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Blog - Bacolod: The Dolce Vita of the Philippines
Written on September 2024
Writing this post about Bacolod is a pleasure! After several years staying and travelling all around the Philippines, it’s fantastic to realize that there are still many places to discover. Tropical Experience wanted a new destination to add to its tours, something not in the usual itineraries, but it could not be “any place”. It should have been a place with nice beaches, great food and a peculiar culture: trying out Bacolod was a fluke!
We hope you will enjoy the article and pictures below and that you’ll consider this place for your next tour of the Philippines!
Sunset at Sugar Beach in Sipalay, one of the most iconic destinations of Bacolod. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Bacolod & Sugarland: Where Are They Located?
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To be precise, this is not a post about Bacolod City only, yet it’s about the province of Negros Occidental. Bacolod City is the capital of the much wider Negros Occidental Province; however, I’ve noticed that Filipinos generally refer to the whole province as “Bacolod”.
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Bacolod City is a pleasant city of 600,000 inhabitants. Its name comes from the local Ilonggo language and it means “hill”: until the XVIIth century the settlement was located on top of a hill, away from the sea, to be protected from pirates. Later on, the situation became more tranquil and the city expanded again near the coast as it is now.
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Bacolod – meaning the whole province of Negros Occidental - is located in the Visayas Region, in the centre of the Philippines. It faces the Sulu Sea and it shares its island with the Negros Oriental province.
Negros Occidental Province and Bacolod City on the map of the Philippines. Source: Milenioscuro on Wikimedia Commons (edited).
However, the whole Negros Occidental is also known as “Sugarland” or “Sugar Bowl of the Philippines”. If you are going to visit it, you’ll easily figure out why. Getting out of the city you will see kilometres and kilometres (and kilometres!) of sugar plantations. In fact, sugar is the engine of the local economy since the 1920s, when the local sugar produce started to enter the American market following the colonization of the country by the United States. It was in the next decades that the population in the area greatly increased, due to the massive immigration of plantation workers.
A truck overtakes a kart pulled by a water buffalo. On the side of the road, sugar canes. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Dry sugar cane leaves after the harvest, in Bacolod City. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Sugar canes to be harvested on the left. Harvest was alredy done on the right. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Candice enjoys a freshly-squeezed sugarcane juice. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Bacolod, Talisay and Silay: History and Landmarks of Sugarland
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Bacolod is often dubbed as “The City of Smiles”. You may think it is because of the kind and pleasant attitude of its population – a quite common trait for the whole Philippines – however it actually refers to the smiles of the masks of the famous Masskara Festival, held every year in October (click here to know more about the Festivals in the Philippines).
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The city is quite orderly and pleasant, though it was actually more developed than what I imagined. It has some high-rise buildings, big supermarket chains, universities and it looks quite complete in terms of services. Yet, still keeping the positive provincial vibe you’d expect.
Walking around, you will notice a significant proliferation of…cafes, pastry shops and bakeries! It is quite possible that the abundance of sugar gave a sweet tooth to the locals: if you are into sitting for a while and enjoy a cup of coffee with a satisfying and hefty slice of cake, this must be the place.
A mask of the Masskara Festival. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Sugar not only shaped the agricultural landscape: it also boosted the wealth of a bunch of local families. Plantation owners were able to accumulate a fortune and going around the neighbour cities of Talisay and Silay you will come across a series of affluent villas and mansions. While most are private houses, few of them are also open to the public.
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Probably the most iconic of these buildings is the ancestral mansion of Don Mariano Lacson - a sugar plantation owner - in Talisay. He dedicated this Italian-inspired villa to his wife. Its site is commonly known as “The Ruins”. What you can see is a structure standing in the centre of a nice garden, as the place was purposefully burned down during WWII to prevent Japanese invaders to use it as their headquarter. The place holds a romantic charm and it is probably the most visited mansion of the area.
