Proud to be a Negros Baby!

I left Dipolog the next day. Before I packed up I took a couple pictures of the “fire exit” right next to my room.

Even with a fiesta I wanted to get on to Negros. I packed my bike and left town for Palauan Port about 10 kilometers out of town, between Dipolog and Dapitan. The ferry was scheduled for 4pm so I took a few hours to visit Dapitan and see some of the Jose Rizal sites they have there. Dapitan was very nice, not many people about (probably because they were all in Dipolog for the fiesta) and the city seemed very well laid out and clean.

Once I got onto the ferry I got to wait and wait. This particular ferry didn’t really have seats anywhere, just bunk beds everywhere.

The ferry ride was about 5 hours long and took me to Dumaguete. It was around 10pm once I got off the ferry with my motorcycle. It felt good to be on Negros, even though I had never been to Dumaguete before.

It took a few tries before I found a hotel with cheap rooms available; the Vintage Inn in front of the market seemed like an OK place. The first night however I found that my fan was really slow and there was a mouse crawling around in the dark. I didn’t sleep well the first night. The second night I switched to a smaller room with a stronger fan, however this room had a window that opened just a few feet from the neighboring building; and this small space between the buildings was a perfect home for bats. I could hear their squeakings all night. I didn’t sleep well the second or third nights either. In fact, once I left Dumaguete I was glad to be gone. It was really hot compared to Mindanao and was absolutely chock full of the kind of foreigners that I like to avoid.

I did take an expedition to Coscoroso Falls outside of town which was a nice break from town. I forgot my camera however so I don’t have any pictures. Tinago Falls outside of Iligan in Mindanao was much prettier.

I left Dumaguete Tuesday morning for Sipalay. The country outside of Dumaguete was very dry, surprisingly so. It is the hot season but I had never seen such dry earth anywhere else in the Philippines.

Once I got to Sipalay I followed my map to Driftwood Village on Sugar Beach. My guidebook listed it as having good prices on their rooms, ₱400 for a single room with shared bath. Much to my chagrin I found that the road does not go all the way to Sugar Beach. I left my motorcycle and hired a boat for ₱150 to get me there; they told me it was 10 kilometers to the resort but that it would take 30 minutes to walk there. I just paid up and found that it was an easy walk. On my way out I’m not going to hire a boat; I’ll just walk the 30 minutes to save some pesos.

The resort is really nice; the huts are made out of native materials. It’s owned by a Swiss man and his wife. The foreigners that I’ve seen here are mostly backpackers or couples traveling together. The beach is good, the sand goes way out and the water is quite shallow. It’s really nice to swim in. On a slightly related note I found that I can currently hold my breath for 45 seconds.

There’s also a dog here, Benny, that I like; he has one ear that stands up and one ear that lays down and he follows me around the resort.

The last couple days I have been sunbathing, swimming, reading and writing. It’s been nice, some of the R&R I’ve been craving. My next destination is Kabankalan and the other areas of my mission so getting some R&R time might be hard.

This is an entry in my Philippines 2010 travel log. Thanks for reading!