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A Vigan journal


April 4, Friday (preparations, or the lack of it) My husband and I always talked about making the long road trip to Vigan even before we got married. I took up photography after acquiring a secondhand Nikon from a colleague in 1987, and after attending a photojournalism workshop, I dreamt of making pictures of Vigan's grand old houses of wood, lime-mortar, coral stone, and brick, its cobblestone streets and century-old churches. I love old things and Vigan – at least from the photographs I'd seen – is so old world. So that Friday, with a three-day weekend ahead, Larry said let's do it. And with no other preparations except to make a call to my brother to feed the dog and fish while we're away – we packed the kids, three changes of clothes, and a water jug and took off. April 5, Saturday (road-trip notes) We left our village in Plaridel, Bulacan, at six in the morning and stopped for breakfast at Plaza Luisita in San Miguel, Tarlac, after an hour's drive. The stop took longer than necessary because of the large long-weekend crowd. The food took ages to be served and we were not able to pull out of there until about 8:30. Three hours later – another pit stop in the village of Consolacion along the national highway – the kids needed to cool down with mais con hielo, sundaes, and ices and Larry needed to stretch his legs. I remember getting a feeling of déjà vu. The place looked and felt strangely familiar like the remains of a dream. I only realized why after making the same stop during the long drive home. Eighteen years ago, my friends from work – Marissa, Jessica, Grace, and Jeannie – dragged me along on this Agoo trip as sort of despedida de soltera outing and this part of Consolacion was one of the places we explored one hot Saturday afternoon.
The restored 16th century basilica minore of the Señora de Caridad (Our Lady of Charity) was destroyed during the big earthquake of July 16, 1990 – just three months after our visit – but the old balón was still intact, and so part of the underground crypt where the remains of Jessica's uncle, the late minister Jose Aspiras, are buried.
The basilica's vaulted ceiling used to be higher, the belfry leaning a bit to the left and the old church grander, but there it was – my bridal shower gift waiting to be rediscovered – only difference is that this time I was with my husband Larry, my daughter Angela, and my son Matthew instead of my old circle of soltera friends.
Across the way was the Museo Iloko (the former presidencia) that houses artifacts like burial jars and old wooden handlooms, religious icons and other pieces of cultural importance to the Ilocanos. It being a Sunday on this my second visit, the museum was closed.
I texted the girls: I have come full circle and sent them photos via MMS. More pictures, please – one of them texted back. Spooky! texted another. We were off again after finishing our ices and stayed our course until Candon, Ilocos Sur, for a quick late lunch at two in the afternoon. Along the way: the scenic Ilocos highway, with quick glimpses of the port of Agoo through breaks in the trees, the Narvacan seascape with mountains to the right and stony beaches to the left, a giant image of the Blessed Mother nestled in green foliage on the slope of a rise and a marker of Gabriela Silang's final resting place following her Vigan Plaza hanging in 1763, stamped on a broad mountainside. Suddenly, round a bend in the winding road – the picturesque Quirino bridge spanning the meandering Abra river – the same channel used by Chinese sampans centuries before in their trade run with the Ilocos towns along its banks. And then – Vigan!
April 5, Saturday (Vigan) I believe we passed the Vigan arch at about half past three and drove around looking for a good place to stay. I was overwhelmed by the rows and rows of old colonial houses. The children wanted to stay in a seaside resort where they could play in the sand and go swimming. But the resort – which looked so promising in the Internet photos – was a disappointment. I texted Howie (Severino, because he just shot a "Balikbayan" episode there): Where's a good place to stay in Vigan? Olats, he texted back, I don't even remember the name of our hotel. Then my friend Nikki texted me to check out her new program on another network and I asked her: “Ever been to Vigan? Saan maganda tumira?" “Vigan Plaza pinakabago diyan," she texted back. But I want to stay in an old house!, I tell Larry, thinking The Plaza was some modern structure of stone, steel, and glass with a pool, a bar, and a restaurant. So we checked out two more old houses – El Juliana (which was undergoing restoration and was full of dust and fine sawdust crunching underfoot – kalaban namin ni Matthew yan kasi pareho kaming hikain) and Villa Angela.
I can't tell you enough about this 1870 heritage house! It's named after the matriarch Angela Villanueva vda. de Verzosa but was actually built by the gobernadorcillo long before she was born. We entered this converted ancestral home of the Verzosas through the garden and the backstairs. Tony, the amiable caretaker, pointed to a wooden carriage in one shaded nook – as the one that transported the young Irene Marcos to Sta. Monica cathedral in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, on her wedding day on June 11, 1983.
