Bacolod, Philippines - January 30, 2006
Now I'm in Bacolod. Its basically a one hour ferry from Iloilo. Its a slightly bigger city. The streets are much wider, and its car-oriented. I read somewhere they designed the big wide streets after a Washington DC design. Not sure if thats true, but its definetely more block-oriented like the U.S. Apparently it grew immensily more than its 15km northern neighbor of Silay - the 'Paris of the East' or some title to that effect.
Speaking of which, we also went to Silay yesterday afternoon. Its essentially an important colonial city of 100 years ago. The buildings are mostly landmarks now. We toured one, and it was somewhat left in time from when the owners use to live there. Kind of a basement feel on the ground floor, and a very airy wide second floor where the people lived. Apparently there are 31 buildings from that time still around. Two of which became museums. They are nice in themselves, but I couldn't help but thinking that entire French colonial cities with their architecture in places like Saigon, Hanoi, Phnom Pehn, etc. are a lot more interesting. Or even Singapore with its British colonial architecture. Silay is just a small taste of that with 31 buildings, and then slowly died out when all its future went to neighboring Bacolod - which is now close to a half a million people.
In regards to Bacolod. Its a likeable place. There are a couple regions that make it so. One is around 21st Street area, where there are a lot of suburban like businesses.. and another is the Goldenfield Entertainment Complex on the other side of the city. (It only takes about 30 minutes by taxi to get to the other side of the city). Either one of these places feels quite comfortable. The downtown and the other outer regions just seem kind of dilipitated and poor typical of many cities in the Philippines.
As far as walking, I found walking around in Bacolod very preferable in the evening. Mostly because the streets are so wide, it feels quite breezy. On the other hand, in the daytime with the sun, it feels more like you are too exposed to the sun. But then again, most filipinos and foreigners go for the malls during the daytime anyways because of the air-conditioning, so doesn't really matter so much about that. Iloilo, on the other hand, was very hot and humid at nighttime. Mostly because the buildings and streets are closer together. The air feels kind of trapped between the buildings. In some ways this offered more shade during the daytime, but traps in air during the nighttime. Making it the opposite of Bacolod. However, being that everyone spends daytime hours in the malls anyways, it doesn't really matter about the sun and shade in the city so much. Therefore Bacolod would slightly win out overall in my opinion.
In regards to nighttime. Last night we went to the Goldenfield Entertainment Complex about 2km north of the downtown area. There was the Casino Filipino (very popular in most large cities in the Philippines). Around it where lots of other bars and restaurants. Several of them had live music. I'm still always amazed at how great it is to watch live music in the Philippines. Extremely talented musicians and singers here. This band had two male acoustic guitarists and a female vocalists. However, all three could sing equally well. We spent most of the night watching them play while eating dinner and I ordered a few beers. They played lots of stuff like Extreme or 80s pop ballads and the like. Went to another place later where they had more heavy metal stuff and all the guys had long hair and tight jeans. Another 80s throwback but of a completely different style. Filipinos are the great imitators when it comes to music. They had that style in a timewarp. All around these bars and restaurants, on one side of the complex, there were tons of girly bars. We didn't go in to any, but they were around. I guess all kinds of interests are catered here. Also out here, I saw a couple Korean restaurants and of course Koreans around as well. There were also foreigners here, there and everywhere as well.
Speakers of foreigners. Walking around in the malls and such, Bacolod definetely has a lot more foreigners here and there than the other cities I've been to recently. Its more reminiscient of Cebu in that way. Most of them are older foreigners, probably retirement age. Most appear to be married to either other foreigners, or older Filipinas. I use to always here this rumour of old foreigners marrying young Filipinas in the Philippines. But from what I've seen so far, I've yet to see that at all. Most marry older Filipina women that are definetely 40s at the youngest and going up from there. Then again, I'm just going to normal everyday kinds of places. Maybe in a prostitution-oriented city like Angeles City, where I hear young women prey on older men, things might be totally different. Not sure.
Anyways, as interesting as Bacolod is, I'm about to get on the bus going towards Dumaguete - I've heard ALL good things about that small college-town oriented city.
More on the Philippines..
January 31, 2006
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