Cereal killers

Beng and I were in Tagaytay a couple of weekends ago, trying to get away from work by, well, working away from home. We packed our laptops and cameras into our bags and drove off into the southern horizon.

The night before, I’d gone online to check out some hotels in the area. You’d have to agree that — for us Metro Manilans — Tagaytay is the ideal spot for weekending, promising great food in cool weather against a spectacular landscape. As far as I’m concerned, and having seen quite a bit of the world from Northern Italy to South Africa, the view offered by Taal’s crater lake ranks right up there with the best of them.

Not surprisingly, all sorts of hotels and inns have sprouted along and near the ridge, spanning a wide range of amenities (and the lack thereof) and room rates. Even after years of ducking into this and that hotel in Tagaytay, there’s always something new to discover, but I’ve settled on P3,500 a night as my comfort zone — neither too cheap to get you bedbugs and a view of the parking lot, nor too pricey to leave you with an ache in the back pocket after two nights of sheer comfort.

My Internet search turned up several interesting prospects, but two stood out in that price range: Potter’s Ridge Hotel — technically past Tagaytay, in Alfonso going toward Splendido — and One Tagaytay Place on the other end of the ridge road near People’s Park. From the Web pictures, I could see that Potter’s Ridge was of modernist design, with Asian-fusion elements — lots of glass and airy space, and the promise of a great view almost anywhere you were billeted. It practically hung out on the mountainside, and its clean lines and white walls ensured a pleasant contemplative experience, with little to distract the eye.

And indeed that’s what Potter’s Ridge turned out to be — an ideal spot for gazing over the lake and mulling over one’s craft or sullen art, the meaning of life, etc. For Beng — who prays for 30 minutes every morning for peace on earth — it might as well have been five steps away from nirvana.

But alas, our visit coincided with repairs being done to the place on account of the ravages of a recent typhoon; the credit card hook-up wasn’t working so we had to pay in cash, and worse, the Wi-Fi was down (when I book a hotel these days, I always check their Wi-Fi arrangements). Thankfully the manager took care of the Wi-Fi problem by lending me a Globe Tattoo USB unit for the next 24 hours — a solution that worked so well that I got myself one of these gadgets after our trip, as a backup.

Still on the downside, however, our room with a view was rather spartan; the blanket was nothing more than a bedsheet, there was no fridge, the TV was smaller than my iMac at home, and — in what Shakespeare might have referred to superfluously as “the most unkindest cut of all” — we had to pay for extra pillows. The breakfast of daing na bangus was just passable. Too bad, because it was a pretty place in a pretty spot, and the staff was friendly; I just hope that they sort out their problems soon. If you’re in a monkish mood and don’t require too many “mod cons,” as the Brits call them, Potter’s Ridge might yet be a good place for you.

We moved to One Tagaytay Place the next day, driving past the cut-off to Sta. Rosa towards DAP. On the outside, it didn’t look too promising, resembling a Makati office building; it was also on the other side of the road away from the lake, so only the upper floors would get a view, and we didn’t. But I’d seen pictures of the rooms online, where I made our booking, and was impressed by the modernity and yet also the apparent comfortableness of things.

When we stepped into our room, we didn’t immediately realize how small it was, because every inch of space had been used thoughtfully, so that we actually had a small kitchen and dining table at the far end. I had a small, easily movable worktable for my laptop (and yes, the Wi-Fi worked, and was free), and the large flat-screen TV was a pleasure to use. The bedcover was thick and snuggle-worthy. Too busy to step out — I was finishing a book draft, so this was really no vacation — we took our meals in the restaurant downstairs, and were surprised by how good and reasonably priced the food was; Beng pronounced the pumpkin soup the best she’d ever had.

On the other hand, as I mentioned earlier, we had to settle for a view of — yes, the parking lot, and the green, fog-draped hills of Cavite beyond. The breakfast buffet was so-so — again, a pity, because I’m one of those guys who think of the breakfast buffet as one of the highlights of a hotel stay. Overall, One Tagaytay Place proved well worth the tab. (Let me also remark that the interior designer did a good job using muted colors — avocado green, coffee brown — instead of the pinks and violets that seem to afflict many other places in this country.)

It was a restful weekend, capped by a stop along the way to load up on buko pie and white corn. And, of course, some take-home bulalo from Leslie’s, which has probably the best public view of Taal Lake. Can’t wait to finish another book!

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One of the nice things about watching TV in a hotel is that you’ll probably get more channels than you do at home. In Tagaytay, that meant the History Channel and the Crime and Investigation Channel — just the thing I was looking for to complete my weekend escapade.

I mean it — there’s nothing I find more relaxing, strangely enough, than watching murder and mayhem, much less for the gore than the sheer cathartic effect of witnessing the evil that men (and some women) do — especially if they do it to others and not to you. So Beng and I spent much of our two restful Tagaytay evenings watching shows about serial killers, cannibals, and other miscreants while munching on peanuts and chippies.

Why, we soon wondered, did all or most serial killers happen to be in America, and why didn’t we have them in the Philippines? (Of course, as I was writing this, real life just had to butt in and spoil this thesis, by flushing out a suspected serial killer in Angeles City, preying mainly on Caucasians, in an odd twist.)

Could it be, I theorized, that they don’t eat rice, like we do?

Don’t be silly, Beng said, what would rice have to do with the compulsion to kill?

Well, I said, it’s the chewing…. We need to chew our rice, and in the process, we calm down, we get sleepy, we don’t think about killing people…. I’m getting sleepy right now….

You’re just getting old, Beng said.

And that’s the last thing I remember hearing.

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E-mail me at penmanila@yahoo.com and visit my blog at www.penmanila.net.