Savoy Hotel, Royal Amsterdam Hotel and Angeles City

Savoy Hotel, Royal Amsterdam Hotel and Angeles City---last week we met my brother-in-law from the US and showed him around Angeles City in Pampanga. It seems it's become part of our lives to show our tourist-relatives around town, or even other folks not our relatives but close to us. A real Philippines commuter or Filipino commuter. We've become traveling buddies or sidekicks to them. So, I might as well offer the same help to tourists who want traveling help as they roam around town---for a fee, of course. 😉

First, we met him at Terminal 3, NAIA and then took a shuttle to Savoy Hotel in Pasay. We had posh rooms (one for my in-law and one for me and my wife) and then changed money at Resorts Hotel taking another service shuttle. It's nice to roam the city around like that in shuttles. Very convenient and VIP. At Resorts, we had dinner. The place didn't impress me one bit, save the price of the dinner. To think that all we had was fried spicy squid and rice.

Anyway, back at Savoy, the room was impressive but I had a hard time trying to sleep due to the cold air-conditioning. I didn't know how to turn it down---no remote control around. But my wife went to sleep quite soundly. At least I had a few hours of sleep myself. I slept at past 12 midnight and woke up at almost 6 am. I read the bible and reflected quietly. Then I looked out the window. We were right in front of NAIA. I thought we were some kilometers away. Then I watched some planes take off.

We had an expensive breakfast buffet (which was good but wasn't very impressive, but the lettuce and fruits were okay) the next morning and then the shuttle van from Royal Amsterdam picked us up at 10.30 am. We drove via Roxas Blvd., Quiapo, Dimasalang, La Loma and Balintawak and soon found ourselves on NLEX to Pampanga. The traffic was heavy in Manila, but ti was smooth sailing along NLEX. We arrived at Royal Amsterdam at about 12 noon.

We spent 2 nights here while looking for an apt apartment for my in-law. We went around Angeles, particularly in the vicinity of The Walking Street (Fields Avenue) where we saw all kinds of night bars and beer houses---plus the girls and women displayed in front of them. We tried several eastern restaurants trying out delicious Indian and Mediterranean foods. Finally we found a nice apartment on our second day there and then went shopping at SM Angeles.

The following day we left my in-law there enjoying his new cozy and safe apartment (it has 24-hour security). It was a nice time helping him out with his hotel and shuttle bookings, roaming around and scouting for an apartment and places to eat, and helping him with the locals for direction and other stuff. I figured, I can do that with other tourists who need similar help. If you need that kind of help, email me and we can probably work out something.



Overall, as a Philippine commuter I had a grand time seeing Savoy Hotel, Royal Amsterdam Hotel and Angeles City. I learned a lot of new things (especially Arabic culture and food from our guest, my brother-in-law) and curious sights of the red light district in Angeles---what I need to be full-fledge Filipino commuter 😄. And Royal Amsterdam? Well, the staff were really nice and courteous and the hotel was okay except for the smell of cigarette smoke (I thought I smelled) in our room.