Strolling down Vigan’s Calle Crisologo one overcast afternoon, my ears glued to Eraserheads’ Wala, a horse-drawn carriage suddenly swept past me. The horse’s hooves click-clacked as it sped by. And for a moment, I felt it displace space—warping it like Doc’s shiny DeLorean. Shifting from the present to the past, from the past to the future. For an instant, I felt somewhat dislocated. Did time just stood still? Am I still at present or am I at some point in the past?
Beh. Enough of that time travel nonsense. Calle Crisologo in Vigan City can stand on its own merit without the need to parallel it with time travel and such baloney.
The reason for my first trip to Vigan City some years back was because of work suspension—too much time on flickr, my boss told me. I have a bit of cash, I was itching to road test a new camera lens, and I haven’t been to Ilocos Sur. So I said to myself, why not Vigan?
And why not, indeed?
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Barefoot, a cup of coffee on hand, I glided past a midsized replica of Juan Luna’s Spoliarium to have my caffeine fix at a veranda somewhere in Vigan City. Earlier, I passed by masterpieces from BenCab and Amorsolo; not replicas, but originals. And yeah, it also took me a while to get my eyes off a supposed Juan Luna original painting.
Welcome to Hotel Luna.
The original plan was to get back home after touring the only hotel slash museum of its kind outside Metro Manila. We’ve been passing by Hotel Luna every single day we were in Vigan City on our way to Calle Crisologo, but for one reason or another, we always fail to visit its halls.
On our supposed last day in the city, we made it a point to finally enter its door. And our jaws dropped to the floor.
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ILOCOS SUR | Santa Maria Church, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
[ARCHITECTURE] Thursday, September 25, 2014
What does UNESCO mean anyway? J asked as we were rumbling through the scenic roadways towards the town of Santa Maria—our goal, to visit the UNESCO-stamped Santa Maria Church. Surprisingly, none of us knew the answer. We knew that it is one of the governing bodies throughout the world that says which site is of world heritage quality, sort of like the Oscars of the tourism world, but we have no idea what the acronym stands for.
I’ve always wanted to visit the Santa Maria Church in Ilocos Sur, but I remember reading that it’s a bit out of the way from the usual Ilocos tourist places. Without a car to get around, visiting it usually took a backseat towards the more popular spots in the region, like say, Calle Crisologo.
But this time, with the help of Hotel Felicidad Vigan, we were provided with a van and was given free reign on where to go. Santa Maria Church was the first thing that popped in my head. At long last!
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.
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| 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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ILOCOS SUR | Bantay Church, its Bell Tower, and FPJ's Ang Panday
[ARCHITECTURE] Tuesday, September 23, 2014
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.
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.
A bamboo pole, about two meters long, was served on our table. Our waiter opened the lid and revealed what’s inside. Pinakbet. My least favorite food of all time.
Oh man. Dining at a place called Pinakbet Farm, I should’ve expected this. Tsk.
Coming from the abel loom weaving in Caoayan, a town which used to be part of Vigan City, we dropped by Pinakbet Farm—a small restaurant overlooking one of the tributaries of Meztizo River. Tables and benches are neatly arranged on a pavilion-type open-aired setting. Wood dominates the theme of the restaurant—and with the breeze wafting in, it makes for a very rustic and provincial ambience.
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