Of Food, Travel and Familiar Places

We have been here in Manila exactly one week today. And I must have gained at least 10 pounds already!! Food is conveniently available 24 hours a day--KFC, 7Eleven, McDonald's, Jollibee just to name a few. My resolve to stay away from starch and sugar lasted all of 3 days.

As soon as we got to Coco Beach in Puerto Galera, I couldn't stay away from the sumptuous breakfast buffet of Filipino food.

We stayed for 2 nights and 3 days to check out the place as a possible candidate for Matt's 70th birthday celebration in November this year. I liked it and thought it had potential. Matt wasn't so thrilled. The cottages were built on the hillside and are typically "native".

It was so native they didn't have hot water. That alone prompted Matt to declare that we were going home after one night. I finally persuaded him to stay on another night so we can spend Day 2 touring the Island and looking at the other resorts.

Puerto Galera has changed a lot since we were there with the Blackfin in 1993 with the kids. Back then, restaurants line up the shoreline and one can go "restaurant hopping" and enjoy European and local dishes. For old times' sake, we visited the only restaurant serving FONDUE at Sabang. We went there almost 17 years ago and now here we are enjoying the same FONDUE at the Tropicana Restaurant. Matt got a kick out of the gas bottle sitting next to him to fuel the fondue pot.

What we saw there now is a mini Manila, very crowded and just one or two European restaurants and lots of bars with dancing girls. It was very disappointing. We hired a "minicab" for the day thinking that we need all day to visit all the resorts. It took us 4 hours to look at all of them and none were even worth mentioning again.

That made Coco Beach more inviting to me. Okay so one has to climb at least 50 steps to get to the cottage or "Banana House" as they call it. And that you have to sleep under a mosquito net or risk being carried away but mosquitos and bugs. (I have big bites all over my body as proof!)

But I think that is part of the allure of the place. After all, the original plan was to celebrate in an ISLAND RESORT. No electricity, tents, camping out... Hey...Coco Beach even has WiFi. Never mind that every other visitor either speaks Swedish, Norwegian or Danish--the place offers activities like Hummer Rides (you hire their Hummer to drive you around the island and take a picnic lunch with you), waterfall picnic (they take you to one of the waterfalls in Mindoro with a picnic lunch and maybe a Carabao ride), watersports, beach hopping, snorkeling, diving or a visit to town.