Had a long wonderful week relaxing in the Land of the Pinoys. Oh yeahh~
Finally had my long overdued holiday break in 2010. All the while I was envying others that went to many places such as Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, Shanghai, Liverpool etc and posted many photos in FB. At last it is my turn.
Up to now, I still wonders how all these people can afford to go so many places at once? Was it they earned a lot, or is it because my salary is below meager? Honestly speaking, I can hardly afford my said trip to Philippines actually. Many thanks to my dearest for sponsoring part of my expenses hehe! *blow a kiss*
A short summary of my trip - Day 1:
We had our fair share of adventure and misadventure. Not all my planned itinerary worked out the way I imagined it should. Partly to blame are the weather and the luck.
The week we are scheduled to arrive in Manila so happened was also the time they are expecting the typhoon. Hah, what a luck we have. BUT, luckily, we managed to avoid the typhoon almost completely. How, you say?
Oh well, thing is, our first stop is not Manila to begin with. From the beginning, I have planned that we will arrive in Angeles (Clark), then travel to Manila to take an interflight to Bacolod. Reason being is because on that week itself, Bacolod will be having a yearly event - MassKara. This is like a street dance party (mardi gras-like).
But our fortune stops here. When we reached Bacolod, it was raining and dark. Our flight landing was not entirely smooth (to the shocked of some people), and worst still, the taxi charges us higher than expected and don't even mentioned about the traffic.
No, i was not talking about vehicle traffic, I was talking about human traffic. Goodness gracious! Can you imagined your taxi driver trying to drive by with people walking in every direction to/from your car? I almost worried that our taxi driver will inadvertantly knocked down some. It was that scary. The people walking by was very very near to the moving vehicle *albeit the vehicle was moving slower than a turtle crawling"
Then our driver refuse to drop us at our hotel due to the traffic. So we have to lugged our luggage and walk a short distance to our hotel. In. The. Drizzling. Rain.
Once checked in, we went out to have our dinner and explore the town a little. In. Our. Ponchos. Because it was still slightly drizzling. By the time we were there, the MassKara was over and what remains was a dirty streets, some vendors selling variety of items from food, drinks to masks.
We thought it's okay, we'll come back another night, earlier. However, our dream was crushed when the next day our tour guide told us that this was the highlight night and it also signify the ending of MassKara. -.-
Bummer!
Also, we did not have a very good experience with the hotel. First of all, the room we got looked much smaller than the photos shown in their website. And it was supposed to be able to fit 3 ppl, but they refused to comply and insist we pay for extra 2 ppl. So we were additionally charged!!! Not only that, in the begining they tried to charged me a higher rate than agreed upon.
Talk about cutthroat! Trust me, with the amount we paid, it is definitely not worth it. With the price we pay, we could have gotten a better hotel with better room. So my verdict is, don't go to this hotel with the initial S.M. (pm me for the hotel name)
So, that's the sum of our first day in the Land of the Pinoys.
