itinerary: legazpi, albay and donsol, sorsogon

first out of cebu travel for me this year. this getaway was filled with drama as i had to cancel everything the night before but decided to continue anyway barely 4 hours before our flight. just imagine the panic and excitement chaos involved for i still had to prepare in a dash! together with me on this was my brother.

since i'm a cheap ass flier, we took cebu pacific's flight from cebu to legazpi with tickets bought during the carrier's promo fares. oh yeah!

my travel notes: vigan and clark

i am used to long bus travels or so i thought, until i had experienced a much longer one from clark to vigan. i prefer to take short travels in order not to waste time and be able to get to my destination as fast as i can. that's why, i love to fly rather than take boats.

besides, time is of the essence for a working slave like me since vacation leaves don't come around very often. however, this perspective had been challenged during my travel to vigan.

and here are my notes about the entire trip. some lessons learned for my next. 

things to do in clark

after less than an hour of bus travel from capas, we finally reached angeles, pampanga. we had our breakfast in another fast food joint (jollibee) adjacent to dau bus terminal. we still hadn't figured out on how to get to clark where we planned to kill the time before our flight later that evening.

clark is simply the colloquial term from its longer and descriptive name, clark air base which had not been in operation since 1991, the year when the american soldiers bade goodbye to angeles. it was only after several years when the vast abandoned land became what it is now, the clark special economic zone and slowly gained life and economic flourish.

there are of course more enjoyable activities aside from what i will enumerate here. we only chose to do/experience these activities given the limited time and money we had.

1. Hang around in SM Clark

we couldn't afford to miss our flight since we must surely get our arses back to work to sustain our any future travel endeavour. so, sm clark it is. when i go to places, i usually stay away from malls or department stores but this time, i had no choice.

 SM City Clark

getting to clark premises can be i think, a tourist trap. the seemingly tourists that we were, carrying unusual loads and crossing the road twice clearly gave way the cluelessness on where we supposed to go. yes, a lot of men in what looked like to be a jeepney stop offered us a Php50/person ride to clark. of course, we didn't buy that. someone was nice enough to point us the direction where we could take a jeepney to sm city clark.

all day agony from vigan to clark

our second day in vigan. we were fortunate enough on our first day that we only had overcast skies as compared to the typhoon's foreboding menace on the second day. the overcast was already a gift. at least, we had our day tour as our consolation.

we never had an itinerary but merely a list of places in memory, where we might be going if time and the weather would permit. scaling further up north - laoag, bangui and pagudpud, was literally blown away by the preliminary fury of the typhoon. on my mind, it was "shiyou ga nai na~", a japanese expression for there's nothing we can do.

the only logical thing to do that time was to go down south and then back to clark. but before we began this long journey, we first had our free breakfast in grandpa's inn.

Vigan Longganiza

since vigan longganiza is a must-try in vigan, i chose this meal rather than the usual breakfast meal i could have in cebu. though longganiza is also a specialty in cebu, i just had to try this one. after devouring the 3 tiny pieces, this is what i had to say. the taste didn't come close to the longganiza that my tongue is familiar with. it wasn't sweet and it was on the border of being too dry. like the empanada, vinegar dip is also its recommended pair. maybe it was just new to my tongue or maybe i still have to find the best longganiza in vigan.

vigan day tour

getting around vigan is easy. like most places in the philippines, tricycle also serves as the main means of transportation in vigan. i'm amused with how a tricycle comes in different forms across the country. this goes to show how filipinos can be ingenious!

well, aside from these tricycles, calesas or horse-drawn carriages are also aplenty completing vigan’s historical character. however, the calesa is mainly for tourists, exploring the small city while the locals usually get around by a tricycle.

in order to complete the historical feel of our tour, we opted to hire a calesa. we started our tour at 9 in the morning after we had our needed rest due to the weariness of the long travel.

Breakfast in Vigan

some say that one way to truly experience a different place is to taste its local food. what better place than the street-side eatery where most locals eat?

Gaizel's Carinderia

The only noteworthy food above

is the dinakdakan at the upper right.

It's the Ilocano version of sisig.

this came convenient for us since we were a stingy pack so to speak. our “mamang kutsero” (person who handles the calesa) recommended the eatery after we blatantly rejected his typical fast food suggestions. anyway, one thing i noticed in the eatery was that, most of the food were either pork or beef. i was kinda disappointed since i’m not really a sucker for meat.

vigan in retrospect

i don't want to do another food post even if i still have a few number of food posts in queue. well, those have to wait because this blog will soon be overwhelmed with food, giving away my apparent gluttonous behavior. and since my first out of town (out of cebu!) endeavour for this year is still three weeks away, i guess it's just timely for me to put some of my travel quests for my fleeting sanity into writing.

this isn't however, in chronological order but to whatever past travel that will come to mind. though, i won't promise that this will be a series of travel recollections because i know after some time, the laziness will get to me.

anyway, i will start with vigan!

☀just where is vigan?

Philippine Map from Google

Google map link is here.

quite obvious in the map, vigan city lines up along the western coast of northern luzon, facing the south china sea. vigan is a world heritage site and it is the capital of ilocos sur province. more of vigan in wiki. this is the farthest north i had been in the philippines defeating baguio in my list. i would however want batanes to be no. 1 in my list. ;)