About half a year before my big trip to Kenya (read the highlights of my Kenya trip here), I travelled to beautiful Sicily and spent one day solo in Palermo. The 7-km walking itinerary in this post made me discover Sicily’s turbulent history, architecture, culture and food. I had a blast there ...
My Cebu city photo impressions
At the end of our 10-day holidays in Apo and Bohol, we spent one last day in Cebu.These keywords summarize my impression of Cebu City: Market Transport & jeeps Electricity lines Tropical Christmas Faith ...
Bacolod’s 38th MassKara festival
Lucky are those who live in Bacolod during the highlight of the MassKara festival because it’s nearly impossible to get a hotel in Bacolod during the third week of festivities. Since 1980 Bacolod celebrates its MassKara festival. MassKara stands for “many faces” or “masks” with smiles to represent ...
My detailed Bacolod jeepney guide
These former U.S. military jeeps and left-overs from World War II are today’s most common and cheapest means of public transport. Contrary to buses, there are hundreds of them so that you never wait for a long time. They pick up and drop passengers anywhere along the road, so that you’ll often not ...
Virlanie kicks off opportunities for street children in Bacolod City
This Friday, September 29, 2017, our Bacolod team inaugurated our new Open Day Center in Bacolod City, which will provide social, education and health services to Bacolod’s vulnerable children. The inaugural ceremony included the traditional ribbon cutting and blessing of the freshly repainted ...
A long night and no way to get home
When main roads become rivers and you need four hours to get home instead of the usual 15-minute walk, you realize that a heavy monsoon is hitting the island. The state weather bureau PAGASA announced the yellow level warning late yesterday evening when many people were already stuck in locally ...
Upshot after one month in the Philippines
My fifth week in the Philippines is coming to an end - time to look back and conclude how much my day-to-day life has changed: A harsh change in my daily rhythm: After five years in the south of France where everything starts late and you stay up until late, I’ve become an early bird again in ...
Glue – the street children’s drug
Today we picked up three orphan brothers before we traveled to Bacolod’s Social Development Center. After their parents’ death, the total 6 siblings had been sent to their relatives. But as a result of social-economic issues and an unstable environment, they finally ended up living on the street ...
