My (Business) Travels with Arianne

One of the perks of audit is the free travel it provides. If you are assigned to a client with branches outside Metro Manila, then you are quite lucky if you love to travel.

It is only recently that I have loved to travel. I realized that the Philippines, though only one country, has a very diverse culture and is multifaceted in terms of geographical structure. Travelling is very fun and enriching. You learn through the experience you get.

Since Arianne and I were assigned to a client with 88 branches nationwide, we were able to avail of these perks.

Our first stop was in Calapan, Mindoro. Calapan is the home to PBB big five winner Jason (who is also famous for being the love team of Melai, thus the name Melason).

To get there, we rode a bus going to Batangas City Port. From Makati, it is about two hours away. In Batangas City Port, an hour ferry ride would get you to Calapan. Also in Batangas City Port is a ferry which would take you to the famous Puerto Galera, to which we were tempted to board. But we just had to finish work.

Since we were out for an inventory count, we were required to be as casual and as rugged as possible. Thus, the sneakers and pants. Also, since we will be dealing with Branch Managers who are mostly men, we were advised not to wear sleveless or anything of that sort.

Since I am not a fan of sneakers…nor of jeans…nor of t-shirts, I have to admit that I shopped for a few. Yeah, some people laughed at me because of this. But what can I do, I didn’t have the dress code they required.


So after we did our work (to which the details I’d rather not discuss because I might bore you), we stayed at Anahaw Beach Resort. It’s the nearest accommodation to the client’s branch. We were quite excited to try their floating restaurant but since it was quite stormy that day, they closed it.

This was our room.

If you noticed, most of our pictures are solo because we had to take turns taking each other's pic.
The next day, we catched the first ferry trip back to Batangas. We were off to Balayan. We haven’t taken any pictures in Balayan except these:

Then it was time to go back to Makati, which is 4 hours away.

The next weekend, we headed far north to Tuguegarao. It was my first time to board PAL express. I was quite shocked when I saw it because it really looked small and you can see its propellers on both sides.






Most people’s question when we were there was, “Is it really that hot there?” That time, Tuguegarao marked the highest temperature in the whole Philippines at 33 degrees Celcius.


We stayed in Hotel Carmelita. It is a famous hotel in Tuguegarao because it has wi-fi (yeah, stop laughing Manila peepz, there are places where wi-fi is not that ubiquitous as it is in Manila), a vey chic coffee shop and some very delicious pizzas.

We also stopped by Isabela for a client inventory count, then we headed home.  Isabela was an hour away from Tuguegarao.

Our third weekend destination was in Laoag and Vigan.  This was probably my favorite.

I loved the hotel where we stayed:

This hotel was kind of scary because the theme was like "antiqued".

I also loved the fact that we still had time to stroll while we were waiting for our flight.  We strolled Crisologo street: 

And we also went to Chavit Singson's Baluarte Zoo....

Arianne was like a little sister to me.  Probably because I have a younger sister almost the same age as her.  Though it was tiring and we experienced some things we never did before (like backride in a single motorycycle with laptop in one hand and files in the other), these trips were trips we would never forget.

The week after that, to expedite things, I went to Pangasinan to do the count and Arianne and Eve went to Bataan and Pampanga to do their share.

All I can say is...more..more..more!  And I think there is more.  I am crossing my fingers :P