6 November 2018
The trouble with a nation of islands is all the internal flights needed to explore it. And because they don’t necessarily link up, we end up taking 2 entire days to do nothing more than get from Vigan in north Luzon to Sabang in Palawan. Of course we could probably have found enough to do on the main island of Luzon for 2-3 weeks, so it’s our own choice, but certainly an attempt to hit a few of the supposed highlights of the Philippines means visiting different islands.
Today involved a lie-in at our sex hotel, a taxi ride back to the airport, a wait for our (delayed) plane. A wait at the other end for our (delayed) shuttle minibus to the resort… and by the time we arrived it was dark again and nearly time for dinner.
It wasn’t really a sex hotel! The mirrors on the ceiling weren’t above the bed, the overnight rate was clearly more usual than the hourly rate, and giving all the dishes on their room service menu mildly euphemistic names is surely just a bit of fun? “Chicken schlongganisa,” heheh. Hmm.
Now I need to explain that “longganisa” is a small, sometimes garlicky, sausage usually eaten for breakfast in the Philippines. From my own modest experience of four different specimens, they range from vile out-of-a-tin frankfurter types to really delicious craft sausages. The town of Vigan happens to be renowned for making the best longganisa in the country. So now you know why “schlongganisa” is funny.
So, we’re staying in a resort! This isn’t like us. But we wanted just a tad of deluxe and relax after scurrying around north Luzon. Very weird to suddenly see a whole bunch of western faces after seeing almost none for ten days. Though I think that’s more about the beachy nature of Sabang rather than our resort in particular: by nature we of course shunned the resort restaurant and wandered down the beach, where we found a little wood-fired pizza bar with a live DJ, and naturally most of the small crowd there were western backpackers. The mushroom pizza was pretty good, though couldn’t stand up to the one in Loboc on Bohol.
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