Entering the villa's comedor (or dining room), I spy a photo of Tom Cruise with the owner in the caida or ante sala. I am told this is where the Hollywood actor stayed while filming the Oliver Stone movie Born on the Fourth of July in 1989. The film Jose Rizal was also shot there. I loved the long dining table and platerias filled with fine china and porcelain dishes. The kitchen with its "refrigerator" tapayan (Tony explained the tapayan's bottom would be filled with water at night and would keep leftover food chilled till the morning), copper pots, the solid hardwood chopping block-cum-table, and ceiling hanging pot, and pan rack. I also fell in love with the sala and its giant harp, victrola complete with a “Jailhouse Rock" record na nakasalang pa (Tony said it could still play records but for a broken needle), antique butakas, wide capiz windows, oil lamps, and jars.
Tony said the air-conditioned rooms with their double four-posters, antique pillow racks, and aparadores were all already taken but that the cuadro dormitorio which can accommodate 10 to 12 people and rents for 7,500 a night was available. Needless to say that was beyond our budget (because they don't charge per head but per room) and so after thanking Tony, we trudged on although we stalled for as long as we could to take photos. I was beginning to think that if we get turned away from more inns, I would know what the Blessed Virgin felt on Christmas eve – only I wasn't riding a donkey and I wasn't heavy with Jesus. What I had were two testy children – the Katzenjammer kids – hanging from the end of each arm!
We finally make our way to the Vigan Plaza Hotel but had to park our ride near the 1574 baroque St. Paul's cathedral and the 18th century Arzobispado and walk the rest of the way as the plazas – Salcedo and Burgos – were closed to vehicles (except the horse-drawn calesas) on weekends.
At the Plaza – only the largest suite was available (which was fine if we plan to fast until Monday and hitchhike our way back to Bulacan) but what to do with the kids? It was about 5:30 p.m. by my watch and I was desperate for a cooling shower, so I looked at the front desk lady and asked: Is there somewhere less expensive you can direct us to? (Preferably without a mo-mo, my kids thought aloud.) She graciously sent us to the Aniceto Mansion next door. Aniceto Mansion – the former residence of Don Mena Crisologo – was built in 1840 by the father of Vigan's poetess Leona Florentino whose monument stands in front of the house that fried chicken built in Heritage village.
It was restored by the present owner – the Anicetos (family friends of the Crisologos) – who converted it into a hotel in 1989. The children were dismayed that we were going to spend two nights in a big house that was 168 years old. “Mommy, nakakatakot," Angela reproached me, knowing I had made the choice to stay there. I assured her that if there were any ghosts hanging about, they dare not make their presence felt while I was in the premises. “Takot lang ng mga yon sa akin," I assured my daughter while keeping my fingers crossed. After settling in, we hailed a calesa named "Hero" drawn by a 7-year-old mare called "Pamela" whose kuchero would not tell us his name. My children had to settle for manong and he in turn called them adeng (meaning, younger brother/sister).
He took us around Crisologo and Burgos Streets as the pale amber light of old-style street lamps spilled onto the early-evening darkness of the cobblestone streets.
This is the kasanglayan (or mestizo) district where commerce boomed during the Spanish and American eras and where most of the ancestral houses were built. Quite a number of them by rich Chinese traders on layover. Many of the houses are now in the process of being restored to their old glory with what I supposed are their bodegas(storage rooms) and caballerizas (horse stables) converted into shops selling everything from antiques, native handicrafts, religious images (some antiques, some reproductions), art, jewelry, Abel-iloco woven blankets, and hardwood furniture – including tables and chairs, consoles, luhurans, pillow racks and bauls – to trademark Vigan fare like sukang iloko, Vigan longaniza, bagnet, even the old-style sugarcane candy balicocha. While clip-clopping down the dim streets, our kuchero would point out important landmarks including Irene's – a tuckaway shop that sells the best Vigan empanada (P30 apiece) – a rice-flour turnover or tortilla filled with veggies, Vigan longaniza, and egg eaten with a dipping sauce of sukang iloko. Larry stopped to make a purchase and placed the supot of piping hot empanadas in my lap. I wrapped the package with my bimpo so that they would keep warm until dinner at Café Leona. The calesa rents for P150 an hour, and I almost refused to get on after giving the horse a wary eye. (I was on the brink of asking the manong, "Ano ba ang weight capacity niyan?" when another calesa rattled past with two sumo types as passengers. That cleared my conscience fast). We got off in front of Vigan cathedral after the brief tour and made arrangements with manong to continue it the next day. A kuchero had to exact that commitment pala or lose us as customers if he didn't happen to be at the head of the calesa line at the time we require a ride Sunday. The kucheros were kept in line by a female dispatcher who looked like she smoked hand-rolled tabakos with the business end inside her mouth (you know, one wrong move and ouch!). At Café Leona, we had the bagnet, of course, while the kids burned holes in the menu looking for the fried chicken, burgers, and spaghetti.
