Torn

Holy week is just about the hottest, longest and gloomiest week of the year so I usually just stay home to avoid the mad rush of people going out of Manila for a vacay.  But the lure of going to a surfing beach for the first time, watching a bikini open on a holy week and trekking to reach one of the most fabulous waterfalls I've seen in pictures, got the best of me, so I broke my long held tradition and hit the highway with friends early morning of Holy Thursday!

Major fail!  It took us 12 grueling hours to get to San Juan, La Union which is otherwise just a 4-hour drive!

The massive build-up that almost made me want to turn back.

Please don't try this at home!

Local-grown grapes sold in the streets.  Texture and taste closer to  olives.

Afraid they might already have animate things inside!

Despite the very wrong start, the 3-day 2-night vacation turned out to be an interesting one.  Endured a whole lot of things for the hope of finally seeing the waterfall I saw in my friend's Facebook.

The steep descend, start of the hour-and-a-half penitence on foot...

across fields...

thirsty earth...

natural stone floors...

less than grand but equally amazing canyons...

doing balancing acts and...

death-defying stunts...

all just too see this uniquely beautiful work of God's hands!

Now, I am a little torn whether to wish for this waterfall to become famous so local government funding will flow for its improvement and maintenance, or for it to remain in obscurity to keep it from man's destructive nature.

Believe

I have always wanted to include Pila, Laguna, since my very first Laguna Loop tour.  However, going to Pila meant skipping Magdalena, Majayjay, Liliw and Nagcarlan which have some of the best churches in the province, because Pila is just a town away from Pagsanjan which is the turning point to three alternative routes.  Unless you have more than a day to spare, by all means do them all.


So the trip to Pagsanjan Falls gave me the opportunity to at last include Pila in the itinerary because we would no longer go to most of the churches we've covered before.  After all, how can I pass up the chance to see what is widely known to be a national heritage site because of the ancestral houses that can be seen there, "in the league" of Vigan, Ilocos Sur in my mind.


However, plans changed because we miscalculated the time we needed to spend in Pagsanjan and because SRP also wanted to see Majayjay Church again, we chose to go to San Pablo instead of Pila, the former having a lake view as an added attraction.

And it was a huge disappointment!  I remember passing by San Pablo Church at night and I thought it was bigger and grander, which was probably because of the lighting.  For me, it is ordinary and luckluster, at least compared to the rest of the Laguna churches.

So even if we knew that it would be a long way to Pila, we decided to skip the lake and immediately leave San Pablo.  Good thing that the roads are well-paved with relaxing views and ample markers to guide newbies like us.

Finally, the town of Pila.  Above is the San Antonio de Padua Parish Church.  Unfortunately, I wasn't as impressed.  Although it is no doubt beautiful, I am not liking the fact that the belfry is different, in terms of the materials it is made of, from the frontispiece.  I know for a fact that almost all of the churches have undergone renovations due to damage from natural and man-made disasters, but at least stay true to the original form.

Although I wasn't able to completely check out the interior, it looked well maintained, although small, and I am loving the chandeliers.

My favorite ancestral home among the many that surround the town plaza...

like this one...

and this one.

Some of the things that I wanted to see were the old houses converted into cafes and restaurants as I have read in the different blogs about the place.  Unfortunately, the two that we checked out, including the one above, were again a disappointment.

They are, at best, cariderias.  But since it was already around 6pm, we decided to settle with this one because it was the only one with customers that time, an indication of sort that it's better than the other one across the street.  We ordered pancit canton.  40 minutes passed and no sign of our pancit.  We were already going to cancel the order when it finally arrived on our table...

and it was so worth it!  For only Php 90.00, this dish can be shared by three to four persons.  Absolutely delish and very generous with the ingredients.  SRP wanted to order another to go, but we could so not afford to wait another 40 minutes.  Apparently, the pancit they sell is outsourced from somewhere and not cooked in-house.

To sum, Pila is still a must see if you happen to be within the area.  The well-maintained houses surround the town plaza which give one a glimpse into the alta sociedad of olden Philippines.  Although I was hoping that the people, locals and tourists alike, grow some respect and decency in their bodies to keep the place clean.  There were trash everywhere and it was such an eyesore.


Pila is nothing like Vigan, Ilocos Sur, as I have wrongly expected.  Pagsanjan has as much ancestral houses, just not as strategically laid out as in Pila.  If I have to see a heritage site, I need not to look elsewhere, Intramuros is way better.


