The Amazing Tour of Ilocos - Part Two

So around 1:30pm we decided to leave Vigan and head to Laoag to maximize our time. Counting the number of things we did and the places we visited that day, you'd really think we were in the Amazing Race. Parang mauubusan kami ng mapupuntahan!

The bus ride from Vigan to Laoag took 2 hours, so I was able to squeeze in some nap time. The moment we got to Laoag station, we immediately made arrangements with a tricycle driver to drive us around the city and visit all our must-sees. We agreed to a Php 800 fee for the entire afternoon, so after checking in to the hotel, we were off to complete the Laoag leg of the trip.

Our first destination was the Malacanang of the North, which was built when Ferdinand Marcos (an Ilocano) was President. I initially didn't include this in our itinerary, but I'm glad we visited it because it was so beautiful. I kept thinking 'I wouldn't mind living here.', haha feeling!

Anyway, we loved everything inside the Palace. It was simple but very elegant. All Marcos memorabilia was also well-preserved. Both of us kept thinking, Imelda definitely has taste.

When more and more started coming in, we decided it's time to move on to the next destination: the Marcos Museum and Mausoleum.

Cameras are not allowed inside the Mausoleum, so I'll just describe the creepiness. It's dark and cold inside (duh!), and there were fake flowers along the path visitors are supposed to walk on. And in the middle of the room lay Marcos' preserved corpse. Lots of people say it's not the real thing but that it's a wax figure. No comment.

After a quick peek in the mausoleum, we went inside the museum beside it. The museum housed more Marcos memorabilia from his childhood to his lawyer days to his days in politics and until his death. There was also a room showing 'Iginuhit ng Tadhana' the late President's propaganda biopic shown in the 60s.

Although it wasn't part of the itinerary, we saw the Batac Church across the museum so we decided to take a quick visit there as well.

We went back to our trike, and after a very short ride, our driver dropped us off the photo gallery which has lots of Marcos photographs. I loved the place!

Next stop: Paoay Church. This was one of the sites I was excited to see and photograph because of its interesting structure. Too bad they were doing some construction on the facade.

Then we headed off to Paoay Sand Dunes. We didn't really get in the sand dunes area where you get to sandboard because you had to ride in one of their jeeps and the price was too steep for us cheapskates. So we had to content ourselves with these sand dunes:

Afterwards, we headed to our last destination: Fort Ilocandia. We didn't even enter the place (I think it's because Shalu's scared of old places and it's already getting dark hehe) as we were content taking pictures of its surrounding during sunset.

We were already very tired and hungry so we asked our driver to drop us off at a restaurant with good food at a reasonable price. He brought us to Saramsam Ylocano Restaurant, and we really loved everything we orded. It's either the food's really good or we were just really hungry. Nonetheless, we were very satisfied and the place had a nice ambience as well.

After that satisfying meal, we trudged back to the hotel for our much-needed shower and rest. We had a very early day ahead of us so we fell asleep right after getting cleaned up.


You can read more about this trip by visiting these links:

The Amazing Tour of Ilocos - Part One
The Amazing Tour of Ilocos - Part Three
The Amazing Tour of Ilocos - Part Four

The Amazing Tour of Ilocos - Part One

As if the Boracay trip wasn't enough, Shalu and I decided to take another trip a couple of weeks after. We have both been planning to go to Ilocos and since there's a long weekend coming up in two weeks, we decided to just go. And this time, this vacation is more action-packed (read: tiresome) and more adventure-filled, which was perfect!

For the next two weeks, we've been very busy researching on places to visit and planning on our itinerary and I was also occupied with picking our hotel and fixing travel arrangements. I was definitely a useless employee in those two weeks, hehe!

We left Manila Friday night at 9:30pm via GV Florida Bus. Too bad we didn't get to ride the their sleeper bus because when I went to their station the day before (that was another adventure in itself!) they only had 1 more available seat, so we settled for the regular bus, which by the way was kinda sucky because the seats un-recline (is there such a word?) when you sit up and the aircon vent doesn't close so you had to cover it with the curtain (so hi-tech!).

Anyway, we had to make do with what we had and get as much sleep as we can because we had a very long day ahead. We were hoping to get to Vigan before sunrise to take pictures of Calle Crisologo in the dark, so we're glad to have reached Bantay, Vigan at 5:30am. Upon alighting, we took a tricycle ride straight to Calle Crisologo and clicked away until way past sunrise!

It was a pretty short street but we took our sweet time taking pictures. By daylight, we decided to roam around the plaza and visit the Vigan Cathedral as well.

Then we took a tricycle ride to Bantay Church, which was actually very near where we alighted the bus but it was still closed when we arrived (it opens at 6am). And another long round of photo ops begins!

Funny thing, I even met someone I used to work with while inside the tower, and we would meet again the next day while trekking the Kabigan Falls in Laoag.

Anyway, since it's already getting really hot and I'm feeling really sticky (I've been wearing the same clothes since 7am the previous day! Yuck.), we decided to go to Cafe Uno near the Calle Crisologo area for brunch and for a quick wash-up.

I must say I was really disappointed with Cafe Uno, I had high expectations of the place based on the blog reviews I read. We both ordered the Vigan longganisa meal and I upgraded my drink to the native tsokolate (which was a good decision because Shalu initially ordered coffee but we were surprised that it was the instant kind, so she changed it to tea). The food was okay at best- it was overpriced for the tiny serving.

After lunch, we decided to walk to Syquia Mansion which was 2 blocks away from Cafe Uno based on the map we got from the Heritage Center. (Since I'm the one who likes maps, I was made the official navigator.) But we couldn't find the entrance to the house (thanks to heat-induced confusion) and we weren't that excited to see it anyway, so we headed straight to the Crisologo Museum.

It was very chaotic inside the museum! There was a huge group of students and lots of other visitors, that the place really felt claustrophobic. There was a couple of caretakers at the ground floor but no one's keeping watch in the other rooms where people kept touching, sitting on/in stuff that are supposed to be off limits. I guess they really should charge an entrance fee instead of making it voluntary for them to hire more staff and keep all the memorabilia intact.

We left the museum and decided to head on off to the Partas bus station for our two-hour ride to Laoag. But we made a quick side trip to Simbaan a Bassit, which was on the way to the station.

Simbaan a Bassit is actually a cemetery chapel and it's most distinctive feature to me (aside from the cemetery right beside it) is it's bright red door.

So this was our last stop in Vigan, as we had to rush to Laoag for the next leg of our adventure.


You can read more about this trip by visiting these links:

The Amazing Tour of Ilocos - Part Two
The Amazing Tour of Ilocos - Part Three
The Amazing Tour of Ilocos - Part Four