Philippine Travel Notes

Last leg of my "Northern Negros tour"! I was running out of time, but not worried. In fact, I liked some unexpected sights and situations encountered. Well, I always say, there'll always be something worth noting to be added to my knowledge about this country, or just about life in general! Oh ha, profound! So, after the Cadiz Church, my 'special trip' tricycle brought me to the Ceres Bus Terminal, and what a "lucky strike", I caught the last 'ordinary bus' going south, that passes by the town center of Manapla! Is that an issue? Not really. The conductor himself told me, if I can't catch a bus from inside Manapla, I could take a tricycle ride to the "Welcome Rotunda" near Northland Resort, which is about 3kms out. Less convenient but doable. He added I could also ride the VHires - not a good option for sightseeing! Somewhere outside Cadiz, in a sugarcane field, I saw an elevated ground with trees and a big house. The bus was...

A little onward from the bridge , my Ceres bus stopped in front of SM Hypermarket. Conductor told me it would be best to get off here as there were a 'battalion' of available tricycles waiting for passengers! Before I got off though, he gave me instructions as to where I would find their terminal for my onward trip! And OMG true, there was more than a battalion of tricycles hahaha! I think this area is some kind of an official terminal for trikes, because I saw that they were very organized and even have signages! No waiting, no haggling. Not like in many other places na tipong pinag-aagawan ka ng mga sanggano! Here, when I approached, one of them just said "sin-o next", ayun, I got my trike ride na, to the city hall. The Cadiz City Hall, which, I was told by the trike driver assigned to me, "ara lang" - so I imagined it as just a few blocks away. He even asked if I would rather walk - instead of taking advantage of my utter ignorance, which is very com...

Done roaming the northern parts of Negros Island, even if quickly. I was returning all the way back to Silay, in time for my flight out early the following day. But I needed to do 2 more quick stops at Cadiz and Manapla. So, this was a longer, but still fun bus ride from Calatrava to Cadiz on a non-aircon bus. The ticket said this trip was from KM131 to KM64, therefore 67 kilometers. Was that really long? Well, not really. But for this roam the past two day, I kept hopping from place to place, in succession from west-to-east so those were all very short bus rides, that made Calatrava -to-Cadiz as the longest!. Anyway, there was really nothing much more to be alert-of, since I already passed this way. Yet, I still looked out for lovely (and ugly) things along the way, as this time, I was on the other side of the road! Such as, I saw this on the side of the highway, in an otherwise desolate hinterland little barrio... Yeah, if you're a Filipino, you will immediately recogni...

I departed from Victorias City, Negros Occidental As said in the previous story , my travel schedule was muddled, because I detoured to see the ' Angry Christ Chapel ' in Victorias, which I did not know about, therefore not part of the itinerary on this trip! But I was not at all disappointed, because I saw and learned about some things new! Anyway, the 'original plan' was to hop to the next town or city going north then east. But, I had to skip the town of Manapla and Cadiz City this time, since I had a 2PM 'eyeball' with a contact at Sagay City. No worries though, since I could still drop by those two places on my return to Silay, then the airport. I already said this in many of my stories.., in Central and Western Visayas, 20 minutes is usually the longest you need to wait, until the next Ceres Bus (or others) pass by. And when my trike from VMC reached the " canetown crossing ", there was one on its way to Escalante, so I hopped on! Air...