36 hours in bacolod
When I got back from
I’m not complaining, by the way. I love
I was giving a talk at
Usually I fall asleep the minute I strap on a seatbelt, but on this trip I was kept awake by Ige’s recounting of his favorite TV series, Air Crash Investigations on Discovery Channel. He particularly loved the episode about the plane that few over
We landed at the new Bacolod Silay airport only an hour late. Our hosts from the La Salle Bacolod campus newspaper, The Spectrum, collected us and we drove to Business Inn on
Our girl hosts conferred among themselves and concluded they didn’t know. “Corn?” someone guessed. I totally sympathize: I couldn’t identify a tree to save my life unless it was coconut or banana. Or acacia, because we had a lot of them on the St. Theresa’s QC campus, and one day while I was sitting beneath one a caterpillar fell on my knee. Some people sit under a tree and achieve enlightenment; I get caterpillar attacks. If I ever start a religion it will involve rashes and calamine lotion. Where was I? So our girl hosts were speculating on the flora, and the driver piped up:
“Tubo (Sugar cane).”
That was my first guess.
Ige quizzed our hosts about places to eat and things to see. “The Panaad festival is on!” someone said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s the festival of all festivals!”
The mother of all festivals! We had to see that. After checking in — nice hotel, clean and comfy, reasonable rates — Ige and I went out to lunch. We took the jeep to Manukan Country, a row of chicken inasal restaurants near the SM mall. After glancing at all the restaurants, we chose Nena’s Beth — when in doubt, pick the place that has the most number of diners. None of the eateries had air-conditioning, but it was a balmy day compared to
“Ano ang ‘Articles’?” I pointed to the menu.
“Chicken skin at isaw,” he explained.
I ordered that, and the native chicken. Ige studied the sauces and condiments at the table and inquired about a bottle of orange oil. The waiter said it was chicken oil flavored with “istewetes” (achuete).
The native chicken was good, a little tough. Our bill for two orders of rice, two native chickens, two atay, two articles, two soft drinks and one chicken breast came to P316.
Then we walked to SM. The sidewalks are narrow and the drivers slightly nuts, but walking in
We wanted to go to Silay and try the guapple pie at El Ideal, the famed century-old bakery. When we told the old taxi driver our intended destination, he said it was 70 kms and two towns away, and the rate was P400. He said this was the going rate, we could check, and we decided to trust him. “They have good bread at El Ideal,” he said, and we were off. The trip took 20 minutes, but what the hell, we were on vacation. At El Ideal we all got out and the driver went shopping for pastries.
I was still stuffed from lunch, so I suggested we walk around Silay and look at old Spanish colonial-style houses. Most of them have plaques declaring them historical sites. We visited the city market, where Miss Amity interrupted a bunch of tattooed guys who were drinking in the early afternoon, and asked them what their pulutan was made of. They graciously gave him the recipe and useful tips on its preparation. Then Ige bought a broom, a terra cotta pot, and a melon scraper from a stall where the old lady told me about her sons who live in
After an hour’s wandering, we went to El Ideal for a snack. The guapple pie was too sweet and floury, but the fresh lumpia was very good.
At
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