camiguin: golden sunset beach club

February 7, 2010 at 3:43 AM | In travel thoughts | Leave a Comment
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notice the many people on the left corner of the pix???

well, they were a bunch of curious onlookers. see, when we were on our way back to aying’s place from the sto. nino cold spring, we passed by a scene of a motorbike accident. apparently, the motorbike that passed us earlier crashed a few meters ahead. according to my travelmates, they saw the bike earlier on and thought the driver was drunk as his bike was unsteady and wobbling. it turned out that the driver was indeed drunk. when we passed by the scene, i saw the driver passed out on the road. people were gathered around him as they wait for a vehicle to transport him to a hospital. meanwhile, the driver of the multicab that we were on thought he recognized the passenger of the bike. thus, he pulled over and went to check out the scene. when he came back to our vehicle, he brought with him the slightly wounded passenger. we learned that the two who figured in the accident were actually employees of golden sunset club beach resort. the two were supposed to be on the job. they were tasked to deliver the food of their guests to sto. nino cold spring. but the two went to have a few shots of alcoholic drink before returning to the resort. according to the injured passenger, he accompanied the motorbike driver to talk him out of driving while under the influence. obviously, his attempt was a big failure. anyway, our driver thought to give his injured friend a ride back to the resort. he took it upon himself to explain to the resort’s manager what happened to his two errant employeed. it was because of this unfortunate accident that we came upon golden sunset beach club.


so here folks is another possible resort you can choose for your accommodations if you decide to spend your vacation in camiguin. well, all i can show you are a few pictures of the resort. as for specific details, you may have to call the resort at the number posted on their welcome banner
golden sunset beach club; 09185595686 / (63)(088) 3879163

a beautiful garden, path towards their pool

jacky and budlat posing before the resort’s big pool

the resort’s big pool up close

the beach beyond the big pool

the succeeding pix are just us camwhoring while we waited for our driver to finish speaking with the resort’s manager about the accident. moi – love their “duyan”

what can i say, we just love their duyan

us 4

budlat and dennis, back-to-back

attempted actors


golden sunset beach club, folks.


Note: will really, really post next our day tour. pix used are mine and budlat’s

camiguin: paras beach resort

February 2, 2010 at 10:56 PM | In travel thoughts | Leave a Comment
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paras beach resort.

no. we didn’t stay here while we were on vacation in camiguin august of last year. we simply could not afford it.

we only had pictorials there. LOL!!! us 4 after our lovely dinner.

if you have money to splurge, i suggest you book yourself a room here. as i mentioned in my last entry, the resorts in camiguin don’t have beach fronts. i loathe to say that for one to enjoy the waters of camiguin, you’ll have to travel to the famous white island, unless you don’t mind jumping in rocky waters with black sands. [camiguin locals, please correct me if this is a misguided information!]. so if you plan to be in the water any time you want, you’re better off with a resort that has a pool. of course, if you’ve money to burn, you can always go back and forth to white island. it’s only PhP400 [less than $10] per back/forth trip.

anyway, here are a few pictures of the resort. i wasn’t kidding when i said we only went there for some photo ops, hehe…

kidding aside, we arrived in yumbing mambajao a little past lunch time. we thought it wasn’t practical to rush to seeing the sites of camiguin at that hour. the sun was at its mightiest then. thus, we decided to while away our time here while waiting for our 3 o’clock appointment to head to white island.

the tiny speck of white in the pix is white island as seen inside paras

let the pictorials begin.

moi. this is what i meant when i said the resorts don’t have beach fronts.

dennis with his classic pose

juliet with her take a pic of my back drama

the charming and demure jacky

paras, viewed from the beach

some mountain [mt. hibok-hibok???] viewed from paras

cio and budlat, what’s the drama here?

my travel isn’t complete without taking a pic of my “vetlongwalks” mark

haha. i wasn’t really kidding when i said we were at paras for the photo ops..

the beautiful pool

the beautiful innovation called timers

tinkering with the timer again

cio with his classic and ever consistent facial expression

jacky enjoying her ube ice cream

my watermelon shake @PhP60 [less than $2] and the resort’s menu. hmmm, now that i see this, i wouldnt say that paras is THAT expensive. perhaps it’s only their rooms we can’t afford as we’re BUDGET TRAVELERS.

night scenes at paras

the pool with a few of the resort’s guests enjoying the water

the tower on the left is where we had our dinner. warning: SUPER BREEZY…

the pool, viewed from the white tower

accommodations, accommodations

ordering for dinner

L-billiards/al fresco area– R-budlat helping out cio decide what to eat

playing table tennis while waiting for our dinner [@PhP50/hour - a little over $1]

our dinner [jacky's spaghetti in pomodoro, budlat and cio's beef and mushroom, and spicy mixed seafood, my beef lasagna]

dinner didn’t stop us from grabbing this photo op
hmmm, their food isn’t bad, but they’re not excellent either. i’ve had better. theirs is just so-so.