The restaurant, which is very near our hotel and just a stone's throw from Tongson's royal bibingkahan, gives one a feeling of being in an underground wine cellar. It's cozy, it's dim, and it's old. I brought out the empanadas while we grew white hairs waiting for our orders to arrive and the four of us dug into our baon. It was a bit soggy by then but still yummy. I wolfed down mine and looked longingly at Angela's which she plunked onto my plate after announcing: "Ay, may gulay!" (My girl is solidly anti-veggie unless it's pechay in her sinigang.) After dinner, Larry and Matthew went off in one direction of Crisologo Street and Angela and I went off the other to explore and check out the tiendasitas.
"Mommy!" my daughter shrieked running rings around me. "May mga ipis sa daan!" True enough the things had come out of hiding from their corner of the baul or houses fallen into disrepair and were darting to and fro across the street. I quickly stepped into a shop and pulled my daughter in after me and out of the way of las cucarachas'. The shops I was told stayed open for as long as we bumbling tourist types were about and eager to do some haggling. We headed back to our room at Aniceto (P3,000 a night for a four-bed type with toilet and bath and free plated breakfast) at around 10 and called it a night. My kids abandoned their beds and squeezed themselves into ours, nodding off to sleep with images of mo-mos dancing in their heads. April 6, Sunday I woke up at around 3:30 a.m. with the sound of a bell or grandfather-clock chiming. It sounded like a kumintang or gong and it was going boing-boing-boing loud enough to wake the dead but my three roommates were dead (pardon the pun) to the world. What's strange is that I counted 13 boings… and then six more… and then about four more after that. Sira yata yung clock. O inaantok pa yung sakristan na bell-ringer. Or – and I get goose pimples thinking this – minumulto ako! I surveyed the room in the night light and found nothing out of the ordinary and so went back to sleep. I woke up again at seven and hauled the rest of my family downstairs for breakfast at Café Floresita. Larry and Matthew discovered a well near the back garden. And chatted up Dr. Aniceto's widow – Ms. Flory.
After breakfast, we stopped by the cathedral to pray while an Ilocano mass was being celebrated then caught our calesa for the rest of our tour. First stop was the neo-gothic Bantay cathedral and bell tower established in 1591 and home to Our Lady of Charity, patroness of Nueva Segovia, watching over the municipality from her niche near the top of the church.
We climbed all those steps to the red-clay(?) belfry but only Larry and Matthew made it all the way up to the top (I took one look at the rickety wooden steps that began where the stone ones ended and decided not to risk having to claim responsibility for destroying what had only been recently restored).
The bell tower – which is quite a long way off from the church itself – was said to have been used as a lookout point during the war. And the priest in charge of collecting donations for its restoration sold me on the idea of making the climb with his pitch that on a clear day such as the one we were having, one can see the entire Ilocos Sur (Wow! better than Google Earth!) laid out like a 3-d map. Next stop was the Burgos National Museum where Padre Jose Burgos, the national hero who was executed by the Spanish for his role in the independence movement, grew up. Among our finds was a photograph of Jose Rizal's execution and a copy of the Noli Me Tangere – our guide said Rizal made several of this using his lunch money. This one was given to Fr. Burgos as a gift – he was Rizal's teacher and a friend of his brother Paciano's (I immediately sent out photos of both the execution and book to Howie Severino via MMS. Howie was in Cambodia on vacation at the time). Also, a round metal thing with a handle called a prinza that was used both as a plantsa and a bed warmer on cold nights, Fr. Burgos' rolltop desk and an antique orinola!
Fourteen paintings of Esteban Villanueva depicting the 1807 Basi Revolt also hang on the walls. He supposedly made the paintings from memory having witnessed the revolt as a boy. At least three of the paintings show a comet streaking across the sky. From the Burgos museum, we went to a pagburnayan where traditional Vigan burnay (jars) are made, but Larry didn't make pictures because the one we visited wasn't very picturesque. I could kick myself for not buying at least one burnay though. Got sidetracked by the tiangges near the entrance and promptly got conned by a mother-&-daughter hawking team. Syquia Mansion (where we arrived towards noon – or hora de peligro) is the ancestral home of Alicia Syquia, wife of the country's sixth president, Elpidio Quirino, and it contains his memorabilia including his wingtip shoes (ba tawag dun?), his books, some stuffed birds still in their cage (yikes!), a fountain in the second-floor azotea, four-posters, giant platerias, santos, and a beautiful ornate luhuran, and in the comedor – as in the Burgos household's kusina – the contraption that functions both as a fan and a pambugaw ng langaw called a punca. We were not able to take photos at Syquia because they were already on the verge of closing for lunch when we got there, so we just sort of made a mad dash around after overhearing the caretaker, the late president's grandson Eduardo Quirino, tell his assistant to already lock the front door. (I would have wanted to have a look at that golden orinola of his lolo Pidiong's, tsk!) While Vigan baked in the noonday sun, we decided to give "Pamela" a rest and grabbed some lunch before checking out Baluarte – a free zoo built by the governor – where palominos trot alongside deer and a hornbill shares a perch with a peregrine falcon and various other types of fowl right across a tree stump where a green iguana held court and a caged python slept. (Kids were feeding the lizard pechay so Angela looked on with interest – imagine nga naman having the same favorite vegetable as an iguana. Cool!)
