continuation...
4 am in baguio city. the sky is impressively clear, and the air is cold -- breath condensing cold, as we speak of where to go while debarking the bus and plunging through enterprising taxi drivers handing out little slips of paper with accomodations writ thereon.
glenn, having spent quite a whiles in this collegiate city in his college days, suggested someplace that was reasonably priced, with hot water shower facilities (a plus, in the frigid early morning temperatures baguio is known for).
so off we went, fx taxi diesel roar through the ups and downs of the streets of baguio, to corfu village. see other places with big signs note that their rooms are available for 1,800 a night. expensive...
after a short trip, we arrive i know not where. the web lists the place as either "aussie (or attic) hotel and pub", while the sign says "red lion inn" and "corfu village rooms" (i think).
taking the semi-obvious entryway, the ostensible information desk is empty. glenn makes for the bar inside and lo and behold, that's where you get information about the room rates and availability (or it may have been the late hour that caused the info desk to be unmanned).
800 pesos per night per room, with complimentary breakfast thrown in.
see the room, quite oddly shaped, somewhat like a skewed trapezoid, one window, an american style fan with lights and droopy wooden blades, tv with cable, double bed, door to c.r/shower.
what the hell, lack of real sleep on the bus ride over, take it.
he takes the left side of the bed, i the right.
sleep till breakfast, somewhere around 9 or so; unlike what happens to me in the metro when i sleep during the day, i wake up without a pounding headache. hooray for natural airconditioning!
take a bath. shower is odd in the sense that it has a heating device/shower head at the end of a pipe sticking out of the wall in the equally oddly shaped bathroom (a consequence of the fact that the room is situated in a part of the building that has a sharp diagonal wall relative to the rest of the structure).
instructions are above the sink's mirror. something like "turn shower knob four revolutions and then when water is at desired temperature, turn back to adjust heat". hmm. so i shivered while waiting for the rushing stream of water to get warm -- which it didn't, even when the device was making that boiling water noise that you get from electric airpots.
on a hunch, i turned the shower knob until the flow was reduced to a trickle akin to the effect of water draining from a small can with a bunch of holes in the bottom... ...at which point the water began to warm up.
so, hot shower, sort of. but better than the arctic blast of refrigerated water that would have been the alternative.
got dressed up for baguio adventure, woke up the roomie, and watched cable tv as he got himself all refreshed and all that. the only real alternatives on the cable were cnn, bbc, and discovery travel and leisure. cnn/bbc were all on the katrina disaster, discovery travel and leisure was all global trekker (nee lonely planet). refreshing to see the latter show, which was a mainstay of destiny cable when that was the cable provider i'd had when i lived in mandaluyong...
...at the makati apartment, the cable provider is sky. they don't have discovery travel and leisure.
the breakfast was decent enough (i had the "longsilog", which is to say: native (skinless) sausage, garlic fried rice, and scrambled egg, plus their brewed coffee), not bad at all.
and after that, we repaired to the room to discuss the day's adventure. some more cable tv, and then off to the "cafe by the ruins" for lunch.
hmm. a food trip. seeing as there wasn't a real plan of activities once the ascent to baguio was made, a food trip was all right with me.
i'll have to see about how to include pictures with this blog. think i'll ask joe.
to be continued...
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