Philippine Travel Notes

I saw these four sacks, earlier loaded unto this boat by two porters. I thought this was flour destined for some bakery or resort. Ayayay what a bubbly bread they will make! When I went near, I could easily smell what they are. All you need is Pride hehe! Yes Pepito, sacksful of sabon panlaba! Honest, this was a first time for me to see such, and I never thought they come packed in sacks! See? Travel is education! Now now, I need to know where these sacks can be purchased, so I can give one as gift to Manang Linda, so she does not keep crossing the street to buy sachet! To read the chronology of stories on this trip, click the following article numbers: 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

Yeah, like, well hello?! Bakit ganito? Is Ramos still president? That was how I felt on landing at Cagayan De Oro! What with overhearing fellow passengers griping about 5-hour daily brownouts in the city! Hah! All I could think of was, “what have I gotten myself into? I better get out fast!”. But, that did not happen. And I’m happy I stuck for a the rest of the day hehe! Let’s do this blow-by-blow, shall we? Okay! I heard about the brownout thingy as we disembarked and walked to the arrival area of Lumbia airport. Passengers were talking about it. Checking at the tourism desk, same thing was confirmed by a non-tourism employee standing beside it. I asked where was the person in charge of this tourism desk. After looking around, he said “nag-CR tingali”! What a time to feel the urge, just when two flights arrived, whereas before or after that he/she would have/did not have anything to do! Anyway, the man (wearing an ID, no uniform, I couldn’t tell what his role in this airport was) wa...

This topic started with this article Finally on same names… there are 4 plus 1 that use the name Victoria! Why the plus 1, we shall tackle at the end of this article! One is a town of Victoria in the province of Tarlac (Region 3 - Central Luzon). This is a big town just next to Tarlac City and sits with the province’s boundary with Nueva Ecija. This is more of a suburb of Tarlac City though since its just about 15kms away and residential villages have been on the rise. Then there is the town of Victoria in the province of Laguna (Region 4A - CALABARZON). This one is on the southern edge of the Laguna Lake and is undoubtedly the biggest “quack-quack” town! Yeah, duck raising and “balut” production is the biggest industry of this town that their welcome monument is an interesting sight of gigantic happy ducks! They even have the Itik Festival which means Duck Festival. Quack! Next is the town of Victoria in the province of Oriental Mindoro (Region 4B - MIMAROPA). This Victoria also...

This topic started with this article There are two towns too! And let us remain in Surigao Del Norte, for Socorro is a town located here. Its an island municipality actually just near the famous Siargao. In fact, tours from Siargao almost always includes this town. Have you heard about Bucas Grande Island? That’s it! Yes, that is actually the entirety of the town of Socorro! Small an island as it may be, aside from the famous Sohoton Cove/Lagons, there are waterfalls, rock islands, white beaches, caves, limestone forests, even a lake and a public swimming pool fed by springs! The other Socorro is a town in the province of Oriental Mindoro (Region 4B – MIMAROPA). That is that little inland town at the southern end of Naujan Lake. Farming and fishing (from the lake) are the main activities here. Watch out for the many citrus plantations like kalamansi, lemon, dalandan, pomelo, etc. Some of these farms even offer inland resorts. I have not seen them but some folks told me there are a...

This topic started with this article There are 7 localities in this country named after the late president Manuel Roxas. First is the town of Roxas in the province of Isabela (Region 2). This Roxas is on the eastern part of the province in its border with Mountain Province is a farming community. The next Roxas is that little town on the eastern portion of Mindoro (Region 4B) which has come to the awareness of many a Filipino by its being one of the ports in the “nautical hiway” – esp a jump-off point to Boracay via the ROROs. The 3rd Roxas is a big town on the northeastern portion of the island-province of Palawan. Though not on the most popular strips of the island, this is also a resort town and a jump-off point to “exotic island” and the tabon bird sanctuary. 4th is a town called “President Roxas” and it is in the province of Capiz (Region 6). This town is in the eastern section of the province and like most of its neighboring towns, thrives in the fish and aquatic resources indust...

AMAZING must be the one word that most everyone (esp first-timers) can muster to describe the place. Compared to any other place in the country, I must say, this place is truly, yes, amazing! Some friends could only say: " ang saya-saya! " I have visited this place in the late ‘80s but we stayed at a fine resort far from White Beach. We only visited White Beach during a quick day-tour. Thus, I may fairly say, I am new to this vacation spot. Here are my notes on the recent sojourn: We arrived on a Friday declared by the government as “holiday”. So we were in for a 3D2N visit. The boat’s arrival at White Beach felt like arriving at Boracay – boat hits smack to the sand, crew lays down a wooden plank, passengers disembark through the plank on to the beach and walk up to dry land where the resorts, restaurants, bars and stores are lined toe-on-toe. However, unlike in Boracay, as we disembarked, there were not so many people in the clear and really tempting blue-green waters....

The ‘Last Frontier’ region of the Philippines! Region 4B (sometimes written in roman numeral as REGION IV-B) is MIMAROPA and that stands for the provinces of MI ndoro, MA rinduque, RO mblon and PA lawan. Note that Mindoro is actually composed of two provinces – Occidental Mindoro and Oriental Mindoro. In the past these 5 provinces were actually part of the big Region 4 called Southern Tagalog – which was more recently chunked into two separate regions namely Region 4A (CALABARZON) and 4B (MIMAROPA). While the claim “The Phlippines’ Last Frontier” would usually mean the province of Palawan, my opinion is that it might as well include Mindoro, Romblon and Marinduque. I am almost certain that in the next years, Palawan will even become a bustling metropolis while the other three islands, especially Romblon and Marinduque might still retain much of their natural allure! Its just an inference and there’s nothing wrong about calculated guesses hehe! While many of the great 'tourismic...