Ironwulf.net: En Route – The Philippines, Travel, Photography Blog

Do I try to sleep or do I go out explore? Its 5am in the morning and somehow doing some chores has dampened the sleepiness I was feeling earlier. I just arrived from my Bus ride from Yangon and checked in at May Kha Lar Guest House in Nyaung U, Bagan and the first thing I did was do the laundry so it would dry out for the day. I lay for a few minutes on the bed but I couldn’t sleep so I took my camera bag and tripod and went out in the early morning blue.

As always, the first step when coming in to a new country is adapting. And this process can be an ease or a struggle depending on our initial encounters with the locals. And it couldn’t be any easier when the place you’re staying is already used to foreigners like Motherland Inn 2 in Yangon. It’s like a backpacker’s haven in this part of the country since most foreigners go here and there’s a good reason why.

“It’s whole new way to stay” says roomarama.com. It’s a pretty attractive strapline if you ask me. Looking into their site, it caters for different kind of travellers from the smart, adventurous and independent traveller like me. Roomorama.com offered to try out their services and since I have a two week trip in Myanmar, I thought it would be great to try them out there. That led me to this fancy boutique hotel Mandalay View inn.

It’s one of those impromptu decisions again where we booked a flight to exit on a different destination from where we started. I was hoping we would have time to explore Davao in our 6-day itinerary but Bislig occupied us so much and we don’t want to hasten it up just to see as many sights as we can. So in our 5th day, it was time to leave Bislig and head to Davao. Interestingly, it will be my first time to set foot on this beloved city of the south. With much excitement, we caught the 9am Bachelor Bus from Bislig and rode south to Davao.

As much as I like Rock Inn in Sagada, we moved to town center for a much cheaper option on accommodation. We were also going to leave early the next day back to Baguio so it pays to be close to the Bus Station. Since it’s a market day Saturday with not much tourist crowd yet, it’s much easier to go around town and look for places to stay. We decided on George Guesthouse a few meters down from the center. It’s a nice 4-story road side inn that was of very good value.

It was an unusual welcome that after a few meters walk from the Sagada main road down the scenic rocky pathways lined by trees, the first creature that welcomed us in Rock Inn were dogs. Not that I’m complaining but it was quite amusing to find them wagging their tails upon oue arrival instead of barking. Do they still remember me from my last visit a month ago with Karl Grobl and his group? That certainly seems to be the case. I’ve always thought that places who loves animals whether be a dog or cat or any other pets, are ran by really friendly folks. Hey if they can take care of their pets well, I think it would be the same for their guests.

We heard the weather up in these parts is usually gloomy with occasional showers but it was a bright and sunny welcome when we arrived at the town of Claveria. Immediately we went to Casa Grand Inn just beside the boulevard facing the sea. We already booked our accommodations here in advance and was pleasantly surprised how spacious and comfortable our room was. On the first part of the day we did some walking around to get familiar and orient ourselves with the place.