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Published: April 20th 2006
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We made an early start on Sunday morning for the trip up North, first stop was a big breakfast near JP's Call Centre, we (Mummy, Eleanor, the kids and I) were joined by Dicky, Maribel and JP. The breakfast was great value, all you can eat for 80 pesos (a bit over $Au2), the only catch was that you pay double if you leave food on your plate. Michael typically took more than he could comfortably eat but struggled through despite Justine's protests that he was going to be sick. After breakfast we met up with Loni, Helga, Loni's brother Ronnie, his 3 kids and Loni's sister Esty. Loni had invited us to a party that was in the province of Nova Ecija about 2.5 hours from Bulacan, the party was for an infant baptism and was held on a farm. Typically the food was great and after a nice lunch and a few Barcadi's and coke I had a sleep in an air conditioned room upstairs. At around 3pm we left for San Fabian, we took a back road to the main highway and managed not to get lost though Eleanor was getting a bit stressed as she didn't want
to drive for too long in the dark. Back on the main highway we stopped for dinner at Jollibee and reached San Fabian at around 8pm. The caretakers Willie and Mila were there to greet us and made sure we settled in comfortably.
The next morning nine of us (including most of Loni's crew) hired a banca boat and took a ride up the beach. It was good fun and reasonably priced at 300 pesos (about $Au8) for an hour. Loni and family left after lunch and the rest of (except Mummy) went to the PTA Resort and played 8 ball. Michael managed to emerge as the overall winner though I did beat him in one game. That night was played Majong, I found it a bit confusing as some of the pieces had chinese numbers.
San Fabian hasn't changed all that much, there are a few new houses though. An American is building a nice looking house right on the beach, all up including the house and lot we think it's costing him about 5 million pesos (about $Au135,000), that's pretty good as it's a big lot, I'd estimate it to be over 800 square metres. There's a vacant
lot next door to the new house on the beach, if we decide to buy land and build in San Fabian I'd like to wait for that lot to come up for sale.
Wednesday morning we left for Laoag, first stop was breakfast at Maccas in San Fernando La Union. I had a longganisa burger which wasn't bad and french fries which were substituted for a hash brown. Back on the road and the next stop was the old spanish city of Vigan in Ilocos Sur, we were now getting into Marcos country. Vigan is sometimes described as a living museum, it's on the Unesco World Heritage List partly because it's one of the few old European towns in Asia that's still reasonably well preserved. One long street still has the old cobblestones and old Spanish style buildings. We went for a ride around the town in a Calesas (horse and cart), it was a great way to see the old town and cost only 50 pesos (about $Au1.30) for 4 of us. We also visited a type of zoo with tigers, snakes, varous birds and monkeys, Ronald (Paras) has met the owner.
Around 2.30pm we left Vigan for Laoag
and arrived at Fort Ilocandia about 2 hours later, the trip was made longer as a truck had decided to take up one lane of the road just out of Laoag and traffic from both directions were fighting to get past it. Fort Ilocandia is a grand hotel, it was built by Marcos's in 1973 and hastily completed for the wedding reception of their daughter Irene. It offers a wide range of activities including scuba diving, golf lessons, horse riding, dune buggies, wind surfing etc etc. The pool is nice and clean and a good alternative to the beach, there is also a casino, might take a look at that tonight.
This morning I had a swim and then checked out the beach with Justine, we then all had the buffet breakfast (included in the room rate) and did some sight seeing. First stop was Malacanang of the North (an old Marcos residence), a very old Spanish church built in the 1500's (Paoy Church), St Williams Cathedral where a wedding had just finished and the Sinking Bell Tower. That's about all for now, next update will probably be next Sunday when we are back in Manila.
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