A spread of pancit bihon, steamed veggies, barbecued pork liempo, lumpiang shanghai, salted eggs and buro on fresh banana leaf greeted us at Crystal Waves Resort in Nueva Ecija. It was lunchtime and we’re expecting a Jollibee meal, the spread was an unexpected suprise, it’s gonna be a boodle fight for us! Superb as the food was, this was but ordinary. During our two-day Lakbay Norte 6 romp across the province of Nueva Ecija, we’ve come across dishes and snacks most people would probably find quite weird—but for certified foodies, weird is good.

The landlocked province of Nueva Ecija isn’t really the first thing that would come to mind when one plans for an out of town trip. Heck, what can you even do there? That’s the usual thing I get when asked about my home province. And to be fair, I can’t really give a big-ass concrete answer. My mom’s home province is so laid back that until you really try and probe its farm-filled landscapes, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with any interesting things to do.

But yes, I just found out that there are more remarkable places to visit at Nueva Ecija besides those I’ve already listed on my Nueva Ecija Travel Guide. The next time you pass by the province en route to popular tourist places like Baler, Banaue, Sagada and Tuguegarao City, try to stop, spend a night and see what this quiet pastoral province is all about.

We watched from the shade of a craggy white rock as a makeshift bamboo raft effortlessly glided across the calm, coffee brown waters of Peñaranda River. We were at a the limestone gorge in the town of Gen. Tinio in Nueva Ecija and we missed the sparkling green waters of the Minalungao National Park by a single day.

NO GREEN WATERS AT MINALUNGAO FOR US

It rained the previous night, a sentry along the road told our van driver as we shelled out a few hundred pesos to enter the road leading to Nueva Ecija’s only Natural Park. We pushed on despite the warning. After almost an hour of driving, we were almost at Minalungao, it seemed such a waste to turn back now.