It’s unmistakable. Bacolod is the most laid-back the word ‘laid-back’ could get. I like Bacolod City. Try googling Bacolod and you’ll find out that it once ranked Number 1 as the Most Competitive Mid-Sized City in 2005 and was named as the Best Place to Live in the Philippines last 2008 by Moneysense magazine, with Makati as second and Manila down at 11. If one believed in signs, a flight delayed for 7 hours might have been the end of it.
Author: Ruby
The long bus rides to and fro Tuguegarao were reminiscent of the nights we spent on the bus going around Myanmar. This is by far the longest bus ride I ever took in the country. Various airlines offer flights to Tuguegarao but because the trip was a last minute decision (meaning no seat sales), we chose to take the bus instead. I have no trouble catching sleep on the bus so the 13-hour trip was not a biggie. Scoring the bus
Back from our morning trek to Tappiyah Falls. We came home to Mang Ramon’s Homestay, with our lunch of steaming brown rice and crispy porkchop waiting for us. The day’s second agenda: visit Cambulo. A village located north of Batad, reachable by 3-4 hours of trekking on rice paddies and terraces. I didn’t know a thing about Cambulo but Dandy mentioned guiding a group to the village the previous week. So we said, “Sige kami rin!”, gaya-gaya mode ON. He said there’s
We had no detailed plans for this trip, except to see the terraces and Tappiyah Falls. We told Dandy, our awesome guide (contact him at: 0910.346.5310), of our bare plan and he told us that if we weren’t in a hurry, we could hike to Cambulo. Thank you Dandy! I have not heard of Cambulo, a neighboring community reachable by 2-3 hours of trek. That was the masterplan. Finally, it was time to walk along the terraces. We went on the
‘Go Local!’ We saw Mang Ramon’s catchy slogan on the trail to Batad. We made no reservations prior to the trip, but luckily, Ramon’s Homestay still had an available traditional Ifugao hut. For P700, we were able to experience living in a ‘no-nail’ house. We were drenched by the rain and the almost 4-hr trek made us hungry for dinner at 4PM. Good thing we didn’t have to walk outside to find decent food because Ramon’s Homestay offered home-cooked meals