Stories of Places, People and Photography in the Philippines and Beyond
Second day mid-morning found us in transit from Bacolod City proper to Silay City which is about 45minutes to and hour away from each other. After a hearty breakfast at Bacolod Pensione Plaza, we checked out not before asking for directions on where to find a ride. Though there were couple of directions given, they all end up on the main Lacson St highway. There were many jeeps plying the route costing us only 15 Pesos for the ride to Silay Town Proper.
Driving around the Sapa Valley slopes at the back of a motorcycle is exhilarating as we cut through the cool mountain air. Aside from that, the view of the cloud shrouded mountains and the impressive terraces of the valley is astounding. We were headed to one of the first ethnic hill side villages in the valley, the Cat Cat Village.
I have been getting interesting emails on the food China Olympics 2008 Patrons were able to sample lately. It’s an amusing to see as it reminded me of our last day in Chengdu, China. After having visited the Panda Adventure, we decided to go around the city since our train ride going down south of China will be in the evening. Riding a bus, our eyes caught this highly ornament looking street that we just decided to go down.
We arrived late in the afternoon in Hanoi, coming back from Ha Long Bay. We stayed for a while at the Handspan office to rest and confirm our train tickets for the night. We are set to take the night train to Sapa that evening as well. Since we had some time to kill, we decided to do a brief walk around the Old Quarters. Pretty busy street, mostly of low rise houses with old French facades. Would have been great to take a lot of photos but it was sun down already and the way the things those motos drive by, it’s kinda hard to take out your cameras in the streets. For dinner that night we decided to eat at Vietnam’s oldest restaurant which opened in 1871, Cha Ca La Vong Restaurant.
When in Iloilo, and you are looking for a place to eat by the beach serving good ol’ Filipino comfort food, head down to Tatoy’s Manokan and Seafoods. Located at Villa Beach, West of Iloilo City, about 8 km from the city center, it is one of the old established restaurants that serve native food without the frills and won’t burn your pockets per meal.
The drive from Leshan Giant Buddha Park to Emeishan City took at least an hour. I didn’t notice much since I was half asleep during the ride and didn’t see much of the way. I noticed that gasoline prices here are very cheap that’s why most transpo here are cheap as well. They said that the government dictates the prices of their commodity that is why as I remember. When I came to, we were entering a small street with eatery at the side. I was told that we were gonna check out this recommended hotel by our van. So we did out of courtesy.
We only spent a night at Chongqing and the next day we moved on westward to Leshan. Found at the south west portion of Sichuan Province, Leshan, which means “Happy Mountain” is home to a pair of another UNESCO World Heritage sites. Both sites Emei Shan and Leshan Giant Buddha are a mix of cultural and natural areas. Our first stop was the latter. So after checking out of Nanbin Hostel, we went out to the rainy morning streets, took a cab back to Caiyuan Ba Bus Station.