that’s paras beach resort for you folks. click on this to take you to the resort’s official site.

will post next our day tour of the island. probably in installments also.

credits: some of the pix used here are dennis’ [night scenes] and budlat’s.

camiguin: dine in

January 31, 2010 at 2:47 PM | In travel thoughts | Leave a Comment
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one of the greatest things i look forward to when traveling is food. although, i don’t mind eating skyflakes or cream-o while on the road, settling yourself in front of a table laded with sumptuous food somehow erases the weariness that traveling does to the body. interestingly, when you get to the part of mambajao where we stayed [in yumbing], the locals will have no problem telling you that restaurants are aplenty in the area. that is, you’ll have no difficulty finding food. despite all the assurances, our experience proved otherwise. there aren’t many restaurants in the area. carenderia are not even aplenty. in the market alone, there were only two establishments selling ordinary lutong-bahay and the usual grilled food. across the market, is the “kainan sa tulay” [literally, restaurant by the bridge, also a few meters away from aying's place]. although a bit big, this place only offers lutong-bahay food. nothing fancy, so don’t expect much. the sole restaurant we came across while there was “Luna Ristorante” – they serve brick oven-cooked pizzas – the yummiest pizza ever [promise - a lot of foreigners were even there]!!! unfortunately, we were unable to try their other food, so i can’t offer much info here.

so if there aren’t many food places in the area, where then did we feed our hungry stomachs?

one place. PARAS BEACH RESORT. as i said, the place where we stayed is just walking distance to the fancy paras beach resort. so we ended having our breakfast, snacks, and dinner there. interestingly, every time we visited the resort, we do so without having to pay anything. AS IN, no entrance fee collected and staff are very friendly even though we weren’t actually guests of the resort. we didn’t check-in or anything. haha, even if we’d want to, i think PARAS caters the high-end market. a lot of their guests were foreigners, actually. but like i said, it’s perhaps the camiguin people’s hospitality that we didn’t feel discriminated at all. what can i say, camiguin people are generally friendly and very accommodating.

anyway, before i show pictures of PARAS BEACH RESORT, let me show the breakfast fare we had at aying’s place and a few pix at LUNA RISTORANTE.

as i mentioned in my previous entry, one of the good things at aying’s place is you can actually ask her to have someone prepare food for you. they’ll charge you with the exact cost of the ingredients. would you believe that for all these food in the picture, they only charged us PhP150??? haha, as much as we’d like to offer more, we too didn’t have enough extra to be generous so we only paid PhP200.

haha, i don’t think for PhP150, you can have 4 servings of egg, corned beef and beef loaf for 4, rice, and instant coffee at any restaurants. they’re even delivered to our room at the time we specified. amazing, really. my PhP150 here in cebu will only get me a serving of coffee, rice, and corned beef over at cafe de france [ a serving of one, imagine that!!]

this is the establishment that the locals keep telling us serves a lot of food. KAINAN SA TULAY. again, nothing fancy here – so don’t expect much. the locals didn’t lie when they say that this place offers many food. yep, in the area, that is.
it’s interesting to note though that it’s also in this area that i witnessed an “only in camiguin” experience. would you believe that when we had our lunch here, manang celia [the local who became our tour guide minus the fee], brought a potful of rice? and some kilawin fish??…. as far as i know, here in cebu, you’re not allowed to bring food when you’re in a restaurant or even in a carenderia. it’s just a no-no to bring food outside. but here, not only manang celia was allowed to bring a potful of rice, they even allowed her use of their kitchen implements so she can prepare the kilawin – at NO EXTRA COST!.. so yeah, we only bought viands as we ate the rice that manang celia brought with her.

yumbing public market. this is across kainan sa tulay. the partially seen structure on the right has at least 2 carenderia [food stall is more like it].
we had our dinner here on our first night in mambajao.

not quite satisfied with the grilled food we had at the market, we prodded dennis to treat us pizza at the restaurant we passed by on our way to the market. luckily, he gave in as it was in this restaurant that i had my taste of the yummiest pizza. it being cooked in an original brick oven, the pizza had this aroma that you don’t find in pizzas served by yellow cab, shakey’s, pizza hut and other pizza houses sprouting in cebu. again, the yummiest ever..

don’t be fooled by their smiles, but they actually enjoyed their pizza and ice-cold beer

menu of the restaurant. me thinks the price is affordable given that they serve delish pizza..

