(Pictures to follow. This is what I hate about not having my own camera when I go on trips.)

All right, let’s start with the good. The cottages are pretty cheap at $100. Ours already had two airconditioned rooms with two beds — one single and one double in each room. The curtains are thick for complete privacy and there are dressers, open closets with hangers and a (rather empty) refrigerator. There were the standard hotel necessities like towels and soaps but I usually prefer using my own. During our first night there, I was actually quite impressed with the capiz windows and adjacent verandas that face the beach area.

Dinner buffet was quite good as you have healthy and very unhealthy selections. Hehe. Perfect for people who want to go organic and for their companions who do not mind clogging their arteries with all that trans fat. And with the beach front being nearly empty, it felt like we owned the place. In fact, we enjoyed the band we hired to play for that night’s celebration.

The next morning, however, was like waking up to a nightmare. My sister and I shared the same bed and it turns out that it had bed bugs (surot). We were scratching all the way back to Manila. We have a series of ugly red splotches on our feet, legs and arms and we lived the next few nights without sleep, knowing that we’d scratch the night away unconsciously. I’m actually afraid of how my legs would look like after the ordeal is over. I cannot even wear shorts. I will be posting pictures later, for those who are not faint of heart. EDIT: Picture of bites uploaded.

Breakfast…was slow. I was afraid it would be lunch time before it could be served. That was how long we waited. We also didn’t appreciate that people who came later got serviced first. The coffee came first and while I don’t usually drink coffee on an empty stomach, I knew that if I waited for the food, the coffee would become colder than a two-day-old corpse. When finally our orders arrived…well, they got mixed up. My sister was very specific: scrambled eggs to match her continental breakfast. Her eggs were sunny side up.

It was a waste bringing our swim suits because the beach got filled up pretty quickly after breakfast. There wasn’t a space that wasn’t occupied by one noisy family after another. There was the pool but well, after the surot bites, we were loathe to go in there.

That was one heck of a ruined trip. It also ruined the last few remaining free days I have as I cannot wear bathing suits without scaring other people off. Next time, I’d prolly go back to crashing a relative’s or a friend’s place, like I usually do when I travel.

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