halfwhiteboy

I never thought of myself as one that would be into heritage stuff but when we visited Balay Negrense in Silay City, Negros Occidental last month, I realized that at the very least, I was appreciative of such. This was also my reaction when we dropped by The Ruins that same day. The facade of Balay Negrense, which is now a museum. What used to be the ancestral house of then sugar magnate Victor Gaston, Balay Negrense is now a museum. It was built in 1897 where Gaston, his wife and twelve children lived a comfortable life. Okay, maybe comfortable is an understatement since these people were extremely rich back in the day when sugar production in the Philippines was at its peak. Perhaps opulence would be a better fit.

We were blessed with glorious sunsets for the three days we spent at Sugar Beach in Sipalay. For the first two days it rained mid-afternoon, causing me to worry about my prospects of getting completely sun-soaked there. But consistently, the clouds parted by sundown, revealing a sun that made a daily exit in spectacular fashion, easily turning this place into one of my favorite sunset spots. Here are a few photos I'm sharing with you... Day 1 With the rain that had just stopped, the sky was left with lots of clouds when the sun began revealing itself again. The result was simply magnificent, and the clouds alone were worthy of being photographed sans the sun.

What has once been an impressive mansion, then burned, abandoned and exposed to the elements for decades is now fast becoming one of Bacolod's more popular tourist attractions (although technically it's in Talisay). During the holy week, as we had a few hours to spare before our afternoon flight back to Manila, we took to The Ruins (and later, Balay Negrense ) . The glorious facade of The Ruins . At under twenty minutes, it was a fairly short ride to Talisay from our hotel in Bacolod. The structure -- or what remains of it -- is tucked away in the middle of a vast sugarcane plantation yet remains easily accessible. Even from a distance, rising above all the fields of green, its beauty was immediately evident.

Oh yeah, I feel like I'm thrown back in time to a bygone era when sugar barons lorded over vast haciendas, puffing through their cigars in the comforts of their Hispanic-inspired mansions. Well, at least that's how it felt like as I was looking at photographs from our visit to  The Ruins  in Talisay and  Balay Negrense  in Silay with Kwittiegirl. I guess it was my outfit that day coupled with the Colonial architecture of those structures that gave me that feel, which was totally unintentional ( on the contrary, my Señor Santibañez feels at Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar was very contrived ). Who would have thought that mere bermuda shorts, a polo shirt, espadrilles, aviator-like shades, and a straw hat would fit so well in those places?

This was last week at Sugar Beach in Sipalay. It was my last day on the beach, and although I still didn't want to leave, I'm pretty happy with my skin tone. It was just nice to do basically nothing but lounge by the beachfront, reading, eating, even dozing off. So on this day I wore... nothing but leaves!

Being an archipelago, it's no surprise that the Philippines is home to a lot -- and I mean, a lot -- of great beaches. But the idea that there are also a few good ones in the southern part of Negros Occidental in the Visayas seems largely unheard of for most Filipinos. One of these is the kilometer-long Sugar Beach in the city of Sipalay , a land far, far away. The lovely Sugar Beach. Looking for a nice, quiet beach far from the chaotic Holy Week crowd, My Bibe and I spent four nights at Sugar Beach. I first read about it from a magazine when we were at Anda, Bohol back in 2010, and was convinced to include it in my travel list. Finally the time was right. Going to Sugar Beach reminded me of my earlier travels with My Bibe, where we regularly sought off-the-beaten-track destinations, usually with no hotel reservations whatsoever. We didn't completely dive back to that, however, as we still managed to afford ourselves some level of comfort. We flew to Bacolo...

Oh yes, I'm flaunting my huge scars from my 2009 surgery. But how else would I enjoy the sun, sand and sea without exposing them? Besides, having these scars is still a hell lot better than having a PTBD tube jutting out of my tummy (with the small round scar just below my left chest as a reminder). So without resorting to Speedos, I put on the skimpiest swim shorts I could find in my closet and get as much sun on my body as possible.

Oh yeah, just been to the beach with My Bibe; our second so far this year. With Holy Week being the busiest of the summer peak season for travel in the Philippines, we sought some far-flung place to escape the maddening crowd. After little thought, we ended up with  Sugar Beach in Sipalay, Negros Occidental, a lovely kilometer stretch of sand that's just perfect for some quiet time. There are only a handful of places to stay in Sugar Beach, most of which are native bungalows (nipa huts) that afford the traveler an authentic tropical feel. We booked four nights at Bermuda Beach Resort , and we never regretted our choice. A view of the beachfront at Bermuda Beach Resort. The resort was acquired from a German guy in 1998, who, after about two years since building it, gave up because nobody really came to Sugar Beach. Well, nobody probably heard of it, especially at that time when the internet was still largely unheard of in the Philippines. Today, however, owners Francis and...

Just came back from a holiday with My Bibe in Negros Occidental in the Visayas. From the airport in Bacolod/Silay, we drove four hours down south to our main destination, Sugar Beach in Sipalay. Oh yes, it has to be a beach. After all, it's summer. And for me, summer = beach. Wanting to escape the Holy Week crowd, we settled for this quiet spot that's thankfully off the radar of most Filipinos. We arrived at close to 8pm, so after dinner we went straight to bed. The next day, however, it was time to hit the beach. I know I'm not as white as some people ( I'm only half-white! ) but I do enjoy getting a tan. And as if to psych myself up into getting the color that I want for my skin, I slipped into brown swim shorts.