jacky at luna ristorante. my cam sucks at nighttime photography, so didnt have much pictures of the place

the pizza i can’t seem to stop praising – pizza luna, if my memory serves me. or just ask the waitress for their specialty of the house

luna ristorante in broad daylight.

haha, i got so hungry very early in the morning, that i scoured the place in search of food. guess what? i ended up grabbing breakfast at paras beach resort alone. my three travelmates were still asleep as we had a late night over some bottle of rum.

snapshots of yumbing as i searched for food in broad daylight! i think i had a terrible headache then as i lost count of shots i had of rum the previous night. the street behind the sign leads to aying’s place
if you face the shed, the street on the left is the path leading to luna ristorante.

camiguin’s tricycle. i think it’s called motorela in cagayan de oro.

the side of paras beach resort

my breakfast of tapa, scrambled egg, coffee, and fresh watermelon over at PARAS beach resort.

the price of my breakfast

but with this view, can’t complain

opppsss… this post turned out lengthy. i’ll just post more pix of paras beach resort in another entry.

camiguin: sleep in

January 30, 2010 at 2:24 AM | In travel how to | 4 Comments
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i just realized that my camiguin finally! post didn’t mention how to get to mambajao – camiguin’s capital [i think, correct me if i'm wrong]. pardon me for this omission. anyhow, as i mentioned we went cheapskate during this travel – so yeah, we didn’t avail of island tours . see, as soon as the ferry docks from balingoan to benoni, several men bearing laminated pictures of different camiguin sites will approach you. they’ll offer you tour options. one of the guys who approached us said he could take us to mambajao, help us find accommodations, and take us on a day trip for a fee of PhP1,000. since we were going cheapskate, we declined and found our own arrangements. besides, we were too hungry at past 11 AM and only had food in our minds. although not hungry enough as we still thought it wasn’t a sweet deal especially that most of the day’s gone and our day trip would only be a “half-day trip”, technically. so we walked a bit out of the wharf [less than 3 mins. walk] and hopped on a jeepney bound for mambajao. jeepney fare from benoni to mambajao was PhP23.

welcome to benoni port.
Continue reading camiguin: sleep in…

tangub city’s 09 christmas symbols festival

January 10, 2010 at 11:37 PM | In travel thoughts | Leave a Comment
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sometime back, i heard that there’s a certain place to be in Mindanao during christmas time. that place is Tangub City – a 3rd class city in the province of Misamis Occidental. it’s one of my yet to check places in the country as i also heard that Tangub City is known as the Christmas Capital of Mindanao. what can i say, there’s something about display of changing lights that fascinates me. and beautiful lights is exactly what the city of tangub offers to locals and tourists alike. so before the whole office went for a break, i sort of asked one of my officemates to check out tangub city for me. see, i mentioned that i wanted to check this place in mindanao, but for the love of me couldn’t remember the name of the town. luckily, armando knows about the place. he mentioned that tangub is just 30 minutes away from his hometown of ozamis. he assured me that i was definitely referring to tangub city as he’d been to the city several times especially back in the days when he was active in joining dance competitions held in tangub. after our little conversation, i immediately googled the place – and voila! TANGUB CITY it is.
Continue reading tangub city’s 09 christmas symbols festival…

bangkok in april

January 6, 2010 at 8:59 PM | In travel thoughts | Leave a Comment

clai and i were on the phone last night just talking about stuff. somewhere in that long conversation, there was a mention of us traveling together out of the country someday soon. [this particular topic often comes up every time we talk and an obstacle always presents itself somewhere -usually it's money - hehe.] last year, we were dead serious about taking ourselves to bangkok and experience the holidays there. that didn’t happen. i got stuck in mactan for five straight days during the holidays. months before that i went on a spontaneous trip to singapore while she got herself tickets for hongkong. well, we’re not rich so we really could not afford to travel outside the country with only a 3 or 4-month gap in between travels. thus, the “we’re-really-doing-bangkok-this-december-by-hook-or-by-crook” didn’t materialize and only our determination to really do it someday remained. so yeah, we discussed it again last night and the practical, budget-conscious me begged off up front that i could not travel anytime soon as money is a bit tight these days. i told her that i wouldn’t want to do a repeat of singapore where i had to ask help from my family for the travel expenses. i simply have to save for it before i’d go jump and buy the ticket. our phone talk ended with me assuring her that us traveling together would soon become real, probably not this year, but sometime. definitely sometime.

