Typed up at: Internet cafe in Solana Posted from: Internet cafe in
Solana
After our
week relaxing on the beach, we felt ready to relax a little bit in a
place with AC, TV, and Internet. We just spent one night in Tabaco and
then took an AC bus to Naga. Naga is a college town, a bit bigger, and
has all the comforts that rich Filipinos and tourists enjoy. We had a
little trouble finding our hotel. Despite a store-owner downstairs
telling us the hotel was “upstairs,” the lady upstairs told us the hotel
had closed.
No problem
though, because we found a pleasant place just a few doors down. AC, TV,
and a nice bed. For Internet we had to walk to one of the 20 cafes
withing a block of our hotel. The only downside to that was that it
rained virtually non-stop while we were in Naga. So we didn’t explore
the city very much, but mostly stayed within a few blocks of our hotel.
We had plenty of mediocre food, decent Internet, and rain.
We did suck
it up twice and wandered anyway. One day we went to the hip part of town
so Danielle could have real brewed coffee. On the way there I bought
some bananaque, which is bananas coated in syrup roasted on a grill.
It’s good stuff. In general, everything that we saw being roasted over a
grill on the street tasted good. Everything else was not so good.
The other day
we went to visit the opening of the SM mall that weekend. The security
line was long, and loudspeakers blasted the SM mall song way too loud.
The men’s line was a lot shorter than the women’s line otherwise I
probably would not have gone in at all. We didn’t do anything inside.
Mostly we observed that half the town must be there for the opening, and
that it looks like any other Filipino mall.
We stayed in
Naga 2 nights, I think. Then we decided we wanted to get out of the rain
and took an overnight bus to Manila. The overnight bus was a lot better
than I thought it would be. I managed to doze and the 8 or whatever
hours went by pretty quickly. In Manila, after being ripped off by a
taxi, our hotel this time (Adriatico Inn) wanted to charge us 90% of a
night’s cost to check in 6 hours early. Not wanting to get ripped off
twice in a row, we left and sat outside the mall until it opened, and
then sat in the mall and at Internet cafes until, promptly at noon, we
checked in and went to bed.
At least it
wasn’t raining in Manila. Not being very happy with where we were
staying, spending money like water because it’s so easy here, and
wanting to see at least one more thing before leaving the country, on
the very next day we took a bus to Banaue. This was also an overnight
bus, and the experience was much the same as before. Note that overnight
buses in the Philippines are freezing cold. The same AC that’s capable
of keeping the bus cool when it’s hot and sunny during the day runs at
full power during the night. We were prepared with Masai blankets but it
wasn’t quite enough.
