Out-of-town trips

A few weeks ago we hied of to Ilocos Norte after I made advanced bookings in Fort Ilocandia. The place was beautiful but there were a few things that could stand some improvement. There was a smell (stench) in some areas which wasn't exactly pleasing to me. My son said the carpets might be able to stand some washing. Sometimes I thought it was incense. Whatever it was, how I wish it weren't there.

The food in Fort Ilocandia is so-so. The buffet breakfast was impressive in terms of quantity, except that the food wasn't top quality. Some guests would scoop out gravy sloppily and the receptacles containing them would have traces of the gravy at their sides but the waiters didn't bother to wipe this. That was bothersome to look at.

The front desk people were mostly grouchy except for one younger lady who was smiling.

The business office had huge flies and using the Internet there cost a whopping P300 per hour. Too much. Made me so tense.

The shops in the hotel were peopled by friendly personnel but gosh, was I surprised to see that a flannel blanket that cost P480 in the hotel sold for only P120 in the Camp John Hay commissary. Luckily, I didn't buy the one in the hotel, nor for that matter the one in the commissary.

The hotel has a game room but billiards and table tennis cost P300 per hour. Only the use of the pool is free. The gym would have been free too, except that it was under renovation.

Drove off to Pagudpud the morning after we checked in and saw wonderful sights along the way. Saud Beach (see picture) was lovely but not too accessible to someone in a wheelchair.

The mausoleum of Marcos exuded an eerie air because of the lighting and the music. Was that really he? Tried the tinubong they were sampling nearby and how great it tasted. Soft and nice. Back at the hotel, opened the tinubong we bought: it was tough. Tinubong is coconut bibingka (sort of) stuffed and sealed in a bamboo pole. One has to strike the pole against a hard surface to break it open.

(This will be utterly randomly written so I'll just write whatever I remember in no particular order.) Going to Ilocos was a bit scary in the sense that we left Manila at 10 in the morning so that by the time we were in La Union it was getting dark and the roads weren't lit, mostly. For long stretches, there were no houses either so that if one's car suddenly broke down, wow. Scary. And gasoline stations. My husband refuses to put in any type of gasoline in our car except for Shell V-Power. Problem is Shell isn't too visible for long stretches in the north and suddenly when you see one, you realize they don't offer V-Power. arrgh.