guess what happened two minutes after clai and i hang up the phone? Continue reading bangkok in april…

acceptance and cebu’s christmas lights

December 24, 2009 at 4:32 PM | In travel thoughts | 1 Comment

as of writing, i have fully accepted that i’ll be spending my long holiday here in my beloved cebu. don’t get me wrong, i love cebu. is just that in the past couple of years, i’ve made it a tradition to spend the greater part of the holidays exploring the other islands of the Philippine archipelago. unfortunately this year, my friends took on adult-life-serious-kind-of-projects [it's great, actually and i wouldn't have wanted them to do things differently] and well, priorities changed this year. so yeah, stuck here in cebu [LOL!].

with no december travel itinerary, i rationalized by telling myself that 2009 wasn’t a bad year for me travel-wise. at least for 2009, i got to travel with life-long college friends [first time] to manila and diliman to visit another friend [june], visited the ayala museum in makati and manila ocean park with him who’ll never be [july], vacationed in camiguin [august], went on a spontaneous trip to singapore with dennis [august] and attended a friend’s wedding in davao [october]. so yeah, not a bad year at all. thus, let me greet you a

the picture i used in the above little card is lifted from this series of wallpapers.

anyhow, enjoy the merry lights in these parts of cebu.

Continue reading acceptance and cebu’s christmas lights…

travel now or later???

December 16, 2009 at 5:15 PM | In travel thoughts | 3 Comments

i was taking a break and came across an article about solo traveling. the article mentioned that there were a lot of people who postponed traveling until they could find their lifetime travel companion. these people realized with great regret that they’ve missed the opportunity to travel because their finding the perfect travel companion didn’t exactly spell out them having the chance to travel.

reasons such as they got married to someone who’s not THAT INTO traveling, children came along, family emergencies and the like popped up preventing them to go and take those dream vacations.

these got me thinking. currently, i’m in a place where dreaming of going to certain destinations has more appeal than any other thing in life. there’s also that one person i’d like to drag along on these travels but had to step on the brakes for fear of a lot of things. now, this travel writer is saying that “there are a whole lot of places to visit and only so many years. AND NO GUARANTEES of what will happen in the future. you’re the most free when it’s just you.”

arghhh…. these two lines are now stuck in my head and my brain is trying to plot how i can go around facing my fears..

“there are ONLY SO many years to travel.”

“who knows what will happen in the future?”

darn. don’t get me thinking…

no-plan december

November 14, 2009 at 8:32 AM | In travel thoughts | Leave a Comment

I’m itching to go somewhere this December despite not having the budget [LOL!]. Since 2006, I’ve made it a point to spend the December break from work outside my beloved Cebu. This year I’m looking at 8 days of free time with nowhere to go and if miraculously I can secure the budget, no one to travel with. Drawbacks aside, I humored myself by googling the different provinces of the country. Perhaps by highlighting the places I’ve been to in the past, I can pick a place to visit and get the needed push to come up with a travel budget. As of writing, Luzon doesn’t much appeal to me because of the recent disasters where many of our fellow Filipinos perished. Setting that aside, however, I don’t mind going back to Baguio for the 4th time. As for the Visayas, my region – it’s only Siquijor that beckons me. However, I don’t want to do Siquijor on my own. Or perhaps, I should consider exploring my beloved Cebu as I’ve never been to Camotes, Bantayan, or Sumilon islands. If not, I can go to Mindanao. Topping the list of places to visit is Iligan to see the Ma. Cristina Falls, Malaybalay Bukidnon for the mountains and peace, and Zamboanga to see Rizal’s Dapitan.
Continue reading no-plan december…

davao take 2

October 19, 2009 at 11:24 PM | In travel thoughts | Leave a Comment

i hate attending weddings. okay, i don’t hate the ceremony itself, it’s the dressing up part that i loathe. good thing i’ve friends who know very well or at least are very tolerant of my inability to conform with the dress code for this occasion. so on october 31, 2009 – saturday, me and three other friends are flying to davao to attend a wedding – a Muslim ceremony at that. apart from this being a good excuse to hop on a plane, i’m actually excited to observe a traditional Muslim wedding ceremony.

so yeah, already got tickets for the trip a week before. as for our accommodation, well, yam, ley, and line are taking care of it and the other details.

anyway, 2004 – i think – was the first time i’ve stepped on davaoland. at that time, my visit was hosted by my college friend peachi. i had a grand tour then. for this trip, i’m looking forward to us four finding our own way as we explore this part of mindanao. hopefully, we’ll have the whole of sunday to sightsee on our own. hmm, we can hardly expect our friend ram to tour us – read: not a good way to spend honeymoon! hehe…

p.s. it’s so unfortunate that we learned of the nov. 2 holiday too late. had we known there’s no work on that monday, we wouldn’t have gotten the first flight out to cebu.

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