The ruins of the Villa di Mariano Lacson in Talisay. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Inside the villa. Photo: Tropical Experience.
The garden seen from inside the villa. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Letters "M" romantically indicating the initial of the names of Mariano and his wife Maria. All outside walls of the villa are decorated with a double M. Photo: Tropical Experience.
There are not just ruins around, though! Other sites you can visit are still in their full beauty and they showcase the golden era of the sugar economy. One surely is the Jalandoni House and Museum: the building reflects the classic “Balay na Bato” style of ancestral Filipino houses, stemming from the Spanish style with a base of cement and elevated floors made of wood. Inside you can observe memorabilia of the family that used to live in it.
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We appreciated also another visit to a private museum, the Hofileña Ancestral House. Here, a member of this prominent family kindly took us around the rooms of this old house full of nice antique wooed furniture, unique vintage objects and notable pieces of arts. Among the many objects, you’ll find the world’s smallest doll, an original painting by Francisco Goya and sketches made by famous national artists. This house was occupied also by Japanese invaders first and subsequently by Americans after the WWII. Proudly, the family was the first one to open a house as a museum for visitors in the area.
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Other notable houses in the area are Balai Negrense and Balay ni Tana Dicang. The old stories of the big local sugar clans, the hot weather, the sugar plantations and the varied styles of these old houses create a unique vibe to this place. We suggest to dedicate one day to go around and discover this travel to the golden era of sugar plantations.
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The lavish style of these mansions, together with the happy local attitude and the presence of sugar everywhere just made us feel like Bacolod is really a capital of the Filipino Dolce Vita!
Sala da pranzo della Jalandoni House Foto: Tropical Experience.
Balai Negrense. Foto: Tropical Experience.
Alcune delle tantissime foto esposte all'Hofileña Museum, una piccola ma elegantissima abitazione a Silay. Foto: Tropical Experience.
Dettaglio degli interni dell'Hofileña Museum. Foto: Tropical Experience.
Sugar and Beyond: the Hectic Food Culture​
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We already discussed above about the extensive availability of sweets and desserts; however, sugar is not the only dominant ingredient.
Perhaps the most famous food item is the Chicken Inasal (literally, “chicken on a skewer”). It is grilled chicken with a distinctive flavour added by its marinade. The chicken is soaked usually for at least 3 hours in coconut vinegar, garlic, ginger, lemon grass and calamansi (a tiny Filipino lime), then grilled on a skewer to perfection. Other ingredients – depending on the recipe – are added during the grilling process.
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As avid fish and seafood eaters, we were surprised by the quantity of seafood being sold at the sides of the streets (oysters were everywhere!). With the help of our driver, we reached an area by the sea where a floating restaurant served us probably one of the most delicious seafood meals we ever tried! Seafood is good, abundant and affordable everywhere and this was really a nice discovery. And we were able to find out that this is true for the whole province.
Speaking on a personal level, I never ate a better Blue Marlin steak in my life!
Alcune delle tantissime foto esposte all'Hofileña Museum, una piccola ma elegantissima abitazione a Silay. Foto: Tropical Experience.
A mangiare il pesce sulle palafitte. Foto: Tropical Experience.
We were also able to have a food demo in a shop where some men and women were preparing “piaya”, another famous local delicacy. It is a flaky flat dessert cooked on a griddle. It is stuffed with caramelized muscovado sugar and topped with sesame seeds. The “demo” wasn’t a planned activity or part of a package, but the people were kind enough to let us try and practice making some pieces. We had fun and we bought a lot of piaya to take home in exchange!
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Last but not least, you may be interested in knowing that the worldwide famous sugarcane-based Don Papa Rhum is also made in Bacolod!
