Rediscover Amontay Part 1: Bali Inspired A-Frame Houses at Amontay Beach Resort

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About the Place

Amontay is a beach resort in the outskirt of Nasipit. Far from the town center and near the boundary going to the next town. It is also the name of the barangay where it is located. Nasipit on the other hand is a third-class municipality of Agusan del Norte. But the resort amenities are far from third class.

The place is the venue of a family get-together organized by our generous cousin which I will not mention here. After several months of scouring for a venue, they finally decided to do it at Amontay. I have been to Amontay several times before during a government funded events and function but this time is different because I will be joining a whole bunch of family members.

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Traveling to Amontay

From our hometown is a 3-hour drive to the venue including stop-overs in between as well as traffic. There are several towns and cities along the way so the trip is not that boring. One of the major city is the capital of Caraga which is Butuan- considered as the ancient city of the Philippines. As to why it is ancient, I will discuss in another post.

We arrived at around 12:30 in the afternoon and immediately ordered food for lunch and reserve our rooms for a 3-day stay. The food is just ok, not something special although it was a little pricey for a 2-star accommodation.

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The Accommodation

We checked in at around 2pm and relax a bit for the evening gathering. The room is spacious big enough for four adults. But the ac was not fully functioning and took an hour to get the room cold. And there was only one key card that will keep the power on so every time we go out, it turns off. That means we cannot leave the phones charging and the AC on. Ugghh so inconvenient and too much of a hassle. I apologized for ranting haha.

This is their standard roon with one queen bed and 2 single bed. The other bed is located on the other side.

The last time I stayed at the resort was like 5 years ago so I wander around and check the entire property for any changes. And yes, a lot has change. There were several structures in front of the beach and one of the most noticeable are the Bali-inspired A-frame houses. It was made of purely local timber and woods with nipa as its roofing. It was also well lit and has natural air ventilation.

The next day, just adjacent to our room are carpenters building another set of A-frame houses probably for the summer. I was amazed at how they erected the structure with mostly materials made out of wood and timber from the ground up. The design is very simple like the native “kubo” houses we have in the barrio but it has major architectural upgrade to make it more aesthetically appealing.

At night the structures are well lighted. It has suspended deck net in front for chilling. I am not sure if the decks are strong enough to support several people. The rooms do not have its own toilet and bath though so you will have to use the shared facility.

This is how the interior look like ( screengrab from Amontay's facebook page)

Unfortunately we were not able to book a room at one of the bamboo houses as it was fully booked but we were able to take a glimpse at how it look like from the inside out. I love how they maximized the local materials like bamboo, gemilina wood, nipa roofing and cogon stalks to come up with a very eco-friendly structure. I guess it is the trend nowadays where resort owners, architects, and designers include in their masterplan to create and develop living spaces and accommodation that is eco-friendly and has less carbon footprints.

Have you stayed at an eco-friendly hotel recently? How was it?

Thank you for reading and please do not forget to comment, upvote and reblog.

All photos are mine unless otherwise stated.

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A furparent of 3 doggos and 1 cat trying to live a simple life in a tiny house. He has been working for more than a decade but still wandering about his career. But he enjoys it tho as if he has a choice. In his attempt to build the world a better place, he started living an intentional life with less carbon footprints by avoiding single use plastics and repurposing reclyable materials in his backyard. Currently he is on a mission of reducing meat products on his diet and growing his own food. When on his restdays he is either bingwatching his favorite netflix series or ranking up his mobile legend heroes. Oh I forgot, he also bike around his neighborhood, jog when he is not lazy, and cook whatever is available in his fridge. On a normal days, he spent around 6 hours of scrolling thru his social media pages. His ultimate lifegoal is to skip the rat race and live remotely off-grid surrounded by mountains but not too far from the beach. He lives a very meaningful unproductive life. Ughh 😅