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Together with a number of neighboring islands (like Cebu, Leyte, Panay and Bohol) , Negros is part of the Visayas-region. This island is knows for it's enormous sugar production., almost 60% of the country's total sugar production. This is pretty good visible when you cross the island. Especially around the Kanleon volcano there are big fields with nothing more than sugar.
We stayed a few days in Bacolod, from where you can do excursions to for example Ma-ao and Mambucal. This is only an hour's drive with one of the local busses or Jeepneys. Bacolod itself is nothing special; we found a number of Internet cafe's here, so we could send a few mails (b.t.w. E-mailing in the Philippines is not a problem, only on Palawan it is hard to find an Internet cafe).
Places like Ma-ao and Mambucal are really worth going to. In Ma-oa you can walk around between the sugar fields. There is a perfect view on the Kanleon Volcano, only a few kilometers away. The village itself is very small and people are very friendly. We felt we were the first tourists here ever!! We did not see a good place to stay here, but probably is was possible.
There is also a very small market place, where women and girls sell excellent cookies.
The Jeepney is transport vehicle no. #1 in the Philippines. You will find them in all kind of colours, forms and heights. SOme of them are full with glamour, others are completely full with people and are used for heavy transport. And it is big fun riding on the roof.
Mambucal is a more developed tourist area. I can image why. We arrived again by Jeepney after a journey of an hour. Last stop was the Mambucal Summer Resort, so you cannot miss it. A young guy called Albert (spitting image of Rambo from First Blood) came up to us and wanted to show us around. We agreed on a price and walked around for about 5 hours. This was a perfect hike. We saw some waterfalls, rice terraces, we had a small bite (sweet potatoes and corn) at an old lady in the mountains, some more waterfalls, some hot springs and had a marvelous view over the complete island of Negros. A friend of our guide came along with his butterfly-net and he caught a few big butterflies on the way.
Fortunately it wasn't so crowded at the time we were here. We heard that during summertime and in the holidays it is overcrowded here, which will not be very pleasant.
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This is only one of the waterfalls in the Mambucal are. This one was up in the hills, in a small forrest.
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And in this area there are also some beautiful rice terraces, with a great number of levels . |  |
From Bacolod we traveled by bus all accross the island to Dumaguette, which is in the South-East of Negros. It was an 8 hours drive, but not unpleasant at all. We came trough the hill side and we passed a great number of small villages. Tourist were very rare here, because whereever we got out of the bus people started staring at us like we were aliens. The last part of the busride we drove along the coast and we could see the island of Cebu.
Dumaguette itself was not very special. There were some shopping malls, so my girlfriend started smiling big time. This town must be tricycle-city number one. Unbelievable how many noisy tricycle's are driving through the city. All together this causes a lot of noise, which gets on your nerves after a while. If you want to have a very good dinner, try the Chinese Mei-Yan restaurant. Here they serve the best food I have had in the Philippines. We ordered far too much, and we felt very embarressed when we could not finish our plates at all. But the food was so good. B.t.w., the Chinese temple next door is also worth going to. Nothing very special, but nice.
There are also a lot of American and European (especially German) men living here in Dumaguette (of course all married with an Philipino-woman). They all drive big cars and act like they rule the world !!
When you decide to go to Valencia, keep in mind that you will have to walk up the hill for a kilometer or 2. This is quite heavy, especially when it had just rained!!! Then it is 2 meters climbing up, 1 meter sliding down, etc.. The LP says that a tricycle can bring you up, but not all the way. The view is marvellous though (even from just under the top, because we did not make it all up because of the weather).
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