Lost Blogs: Panglao

My two lady friends came to visit me while I was in Tagbilaran, Bohol back in late April of this year (2010). They actually were visiting me under a shroud of secrecy due to the fact that neither of them wanted their online boyfriend types to know about them seeing me. So as promised, I'm holding back any photos in which either C or M appear. It looks like the face of a sleeping girl can be seen in one photo, but I'm not really worried about it.

The day after their arrival in Tagbilaran via ferryboat, we all climbed onto a tricycle and the driver lugged us and our stuff from Tagbilaran to the sweet island of Panglao, about a 30+ minute drive. There's a causeway that you cross to get from Bohol to Panglao, and the ride usually costs about 200-300 pesos.

We chose the Dumaluan Beach Resort to spend a couple of days and nights. They have a multitude of luxurious aircon-equipped accomodations from which to choose, but in my cheap style I rented a kubo with nothing more than an overhead light fixture and a fan.

No bathroom (comfort room or "c.r." as they're referred to here in the Philippines), no fridge and certainly no TV. No beds, either. It was like a single-room cabin, with a couple of thin mats to lay on.

This was a very cozy little place, and being at a successful beach resort with what I consider to be a world-class beach (at high tide ;), it was relatively expensive at p1000 or about $22US. This same kubo (basically just another word for nipa hut) would cost a small fraction of that in many other places. Expect to pay around p200 for this accomodation in various areas of the Philippines.

But something that made Dumaluan special and debatably worth the price premium is the atmosphere of white sand beach and sweet seabreezes. The above photo is of the scene directly off of our kubo's doorstep. I'd trade aircon for this anyday.

It's really a very relaxing place. The majority of people who visit Dumaluan are vacationing Koreans and Filipinos, as I saw only a handful of white tourists during my stay. I briefly hung my hammock between a couple of the palm trees just steps from our kubo and right near the water's edge. But of course some jackass came along and told me it's not permitted to hang a hammock on their property. I guess some things are the same regardless of which country you are in: Businesses always scared of frivolous lawsuits. I used the high-quality tree-friendly straps made specifically for safely supporting up to 350 pounds in my hammock, but that doesn't matter to these nervous-ninnies.

In this above photo, you can see me looking happy, well-adjusted and not yet burned out. This is what I look like any time I'm caught up on my blog and such.

Here's a snapshot I took from out in the surf at dusk. This is my best attempt to showcase the Dumaluan Beach Resort from afar using a digital camera that doesn't play nice with nightime shots. If you compare the $22US per night for the kubo we rented here, you'll probably notice that a similar thing would run you around $500US/night in Hawaii or French Polynesia. Funny how I whine about p1000 being relatively expensive compared to some other parts of the Philippines, right?

This platter of delicious local foods was touted on a chalkboard that claimed it to be the "Choose any 3 of 5". This gave me the impression that one would select their 3 favorite foods from the possible 5, but when I tried specifying my choices to the cashier she informed me that there was no decision-making required. It turned out that you simply got a sampling from each of the 5 choices. Good luck figuring out what exactly is on this platter in the above photo, since this was 4 months ago and I can't recall what all of them were from this overhead camera angle. The platter fed 3 of us and cost p600, and again there are two schools of thought as to the relativity of prices for such things when compared to other parts of the Philippines and then when compared to other places in the world.

And yes, I'm officially back to blogging. I got very strung out for a while, as my laptop continued to overflow with photos and my head continued to swirl with uncertainties and thoughts of possibly tossing my laptop and camera into the nearest dumpster. But now I'm feeling about 6% better, so I feel like again going on another blogging rampage. With my fantasy football drafts looming in the very near future, I'm about to begin juggling even more distractions, so it should see fun to see how long it takes for me to go completely nuts. But that should make for an interesting read, right?