Trip to the Island of NEGROS and Dumaguete

Wednesday April 15th at 7:30 am Sisters Darby, Murry, Jenee and I headed out for Dumaguete located on the island of Negros.  We were told that it was a 4 hour drive of which I quietly questioned since it was only 143 KM.  What I did not know was that to get there we had to travel on a two lane road through numerous little cities which slowed us down considerably.  As we passed through each city we encountered a myriad of tricycles and motorbikes which occupied the streets as we tried to pass by.  We had to slow down to almost 10 MPH in many cities - that is why it TOOK SO LONG to get to our destination. We really did not let that bother us as the sights along the way made the drive both interesting and worthwhile.

We arrived at the Liloan Port at about 11:10 AM and discovered that the Maayo Shipping Ferry left at 11:30AM so I hurried and got our tickets as well as the ticket to transport the car over to Dumaguete. Roundtrip was 1800 pesos (abt. $40.55) for all of us and the car.



Maayo ticket office

Jenee onboard the ferry

Maayo Ferry

Liloan Port

We got off the Ferry at Sibulan Port, ahead of our planned schedule which meant that we had time to perhaps see a little of Negros during the afternoon.

Sibulan Port Area

After departing we had about a 20 or so minute drive to Dumaguete and the C&L Bay View Hotel where we had reservations to stay that evening.  This hotel reminded Jenee and I so much of the hotel we stayed in when we took our kids to Cape Town. It was small, but very nice and very colorful.

 

After getting settled in the Sisters decided they wanted to go to the mall to shop and to get lunch.  So we boarded the tricycle and off we went.

The Sisters on a Tricycle

We finished with lunch and shopping at the smallish Robinson's mall and returned to the hotel for rest before we headed out for dinner.  At 5 PM we met and decided to take a walk along the Rizal Boulevard which was along the sea side.

 

 

 

We decided to follow the recommendations of some missionaries for dinner at Don Atilano's. Not anything resembling Italian and the lettuce salads were warm.  We decided we could no longer go on missionary recommendations.  Only Sister Murry enjoyed her dinner.  My steak was tough, Jenee's lasagna was flavorless noodles in a little white sauce.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel for a good night's rest and there in the grass area along the waterfront we heard loud music and noticed a lot of people dancing. Yay, we joined in with the 'zumba in the park'! It was so fun dancing.

After dancing for about 20 hot minutes decided we best get some rest as we have a big and busy day ahead of us.  We discovered in talking with the lead dancer that the local government had set aside Wed - Fri evenings for this exercise for another month or so.

Thursday is the day for our Stake Youth Conference  presentation.  This activity is being held in Dauin a beach resort about 30 minutes away at The Private Resident VIP Resort and Spa.  We were to be there by noon so after breakfast we decided to travel to Valencia to see one of the local recommended spots, a water fall.  It took us some time to finally find the place since the road signs here in the Philippines leave something to be desired.   Finally after about 40 minutes we located the falls.

In talking with the caretaker we learned when the Typhoon of 2014 came through the islands, there was a flash flood in this canyon that all but destroyed the area and downstream 9 people were killed.  This area was still being repaired as well as repairing the roads to and from the falls.

From there we headed for Dauin since we needed to be there by noon.  We thought it would be easy to find the resort but the resort sign was not as visible as we thought and it took a bit of backtracking and maneuvering to finally arrive.  We arrived and were met by the Stake President and treated to lunch and then we went to the assembly hall and set up for our presentation to 130 youth.  The resort was very clean and quite beautiful.

Our presentation was to introduce the youth to the Education for Better Work and the My Job Search programs available through the Self-Reliance program. Since this area is assigned to Sisters Darby and Murry they were in charge of planning the program;  Sister Darby put together a program that involved playing some meaningful games about "MY FUTURE LIFE PLAN" with the youth and they did enjoy the activity.  The game (Jenee's responsibility) was followed by some brief power point presentations (my responsibility) followed by another game led by Jenee.  After that Sister Darby concluded the activity which in all took about 1 and a half hours.

Upon conclusion we packed up our things and started back for Cebu, at the ferry by 4:00PM and set out at 4:30PM.  From there we drove back to Cebu in the dark which was something you just could not even imagine.  In every little city along the way we ran into those tricycle and peddle bikes but this time it was in the dark and 90% use no lights. You would be heading down the road at 60 MPH when all of a sudden you would come upon one of those motorized tricycles or peddle tricycles or a Jeepnie.   It is a miracle that these people are not killed in this traffic. With cars and motor bikes passing and weaving in and out of the traffic you just put your life in the Lord's hands and hope you didn't hit someone or get yourself killed.

We finally arrived back in Cebu at 9:30 PM exhausted and ready to hit the bed!