming, I said "parang yung loft cottage na ipinakita sakin dun sa Puro Beach Resort"! Just look at the plywood nanglilimahid! Look at the pillows and the mattress, look at the lababo, look at the faucet and look where the broom is kept. Ewww! LYSOL please!

Alright, and anyway again, if you don't explore the northern end of this resort (because its far & the owners probably never get to see that portion of their facility), the beach front, middle and southern areas are really wonderful places to be.

Like this...
Or this...
Or this...
Ah, let's stop it here!

Bottomline, at Haven Of Fun, stay in the rooms or cottages nearest their reception area. Facilities are good in the area, aside from you'd be near the entrance, food, and the crew if you need them!

Let's go roaming elsewhere San Antonio!

For a chronology of this trip's stories, click these numbers:

01   02   03   04   05   06   07   08   09   10

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