We found one fine Sunday in March to explore nearby Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental, a neighboring province here in the Visayas! We had to hear anticipated Mass to set out early the following day.
We left Cebu City at around 5:30 AM when it was still a bit dark, and drove down South towards Santander where Liloan port is. We were to take the barge bringing the van with us! There were eight of us, 6 from our study center and 2 from the training center. Gigi R., one of our ladies residing in Dumaguete, was expecting us in their house, to meet her mom and also to visit the house of her sister, Len-Len, where we are scheduled to do the summer Rural Service Project come May. It was an exciting trip, and we all enjoyed the scenic coastal area of Southern Cebu. From Cebu City, we passed by Talisay City, Minglanilla, the City of Naga, San Fernando, Carcar, Sibonga, Argao, Dalaguete, Alcoy, Boljoon and Oslob, before reaching the municipality of Santander, Cebu. We arrived a little past 9:00 AM. We waited to board the RORO (roll-in and roll-out ship) and when were finally inside, we went up the passenger and viewing deck to bid Cebu goodbye. It was really fun!
The big boat ride from Cebu took less than 30 minutes, since the port of Sibulan, Negros Oriental was just right across the port of Santander. This reminded me of a somewhat similar boat ride I took with my cousins when we went to Guimaras Island from Iloilo City in the island of Panay. You can see the mountains of your neighboring province!
When we disembarked, we were so happy to see how clean and green Dumaguete City is, a far-cry from the usual sight of Cebu City's streets which, unfortunately, are not really quite clean. The only 'trash' we saw were dried leaves on the sidewalk! Can you beat that?
We first headed to Gigi's house which was not that far from the port. They have a big machine shop outside their beautiful home, which amused us because of their mini-playground. We had time to play in the seesaw, the monkey bars, the slide, and the swing. We were enjoying ourselves so much!
We met Gigi's mom and sisters, and had a quick photo op in their house. We then set out to have our Dumaguete City tour, with a visit to Silliman University campus as main feature. We were lucky to have a very learned tour guide who calls himself a campus ambassador. His communication skills were very brilliant, and we can say he really knows his university inside and out. Later on, we learned that this tour guide had been a Silliman scholar and was one of those who topped his batch.
Silliman is such a huge campus, reminding us of how the University of the Philippines Diliman campus looks like. They have so many colleges and hopping from one building to the next, we really had to ride the van because they are situated very far from one another! What we liked among the places we visited was the amphitheater where their university commencement exercises are held. We were treated to see ancient acacia trees in the university property that provide much shade and oxygen to the whole campus. We also took a nice photo with the bust of Silliman's founder, Dr. Horace B. Silliman, a retired businessman of the town of Cohoes in New York state, USA. As we may know, it was the Presbyterian Board of foreign missions who was behind the putting up of the university, which explains its Protestant roots.
After the tour of Silliman, we went to see the house of Len-Len, Gigi's sister from the United States, who allowed us to use their house for our summer outreach project. That was where we took our lunch. It was a cozy house which could fit a maximum of 18-20 girls. It has a nice veranda where you could do stargazing, and a garden big enough to place a barbecue set-up for dinner.
In the afternoon, we went to see the famous bamboo organ of the Church of Bacong, Negros Oriental! It's actually the Church of St. Augustine of Hippo, which also houses the tallest belfry in this side of Negros Island. Most of us went up the belfry to have a 360 degree view of Dumaguete City, braving the dark winding stairs going up and taking in the humid air and the smell of bat droppings. Well, that was such an accomplishment!
For merienda, we headed for the baywalk and parked near Sans Rival pastry shop. Topping the day was taking sweet silvanas, an all-time hit in Dumaguete and around the country!
We were back at the port of Sibulan by 4:30 PM to take the RORO back to Santander. It was such a short but sweet trip to this City of Gentle People. We arrived home in Cebu City a little before 9:00 PM, full of picturesque memories of today's excursion to enchanting Dumaguete.