My first long trip with my mother late 1991 I guess… ah yes, and it was blessed. We just got our yearly bonus! We took the early bus trip going to my grandma’s hometown, the northern part of the Philippines, and we’re too excited. It’s my first time and my mom hasn’t visited her relatives there for more than 10 years. When we arrived at the central city, oh man that was the cleanest and most disciplined place I’ve ever seen in my life (during that time). I grew-up in a loud and disorganized town in Manila, where people believed that a river is a garbage dump area, playing on the flood on rainy season and talking to people face-to-face with a 4.29 decibel loudness rate is so ordinary and common. So when I first stepped into this place, paradise-like!
Laoag Ilocos Norte is a very ideal place to live in. Aside from seeing those old preserved houses and churches during the Spanish era, taking a ride with those calezas (wagon pulled by a horse) on the street, you will enjoy seeing kind people talking in different dialect (not tagalog), and soon you’ll find yourself lost in translation and might settle on speaking Spanish better. Ok, my mom is good on both, the local dialect and Spanish, but still we found ourselves lost locating the best rice cake store in town. This city has been occupied primarily by Spaniards during that what-the-f*** of 300+ years colonization. Filipinos always believe that if you’re from this part of the country, you are too smart to spend your money and very meticulous in the house or I can say, immaculately clean. There are many (seriously) exciting places to visit in the Philippines and I highly recommend this one.
This is where I bought a fresh tobacco as a present to my friend but then I curiously smoked one stick and encouraged my cousins ages 14 and 15 to try as well. My mom got really mad at me. We went to a resort near the airport and it was my first horse ride. I also met a lot of Taiwanese who visited the resort and along with them are water jugs, 3-4 each person. They bought a lot of this coconut water before boarding the plane and they left the meat untouched. I can’t believe this coconut water is not so valued by us locals but these foreigners consider them so precious, they believe it’s a medicine. It is actually.
You can’t see much in Manila, but here you will find Museum and Mausoleum of the late Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos … and much more. And oh I forgot … the fantastic beaches!
(image link: http://www.worldtourist.us/ilocosnorte/laoag11.jpg)
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