There is also a butterfly garden, a fenced enclosure with white deer, ostriches, and peacocks, a long cage with Bengal tigers and lions. The animals are the govenor's so-called collection of pets and the zoo that sits atop a hill is part of his estate.
The kids and I got a kick out of feeding the deer some bunga ng acacia, the black "tamarind-like" fruit we just kick around or played shato with as children. The deer gently took them from our hand.
Before heading back to the hotel, we passed up visiting the Hidden Garden. We asked manong, “Anong makikita dun?" “Mga hala halaman, mga bulaklak. “Ayaw na," the kids chorused). Instead, we checked out the Heritage Resort swimming place (billed as the site of a recent bikini open!) Larry was going to take the kids to later so I can have some quiet time to do Calle Crisologo properly. “Pagudpud is just a four-hour drive away, kids. Wanna go?" he asked. “No, pagud na kami, Daddy," they declared with finality.(Joke yon) As we alighted from the calesa and settled our P750 bill, the kids bade the horse goodbye by patting her flanks and smoothing her mane. “Pahinga ka na, Pamela," they whispered to her. Larry and I took a short nap to recharge while the kids played with their kiddie-meal cars on the floor. Then we were off again: Larry and the kids to their swimming hole and me to browse through Crisologo. Among my purchases – a Vigan coffeetable book, an abaca bag or two, some keychains and ref magnets of calesas, jars, Crisologo street scenes, and a kamagong bangkito. I wasn't really there to buy. I was there to soak up the atmosphere. I sat on the wooden benches with the calesa wheels and watched the weekend crowd take their pictures and clatter past in their calesas, lugging their jars, longaniza, and Tongson's bibingka. I checked out Plaza Burgos' streetside empanada and okoy stands and watched the manangs roll out the dough and toss in the cabbage, Vigan longaniza, egg, and shrimps before deep-frying the things – and could not resist sampling their wares. My only regret is failing to visit the Palacio de Arzobispado, exploring the churches from end to end, and doing the rest of the museums. I guess you could say it was a case of too much history, too little time. He-he.
Dinner that night was Vigan longaniza again (I couldn't seem to get enough of the stuff) and dinoydoy – a vegetable dish of kalabasa and ampalaya cooked in bagoong iloko, onions, and broth. The kids opted for chicken as usual.
After dinner we strolled around the Plaza savoring our last night in the city. The air was pungent with horse piss and shit but we were too blissfully happy to mind.
Back at the hotel, we took some pictures before negotiating the grand staircase to Room 8, haunting the corridors like ghosts. Freeze-framing moments. Stalling our bedtime. Delaying the obvious. April 7, Monday (departure) I had us packed before Larry and the children woke up so there was little else to do except plan what pasalubong to get, over breakfast. But Vigan it seemed had one more thing to show us before we left: While waiting for breakfast to be served, we heard a brass band playing a dirge outside. We rushed to the front door of the hotel and saw at least three horse-drawn hearses making their way to the cathedral in a procession reminiscent of New Orleans funerals. Each hearse was preceded by a brass band with its own set of three majorettes and retinue of mourners making their way to the church on foot. The front desk staff explained this was because funerals were not allowed on weekends as the streets around the plazas or public square were closed to traffic to allow promenaders to have the run of the place. After breakfast, we dashed about the poblacion for bibingka, bagnet, and Vigan longaniza. Cooling our heels while waiting for the bagnets to be delivered at 10:00 a.m. and mulling whether or not to buy the Vigan lechon instead. After making our purchases it was back to our hotel and Larry lugging our bags down to the van.
Standing at the main door or puerta of Aniceto Mansion and looking out at the panoramic view of Plazas Burgos and Salcedo with their now empty empanada and okoy kiosks and Vigan cathedral with its row of calesas out front – I couldn't help turning melancholic. I have been here before – in this transitory passage between adventure and home – and had felt a bit like the hobbit Frodo at the end of his quest: "Roads go ever ever on under cloud and under star yet feet that wandering have gone turn at last to home afar…" I know we have to go… It's at least a nine-hour overland trip back to Bulacan… So after taking a last look around and an earful of the bustle that is the city (the clip-clop of calesas, other travelers pulling out of their hotels, churchbells pealing and distant catches of birdsong), I step out on the street for the journey home. - GMANews.TV
Tags: vigan, tourism
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