MicroISV: Day 1 - Impressive Davao

May 20, 2007 in davao, life, tours, travel

Its really nice being here in Davao City. For the mean time, I’ll be staying at White Mansion until we have fully setup our office and good to go. A very nice place, fully furnished with complete basic amenities situated few kilometers from the city proper. Impressive city.

Nice people. I think common dabawenyos are generally honest and good. If they learned that you’re a tourist and new to the place, they are really helpful despite the language barriers. Most of the time I speak English so they will answer me in English because if I speak Tagalong, they will have to think about it and most of the time they are hesitant to answer me. They always said gwapa (what was that mean lols).

Nice restaurants. Trust me! There are a lot of very nice restaurants in Davao. Name it, they have it. Sprouting Korean restaurants all over the city. Chinese cuisine, Filipino restobars and Thai food shops. We had our first dinner at Red Night Garden near our place. Its a really nice place for small drink session or chatting. I had my first taste of Durian Cappuccino at Bo’s Coffee Club, the best Thai soup in Krua Thai Authentic Cuisine and spicy chicken curry at Banana Leaf Asian Cafe in Chimes. My bad, I dont have camera yet so I just linked you up to those blogs.

Nice food. Fruits in Davao city are really cheap compared to Marathi or event Lipa City. You can see different kinds of fruit shops in the city or along small intersections. Watermelons are just being laid down the avenues. High quality banana that I usually buy for 70 pesos in Marathi is being sell for 30-40 pesos.

Regulated smoking. I was impressed authorities here have the political will to implement rules. I have yet to see smoker caught, basically because there really are no public smokers here. I have found some but they have it either under the overpass or in smoking area of foodshops and cafe. This week is anniversary of 100% smoke free Davao. Very far from Makati, where No-Smoking ordinance was just implement “ningas kugon”!!!. FYI in Makati, major percentage of call center agents and IT workers are smokers (no offense). Each building has designated ash tray on top of the trash bin near the entrance. Cigarette vendors are just around the corner of every building.

Relatively clean. You can see large trashbin lined up on almost every corner of the streets. Green for biodegradable and black for recyclable. Touring around trying to find a nice apartment, I found Davao really clean. I’ve been to the city proper near Ateneo and its really nice.

Nice taxi drivers. I think everybody would agree with this that generally taxi drivers here are good and honest. They will give you the change in even as small as 2.00. If you asked for a place and request to take you there, you can trust them that they won’t fool you or asked for the meter off for fixed amount. If they don?t know the place, they simply said no. Or they would asked some other taxi drivers for the direction.

Its more practical to take taxi here. There are lot of non-aircon taxi in davao. The minimum charge is 26.00, and 1.00 per 100 meters.