Our Siquijor Trip – Day 1: Ratsada

At Siquijor time moves S-L-O-W-L-Y

The first tourist-y thing we did was to have a picture-taking session at the bell tower which I think was in the center of Siquijor town. After that we made our way to Larena to buy some provisions and eat lunch.

Rick, our local guide, suggested we eat at Chicken Ati-Atihan. So seven very tired and hungry folks went there. Five of us had Crispy Fried Chicken while Jake and Julius decided to get pork chop. Now 30 minutes later we were feeling impatient because there was no sign of our food or our drinks. Finally we gave in and asked for our drinks served first. I think we waited over an hour for our food. At first we thought it was just poor service but we soon learned that Siquijor is a really laid back place.

Now everyone knows that “Philippine Time” is basically a euphemism for “don’t expect anything to be on time” but in Siquijor, the culture is on an even slower Philippine time clock. So note to future travelers to the island of Siquijor…if you want to eat at a specific time, order your food in advance so you won’t be hungry and get tired of waiting.

Finally our food arrived. We all marvelling at the large portions of chicken we had but there was a moment of surprised amusement that Jake’s and Julius’ pork chops came in such small portions. To top it all off, someone had forgotten Rabang’s order and he had to wait a bit longer to start eating. The rest of us were trying to eat slowly but seriously, we were starved! so we weren’t as slow as courtesy dictates.