Pan-Ay

Our last day on the island of Pan-ay, or simply Panáy.  This Visayan island has four provinces -- Iloilo, Capiz (Roxas City is the capital), Antique (three sylls), and Aklan (province of the famous Boracay Beach).  Our guide/friend rode with us all the way to Roxas and brought us to this cathedral, just outside Roxas City, where the Spaniards finally found their first group of converts.  There is an enormous bell inside, people say the largest in the country (and in Asia, but that is wrong because we already saw the largest bell in Asia in Myanmar), but the keeper of this bell had to go to a seminar and wasn't due back till about 14.00, so we only got to see a replica outside.  No big deal for us but our guide was disappointed as she herself had looked forward to showing it to us with pride, and what upset her even more was the fact that the priest we came across just shrugged his shoulders and didn't even offer to do her or us the honours.  Again, no big deal for us, but apparently our guide had expected more hospitality and charity from this man of the church.

We had parked our suitcases at one of the malls so after this short detour we all returned to the mall.  Our guide bid us farewell and left us to amuse ourselves in the mall till it was time to leave for the airport, but as we are not really wild about malls, we just had a quick bite and then left to enjoy the air-conditioning at the airport.

We were amazed that the plane arrived on time from Manila, that we left on the dot, and that the weather was so good we arrived 20 minutes early in Manila.  The taxi to the apartment was friendly and honest, again to our amazement as we've had worse.  Finally, a good, decent, warm and, above all, dry bed!

The extra shows hubby with two of his favourite Philippine 'things' -- a dessert called halo-halo ('all mixed up') and a sago drink.