Do not get me wrong, Pila is beautiful, sans the garbage situation, but not as I was made to believe by some of the blogs I read.  This time, to see is to truly believe.

Stampede!

One day, my phone rang and on the other line was Sir RP (SRP), a good friend who I met through another good buddy MDC from the land down under.  By choice, he's been unemployed for months now, so he's been a constant phone pal while enjoying his very long break from the corporate world.  And I must say that he's got some seriously deep pockets to be jobless this long.

Out of sheer boredom perhaps, he asked me to accompany him again on a tour of the Laguna Loop which he enjoyed the first time I toured him and MDC there.  He wanted to do a little photography which he failed to do then because he drained his camera battery with just the first three churches.

But it would be like my hundredth time to do the loop so we agreed to do something else aside from church hopping.  And so, Pagsanjan Falls came into the picture.

My roots came from Laguna and since primary school, I have always heard about the most famous tourist attraction in the province but I never really had the motivation to see it for myself.  Probably it was because of the bad stories I grew up hearing about the place.

But was I glad to overlook everything and just went for it.  It was surely worth our while.

From the Pagsanjan Church towards Cavinti,  turn right on the street after the bridge, where you would immediately see a sign for boat rentals.  There are a lot of other resorts there that offer the boat ride but we didn't bother to choose as the rates are basically the same, being regulated by the local government.  It's Php 1,350 per person, only a maximum of 3 passengers per boat aside from the two boatmen, which already includes the balsa ride that would take you through the raging falls itself, the life vest and the hard hat.  As per our conversation with our boatmen, there are around 900 tourist boats plying the river, so it'll take a week before they could sail again.  As I understand, there's a central depot where all the resorts get the boat services.  Once you're on the boat, a motorboat would tug you along for around a kilometer to the rocky part where it could no longer sail.  From there on, your fate is in the boatmen's hands.  A couple of vendors on boats would approach you along the way, just decline with a smile.

We were told that a number of local productions shot TV shows and movies there.  Above is the set of the TV series Amaya.

The boundary between Pagsanjan and Cavinti.  Apparently, the latter actually owns the famous falls, but because the river cruise to the falls could only be started from Pagsanjan, the misnomer stuck.  However, as an alternative way to reach the falls, Cavinti came up with a different offering, which is a guided trek through the lush forest, which is so not for me, thank you very much!

At this point, the sail was still a breeze...

feel free to bask in the beauty of nature...

And then the rocky parts where you would start to appreciate the skill and strength of the boatmen.  Something I wouldn't do for money.  It is fatally dangerous, a slight miscalculation could cause a limb or life itself.  We were always reminded to keep our hands off the side of the boat, or lose it.  We were told that it was a good day because water was high, which made it easier to sail.  We encourage every one going there to generously tip your boatmen, they so deserve it.

It becomes a waterfall itself during the rainy season.

To add suspense in the already thrilling ride.  Since they could not part the huge boulders to make way for boats as they did with smaller rocks, fixed parallel metal pipes are in place to ramp the boats through the rocks.

A couple of rocky parts more and we finally reached...

the world-famous Pagsanjan Falls.

We road this balsa with a couple of other tourists.  Now, that ride was the scariest for  me, more that the death defying cruise, after hearing that there have been fatal accidents before when rocks fell on tourists.  But no guts, no glory!  I did not burn my skin on the cruise to chicken out the last minute.  And I must say that it was so far the most exhilarating thing I did, too bad I didn't have a waterproof camera!  We went through the raging water, to the shallow cave behind where the balsa men wanted us to go for a quick swim, but none of the elderly Koreans wanted to, so we headed back.  While right under the massive waterfall though, I am very sure that the balsa men deliberately made us linger for a good one minute.  Now I know how it feels like when someone falls face flat in the middle of an stampede during a football match gone bad!  It more than made up for the little disappointment finding Pagsanjan Falls a little smaller than I expected!

We headed back to the town, and the ride was a bit easier being downstream.  We started the river cruise at around 11am and made it back at around 2pm, so we're already starving.  Luckily, although I wasn't able to research for a good restaurant in Pagsanjan, we chanced upon Calle Arco Restaurant at 57 Rizal Street.  It is an old house converted into a restaurant which is my kind of place.

Honestly, I felt a little reservation upon entering the restaurant.  The interior , although full of character, is not entirely pulled together.  There are parts that looked recently refurbished, while other parts appeared overlooked in terms of repairs and maintenance.  Maybe, the place is under renovation which I didn't bother to ask about.  And the biggest letdown was the swarm of flies that seemed to congregate in one part of the restaurant.  Although I must say that they got pretty disciplined flies because they did not bother us at all as soon as the ceiling fan over us was turned on.

