⌛ My first visit...

Me and my wife and her sister and husbond went to Dumaguete from Dipolog to see what all the fuss was about. So many ppl where saying this city is so nice and clean and that there is many forigners living there... Not just older men, but younger forigners to...

At first we came to the harbor where we had 10 cab drivers almost fighting over us. Everybody wants to drive the white man.... He also got irritated that we dident pay moore then 40 pesos over the normal rate... Well this is Philippines.

We stayed at a nice affordable hotel in center of town. Palwa Hotel witch is under renovation. We liked that family room they had in the corner of third floore... Nice room for a good price!

First i notised the forigners when we went to McDonalds to eat... Grown man retired with their young Pinay beuty :-). Im shure there must have been at least 60% forigners in there...hehe.

But one thing i got the feel of was that the living standard here is better then most places iv been to so far in Philippines. Of corse i dident see everything in these three days, but at least thats my first impression of the city. Also the girls here seemed less interested and dident flirt and smile like so many other places...This is a posetive thing as i see it :-). Is this your experiance to?

This town including the lovely Valencia in the hillside made me want to move to Dumaguete... But first i will rent for a while when time comes. Seems like renting and lots/houses is priced good there? Compared to other places witch arent that nice but still pricy...

I wold love to hear what you guys experiance with this city. Can you recomend Dumaguete to a "young" coupple with a 12 year old son? I heard that the Police there also takes good care of the forigners safety?? PR ore realety? It seem like a safe town for a white man

RC

 

Foreigners Embassy

RCS, Do us a favour, stay on 1 (ONE) thread, all your questions will be answered. MacD's is not the best place to get an insight to Dgte. We call it the foreigners Embassy, most there Know all but know nothing worth knowing. OH there are some good chaps but in the main all full of Anti Thinking. Get to Casablanca Resto on the Boulevard, Or Why Not, there are various good Restos about. A lot with a hard core Western clientele. There you will meet some, who will gladly give you a more involved insight to living here. Most of the young ladies at the seamier places are not local, please don't think that, this how Dgte is. WE live in a Small City, everything tends to get magnified. Get up to Robinsons mall. Have a Chat to some of the long noses there (Foreigners) you will get a totally different view I am sure. As I said on your other post, 2/3 days is just not enough time to form an opinion if, you are looking to stay here. Have Fun, Enjoy, but DO look around all things. We have A Tourist Police section here and YES it is as safe and maybe safer than a lot of places in the PI. In fact, if you are still in DGTE, post for a meet with some members, I am sure there will be 1/2 takers, Unfortunatly at this time, I am in Spain or I would have had a coffee with you. Maybe a few SMB's:D I do hope all goes well for you.


Jack P.

 

Philippines is a nice place...expect the good and bad side, its all part of life whether you live in G6 countries to third world countries like Philippines. If you talk about the highest foreigners living in the area, it could be Cebu-Manila-Subic based on statistics. But if you wanna be identified easily because the city is small, it will be staying in Dumaguete. Police station here aint that good, no one answers late night emergency phone calls ( based on experienced) but good enough compared to other cities, you can call alternative neighboring police station, have the phone numbers listed in your list in case of emergency. Its still dirty here but more better than the other cities. Not all part of the city got drainage, but dont worry about that, there are rare to none cases of Leptospirosis during flood time. There are less crime rate compared to other cities which is good about this city and less pollution. Expect to see a lot of young pinays with matured foreigners. Don't mind about it, its what they called survival to poverty says a few young pinays but most of them are for real LOVE. Anyways, Advance Happy Living Soon!

 

My first visit to Dumaguete was 12 years ago. I came away with similar impressions. I felt that Dumaguete was overall wealthier than most of the places I had been. There were a lot of bigger and more rotund people, nice shiny cars, and overall it seemed that more people dressed more affluently than elsewhere. Another thing that led me to this conclusion was even the street dogs were not all starving wretches like most everywhere else.

I also saw that it was a growing town, and growing faster than the infrastructure was going to be able to deal with the growing traffic problem. Obviously at that time nobody in City hall had thought of that, as here we are years later with still a growing traffic problem. At least now they know they have a problem.

The vultures that meet you at the piers, bus terminals, and airports are many places you go. Some cities have things pretty well under control, but others are a little slow to enforce regulation on this annoyance. Once in a while when I am tired of fighting them off I will use them, and pay FAIR fare, which of course pisses them off. If they don't like it, I volunteer to ride with them down the street to the LTO or TMO officer we just passed to discuss it. That always puts an end to the scene.

Larry