Candice practices her skills in making piaya. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Samuele practices his skills in eating piaya. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Cooking of piaya. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Display in one of the remarkable cafes & bakeries in the center of Bacolod City. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Travelling South to Sipalay and Sugar Beach​
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After spending a couple of nights in Bacolod City, it was time to head to the beach! We started travelling towards the south of Negros Occidental, to reach a town called Sipalay and a local beach known as “Sugar Beach”. It took around 4-5 hours of travel, as the road passes through many small towns.
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During this transfer we became even more aware of the extension of the sugar industry in the province! For several kilometres we just saw tall sugar canes at both sides of the road, sometimes interrupted by small towns. On the side of this wide plateau, we could always see Mount Kanlaon, an active volcano situated in the centre of the island and many kilometres away from the coastline. It is commonly known that the volcanic soil of Negros Occidental is one of the reasons why this fertile land produces bountiful harvests.
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As the sea became nicer and nicer, we approached Sipalay, widely considered the most attractive beach destination of the province. The presence of sugar canes here became less invasive as many rice fields, crops and forests were also visible. The area is just moderately populated, green, full of forests, rivers, falls and many beaches sparse around the municipal territory.
The road going to Sipalay with sugarcane plantations and, in the background, the Kanlaon volcano is far yet visible. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Almost near Sugar Beach. Here the landscape becomes bucolic and peaceful. Photo: Tropical Experience.
The Wonderful Nature of Sipalay​
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Sugar Beach was just a treat! Its length is about 1 kilometre and the water is shallow and transparent. You can walk inside the water finding mostly sand under your feet, which is really good. On Sugar Beach there are just a few hotels and restaurants, thus despite being public it does not get too crowded. We were there during Holy Week, which is one of the busiest holiday periods in the Philippines, and we never felt the beach was crowded. Quite the opposite, indeed, as the beach area was wide and the shore was long enough.
Finally at Sugar Beach. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Only one tiny road reaches the beach. At the back of the beach there are beautiful limestone cliffs covered by untouched forest. The low limestone cliffs are probably one of the most distinctive features of the local landscape. They come out of the water in a shape that clearly reminds of the one of the famous Chocolate Hills of Bohol. This kind of shape is usually connected to old limestone domes which sides were washed down by time and heavy rains.
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Staying in Sugar Beach truly was a relaxing experience, allowing us to enjoy the clean environment and the peace of nature without the need to enclose ourselves in a private resort. Local crowds were friendly and the beach was clean and well-kept.
Here we are, happy at Sugar Beach. Photo: Tropical Experience.
The peculiar natural landscape at the back of the beach. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Another distinct feature of Sugar Beach: wonderful sunsets. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Nearby, a very clean river meets the sea in the bay of Sipalay. Photo: Tropical Experience.
We were also able to get a tricycle (the Filipino “tuk tuk”) and transfer to another area in the Southern part of Sipalay, passing Punta Ballo beach (another famous local white sand beach). We reached a small beautiful bay called Tinagong Dagat which means “hidden sea”. Here we were able to walk around – using also some bridges and stairs - and reach a viewpoint on the adjacent Campomanes Bay.
The landscape was just stunning! The cone hills were coming out of the water just like a lot of little islets, surrounded by transparent waters. On the way back, again, a bountiful and affordable seafood lunch is what we deserved!
One of the bridges to go around the hidden sea of Tinagong Dagat. Photo: Tropical Experience.
The view on Campomanes. Photo: Tropical Experience.
Another "floating" restaurant with a a lot of fresh fish, surrounded by mangroves. Photo: Tropical Experience.
A bay to be explored. Photo: Tropical Experience.
How to Visit Bacolod & Sugarland
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Bacolod is quite an off-the-beaten-track destination, especially for international travellers. It is not anyway difficult to reach since there is an airport with several flights per day, connected with Manila and Cebu. From Sugar Beach, a land transfer can also take you to Dumaguete, to head to Siquijor, Bohol, Cebu and other destinations of the Visayas Region.
We can organize your trip to Sugarland in connection with any of our tours of the Philippines. Just ask us at experiencetropical@gmail.com.