A Night At Sonya's Garden

I visited this place in 2004 with two girl friends as I was in search of a perfect date place for my parents. When I saw the cottages and the garden, I knew I'd found the right place. However, things didn't go as planned as my parents decided to skip it and preferred to spend all their days and nights in Manila with their kids. But to myself I swore I was going to spend a night here with my husband.

The cottages and the garden were as charming as ever, peaceful and tranquil (save for the irritating scraping of furniture on the 2nd floor of our cottage so I suggest booking a cottage on the 2nd floor or with no 2nd floor). It was even more lovely at night when the garden luminaries and lanterns were all lit up and the moon hung bright and round against the dark sky; when the crickets began to sing to the bass chanting of the frogs; and when we sat on the garden chairs to enjoy the stillness of nature.

We spent our first few hours reading - the cottages were well stocked with an interesting collection of books, I realized there really was no need for me to bring all 4 books that I was reading at the time as I read two of their in-house books in intervals (The Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran and Stillness Speaks).

Dinner was the usual salad greens and pasta. The greens were different varieties of lettuce with ceasar dressing. There was also chopped boiled egg, mango and pineapple slices, nuts and parmesan cheese to top the salad with. For the herbed bread, we were provided with 5 kinds of spreads - mushroom pate, anchovies, kesong puti, sun-dried tomatoes and the fifth I never did figure out what. The pasta came with two types of sauce - sundried tomatoes and cream with chicken. This time they also added grilled salmon, probably in observance of the Holy Week when some Catholics would abstain from meat. Finally, dessert was caramelized sweet potatoes and banana turon. And along with all these was a bottomless pitcher of sweetened dalandan juice.

We ate too much of the salad and bread that by the time the pasta arrived we could afford to eat very little of it and JM's parents didn't even eat any. Too bad, I really wanted to try the grilled salmon with the sun-dried tomato sauce but I just didn't have any room left for it.

And then a delightful massage! Loved, loved, loved the massage! Just the right amount of pressure on just the right places. And because of that, I immediately booked a foot spa for the following morning. I actually considered having another body massage but felt I needed a foot spa more. Besides, while I could always get a body massage in Bangkok, foot spas are rare here (and I mean full foot spas with scrubbing and all), and expensive. I'm glad I went for the foot spa. I got the same girl who did my body massage and she worked as wonderfully as the previous night.

Breakfast was an endless supply of delicious traditional Filipino dishes. There was fried rice, chicken adobo (swimming in oil, if i may add), danggit, tsokolate a(gua), and a plate of mangoes. There was mushroom omelet as well, which I snubbed in favor of the local fare. I am not much of a breakfast person, except when we're traveling for fear of starving if I should find myself in the middle of nowhere. But this time I filled my stomach full and faster than they could re-fill the dishes.

We lounged some more at the cottage before check out and received a goodwill bag of yummy freshly-baked Spanish bread from Sonya.

So my wish of spending a night at Sonya's Garden did come true. But it doesn't end there. I still wish I could go back - only me and JM next time. :D