April 14-17, 2022. The first part of my trip was devoted to spending quality time with my family, celebrating my mom and my brother’s birthdays staying in a proper luxury boutique resort in Dauin, a town south of Dumaguete, and doing day tours in provincial capital and its surrounding towns of Valencia, Bais and Manjuyod.
How we got there
It takes just above an hour by plane from Manila to get to Dumaguete, the capital of the province, and the gateway to all the other places in this part of Central Visayas. From the airport, we had a pre-booked van in order to go to the resort in Dauin, a dozen or so kilometers to the south of Dumaguete.
What we did
For our first day, a friend of my mom’s friend toured us around some parts of Dumaguete. After stopping by a the Catholic church in the center of the city, we went to Valencia to drive around some of the mountain attractions. We made several stops including one at a road side where sulfur steams out from the ground.
June 9, 2019. We had originally planned on a whole day excursion to Nusa Penida, an island east of Bali known for its picturesque beaches and cliffs. However, considering that we were still exhausted and that a trip to the offshore island would take an entire day, we decided to change our plan and opted for a more relaxed day at a beach club near our hotel in Seminyak and explore some of the nearer towns.
That morning, we skipped hotel breakfast and asked Joe to bring us to a place where locals love to eat. He decided to bring us to another “babi” (pork) place called Pak Malen where they serve babi guling (see photos below). True enough, even though we were there a good half hour before opening time, a horde of customers and Grab delivery riders were already waiting. Apparently, in Muslim-dominant Indonesia, Bali is one of those places with a big fascination with otherwise haram (forbidden food) pork.
How was it? The dish was hella spicy for me and it turned my face into a giant waterfall of sweat. It’s like lechon kawali, Bali-style, but make it tongue- burning with chilis and spicy sidings. Halfway into trying to finish my food, my tongue had numbed I couldn’t really decipher the other flavors anymore. I would, later on, learn upon further inquiry that it was possible to get a non-spicy version of the dish.
After breakfast, we decided to go to Canggu, Bali’s hipster and laidback surf town north of Seminyak.