36 hours in bacolod

When I got back from Bacolod I skipped dinner, and the next day I had a salad for lunch. I don’t eat vegetables, being a devout meatatarian, so this was extraordinary. If you’re minding your cholesterol, triglycerides, whatever, don’t go to Bacolod. If you’re on a low-carb, low-anything diet, don’t go there. If you’ve sworn off sugar, don’t go there. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Negros was one of the world’s biggest producers of sugar. It’s in the soil, in the water, in the air. Everything in Bacolod is sweet, particularly the smiles (must be the sugar high) and the lilting Ilonggo speech.

I’m not complaining, by the way. I love Bacolod.

I was giving a talk at La Salle. My friend Ige, who co-published my new book, Twisted 8, tagged along to sell books and do some food anthropology; another friend, Raymond, would join us in the evening.

Usually I fall asleep the minute I strap on a seatbelt, but on this trip I was kept awake by Ige’s recounting of his favorite TV series, Air Crash Investigations on Discovery Channel. He particularly loved the episode about the plane that few over Mt. Galunggong in Indonesia when it was venting ash. The ash was sucked into the plane’s engines, which then died. The plane was capable of gliding to the nearest airport, but then it ran into some clear air turbulence and suddenly dropped 8,000 feet... The story has a happy ending, look it up.

We landed at the new Bacolod Silay airport only an hour late. Our hosts from the La Salle Bacolod campus newspaper, The Spectrum, collected us and we drove to Business Inn on Lacson Street in the city center. I’m not really chatty, I like to cut to the chase, which tends to alarm Pinoys, so it’s always a good idea to bring Ige. He would win the Miss Amity title in any competition, with a clear shot at Miss Talent — witness his live montage of Pivotal Scenes From Nora Aunor Movies. On the drive to the city, Ige pointed to a field and asked, “What crop is that?”

Our girl hosts conferred among themselves and concluded they didn’t know. “Corn?” someone guessed. I totally sympathize: I couldn’t identify a tree to save my life unless it was coconut or banana. Or acacia, because we had a lot of them on the St. Theresa’s QC campus, and one day while I was sitting beneath one a caterpillar fell on my knee. Some people sit under a tree and achieve enlightenment; I get caterpillar attacks. If I ever start a religion it will involve rashes and calamine lotion. Where was I? So our girl hosts were speculating on the flora, and the driver piped up:

“Tubo (Sugar cane).”

That was my first guess.

Ige quizzed our hosts about places to eat and things to see. “The Panaad festival is on!” someone said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s the festival of all festivals!”

The mother of all festivals! We had to see that. After checking in — nice hotel, clean and comfy, reasonable rates — Ige and I went out to lunch. We took the jeep to Manukan Country, a row of chicken inasal restaurants near the SM mall. After glancing at all the restaurants, we chose Nena’s Beth — when in doubt, pick the place that has the most number of diners. None of the eateries had air-conditioning, but it was a balmy day compared to Manila’s oven temperatures. Nena’s Beth (apparently, there are many branches of Nena’s, this one is run by Beth) had TVs, electric fans and PlayStation. The menu is all chicken, all the time, not a vegetable in sight, and the waiter patiently answered all the weird tourists’ questions.

“Ano ang ‘Articles’?” I pointed to the menu.

“Chicken skin at isaw,” he explained.

I ordered that, and the native chicken. Ige studied the sauces and condiments at the table and inquired about a bottle of orange oil. The waiter said it was chicken oil flavored with “istewetes” (achuete).

The native chicken was good, a little tough. Our bill for two orders of rice, two native chickens, two atay, two articles, two soft drinks and one chicken breast came to P316.

Then we walked to SM. The sidewalks are narrow and the drivers slightly nuts, but walking in Bacolod is pleasant because it’s less polluted than Manila, and when you reach your destination you won’t be mistaken for taong grasa. We bought local sweets and had coffees at Figaro. The SM looks like every other SM. In the Book Sale I found Judith Thurman’s acclaimed biography of Colette, hardcover, P210, while Ige bought yet another cookbook.

We wanted to go to Silay and try the guapple pie at El Ideal, the famed century-old bakery. When we told the old taxi driver our intended destination, he said it was 70 kms and two towns away, and the rate was P400. He said this was the going rate, we could check, and we decided to trust him. “They have good bread at El Ideal,” he said, and we were off. The trip took 20 minutes, but what the hell, we were on vacation. At El Ideal we all got out and the driver went shopping for pastries.

I was still stuffed from lunch, so I suggested we walk around Silay and look at old Spanish colonial-style houses. Most of them have plaques declaring them historical sites. We visited the city market, where Miss Amity interrupted a bunch of tattooed guys who were drinking in the early afternoon, and asked them what their pulutan was made of. They graciously gave him the recipe and useful tips on its preparation. Then Ige bought a broom, a terra cotta pot, and a melon scraper from a stall where the old lady told me about her sons who live in Manila.

After an hour’s wandering, we went to El Ideal for a snack. The guapple pie was too sweet and floury, but the fresh lumpia was very good.

At 5 p.m. we took the jeep back to Bacolod. Fare: P13 per person. The ride brought back my childhood, not in Bacolod but in Manila, where jeepney drivers tried to break the sound barrier while the radio blasted. Ige got stressed; I thought of it as a theme park ride.

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