En route to the northern provinces of the Philippines, I almost always wake up just before the bus I’m riding crosses the Abra River. From the newer Banaoang Bridge, I look out the window and gaze at the skeletal structure of the defunct Quirino Bridge parallel to it. And almost always, the bus would zoom off the bridge without me being able to take even a single shot or let alone take my camera out from my bag.

ABRA RIVER UP CLOSE

The chance finally came for me to photograph the twin bridge that connects the town of Santa and Bantay in Ilocos Sur as I revisited Vigan City a month ago. Aboard a van full of media peeps, we traversed the rain-slicked roads to Barangay Banaoang and alighted just before the twin bridges.

But we were there, not really to take photos of the massive structures, but to cross it using a zip line.

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It’s all still a bit hazy to me, but I somehow recall how a fireball blazed into the sky and fell at the hill where an old tower stood. The meteor was taken by a stooped old man and was eventually forged into a sword, the balaraw. That sword was said to grow long by thrusting into the ground.

Ang Panday, a movie from my childhood, was more than a movie for me back then. And now, decades later, I am still unable to believe that I’m standing on the ground where that ball of fire struck.

But erase all that. After doing a bit of research, I stumbled upon a full movie of Ang Panday on YouTube. I started to watch it, waiting for the scene with the bell tower. Soon, I found that my memory served me wrong. The meteor didn’t land at the tower. Rather, a book was found there by Tata Temyong, buried under a tree, after an earthquake shook the ground.

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The hunt for Tuguegarao’s iconic pancit batil patong continues even as we travel. This time, while in Vigan City, we quickly googled through the interweb, looking for traces of this noodle dish near the the area. Since we were in the northern territories of the Philippines, we thought that the chances of a panciteria selling our favorite pancit would be quite high. Right?

Our web search turned up zero results.

It wasn’t until our second to the last day of exploring Vigan when we chanced upon a security guy from Hotel Luna, Sir Medrano we called him. After accidentally finding out that he hails from Cagayan Valley, we immediately asked if he knows a panciteria selling pancit batil patong in Vigan City.

Well, not exactly in Vigan, he says, but I know one near Bantay Church, which in all practicality is almost part of the city.

That same afternoon, on foot, we traversed the Meztizo River and went out of Vigan City. We desperately wanted a plate of pancit batil patong.

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The rain pattered through the cold bus window as we navigated the evening traffic through EDSA. We buzzer-beat the time and were soon loading our bags through the back of the rented van we’ll be calling home for a three-day jaunt in Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte.

With two beautiful models and four photographers aboard--two more waiting along the way--I made myself comfortable, plugged in my ultra-morose Ryan Adams playlist, covered my eyes with my Headware and tried to sleep off the ten-hour ride to the Ilocos Region.