TRAVEL AND LIFESTYLE DIARIES

We enjoyed enormously the serene, unsullied, and natural town villages of Negros Oriental. They can be likened to a breath of fresh fragrant air. Nature and beautiful scenery came together as our backdrop in our laid-back nomadic rides with the rented scooter. The people were wholesome and very friendly, and the culture... local to the core. Our experiences in this trip can be summed up as: pretty much wonderful. Because sitting on a moving scooter for an extended amount of time (say an hour), is uncomfortable - our bums began to feel very funny like we have gazillions of ants crawling out from them, we didn’t reach as far as Siaton in the south, Amlan to the north, and Valencia towards the mountains. Our favorites were the villages in the south of Negros Oriental and the mountainous Valencia area. Here are some of our foto souvenirs: This was before reaching the proper town of Siaton. Ricefields and a nipa hut with children. Siaton town hall with a pretty well manicured park in the ...

From Singapore, we flew to Cebu, Philippines with Cebu Pacific Air, and because this is a budget flight with a budget airline, everything was budget in standards (maybe never next time?), i.e., the terminal is located in Singapore’s very budget terminal, the flying hours truly budgetised – 12:30AM, and as expected, the flight schedule was delayed for 1 hour while the Manila flight was 2 hours delayed. {sigh} We arrived 4:30AM in Mactan Cebu International Airport and my family was already (eagerly) waiting outside for us. Aw, poor them, they had to wake up so early to receive us. So fast forward, after the family stuff, it was finally time for our little 5-day vacation. I picked Negros Oriental to holiday mainly because of its proximity to Cebu, only 3+ hours boat ride to its capital, Dumaguete City. The place also seems nice with many things to see and do, and moreover, we haven’t been to this island yet. So, off we go! Hellish boat ride : Cebu-Tagbilaran-Dumaguete Ocean Jet...