Then came the surprising redemption.  The refreshing banana shake for me and Green Mango Shake for SRP...

The tender and flavorful Lechon Kawale for me and

the equally delectable Rosemary Chicken which SRP absolutely loved.  All for just Php 400.00!

Now, the beautiful Pagsanjan, super check!

Large Prints

We have this pervasive mysticism in the Philippines that a dog supposedly assumes whatever accidents its master is supposed to figure into.  Although I absolutely do not believe in it, it is but a very relieving consolation, if only to trick the mind and heart, for a dog owner as myself who lost a beloved pet, Nano.

In November 2011, my brother and Nanay almost figured in what could have been a ugly car collision.  A day or two later, Nano lost his left eye when a much bigger dog attacked him while being walked by Tatay in his favorite playground.  The following month, Nano was fatally hit by a speeding car inside the subdivision when my brother took him out for a walk, he didn't see the car coming from his left.  At about the same time, the taxi I was riding almost got smashed by a maniacal public utility bus.

His very last picture alive :(

One of his emo moments!

And we, up to this moment, sorely miss his antics.  His love for anything sweet, especially ice cream and mint candies.  He did not grab food from our hands, no matter how much he wanted it, he waited for it to be released, which he ate oh so very slowly.  He was allowed to live inside the house because he never pissed nor pooped ever inside.  He knocked, never barked, when he wanted to come in.  We usually woke up in the morning to see him lying on the sofa with his head on a pillow.  He loved to be cuddled all the time.  Most especially, he rode the bicycle with Tatay like some dog Lance Armstrong.

He was the perfect dog for the family.  We thought that we would never have another after him.

But it was just different without a pet in the house, so last February 14, I brought home a new dog, Cofi.

On the way to his new home.

By the looks of it, so far, he is the exact opposite of Nano in every way.

This puppy has some large paw prints to fill.

Dark Shadows

Before ETS and I decided to explore Southern Luzon, I wanted to break in by first covering the northern part starting with Bulacan, for its rich history and mainly because it appeared more accessible and easier to navigate for its basically flat topography.


So I invited a friend from the land down under, MDC, to accompany me.  And we were in for a surprise.

We thought we were still in Manila, Barangay Something, Zone Something, Gagalangin, Tondo, that is!

There were quite a number of rough spots.  Roads and road signs are confusing, I couldn't remember how many times we got lost and had to retrace our route.  Worse, not many people we asked knew the tourist attractions we were looking for.  Believe me, I've done my research and I read that there's a number of really old churches and structures there, but my list was getting more and more X marks! 

Finally, we were able to locate one, the Parish of San Miguel de Arcangel in Marilao.  Too bad, it was closed.  And our interest was already waning.

I hope the local government does something about the river situation, before it's too late.  Let us not allow Metro Manila's dark shadows creep into the provinces.

After burning liters and liters of gas, we found the Marcelo del Pilar Shrine in Bulacan, Bulacan.  The shrine was, at the time and I am not sure if it still is, not properly landmarked even if it is situated along the main road, so you would really have to be looking around or you'll miss it.

He was one of the key personalities of the Philippine Revolution against Spain.  He was an editor of La Solidaridad, the revolutionary organ.

The highlight of the trip, the Barasoain Church in Malolos.  This is perhaps the most iconic of all Catholic churches in the Philippines having been site to some of the most important moments in history such as the inauguration of the First Philippine Republic in January 23, 1899.

Unfortunately, again, we couldn't get a panoramic shot of the church because of these equally hapless students who were having an independence day rehearsal under the scorching mid-day Sun.  Worse, the church was closed so we were not able to see the historic altar.

And because it's been basically at an almost-no-hit-all-misses kind of day, we decided that the Parish of the Immaculate Conception, also in Malolos, would be our last stop for the trip.

Actually, I was the only one who got out of the car to check it out, MDC was already beyond uninspired.

On the way out of the province, we passed by this nice place that reminded me of Bonifacio High Street in Taguig.  Up to now, I don't know what it is called.

While on the way out of the province, we decided, since it was only around 2pm, to proceed to...

And because we were unprepared to explore the province...

all we saw was the Romanesque city hall...

the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Fernando...

which interior was redesigned after the church burnt for the second  time in 1939...

and finally, the beautifully boring provincial capitol.

I would love to give these provinces a second look.  And I hope to be pleasantly surprised next time.