Blogs from Vigan, Ilocos, Philippines, Asia

So,..... yesterday, after 7hrs and 7000 km on a plane followed by 7 days sitting around in a small room watching downloaded videos, we're on the move. Spent most of the day in the car travelng North along the MacArthur highway from Tagaytay to Illocos and a small historical town called Vigan. I thought it might be worth seeing after seeing a feature on in back home on a cooking show (Island Feast). Any travel blog or travelouge will tell you it's an old Spanish Town with cobbled streets and Spanish Architecture. Turns out it's only one street, but WHAT A STREET!!! At the risk of sounding just a little cliched, it's a little like walking through a time warp - except for the foreign tourists, souvenir vendors, cameras and motorised traffic crossing at every intersection. ... read more

Vigan... read more

It's the end of another busy week and I have been travelling about this weekend. Three weeks in and I still haven't worked out the Jeepney routes they all seem to change depending on how the driver is feeling and if there are floods in the city (which is often). The weather forecast on Tuesday said that there was a tropical cyclone developing to the east of Luzon (large northern island where Manila and Navacan are) and sure enough the rain and wind started to come on Wednesday. I went shopping after work on Wednesday and it had been raining for most of the day but it was relatively calm when I entered the mall near my hotel. About 20 minutes later I went to walk home and looked out of the windows to see peoples' ... read more

Partas bus from Pasay City leaves at 9pm for Vigan so at 7:30pm I made my way from the hostel, took me a couple tries before a cab agreed to take me, I don't understand this why do taxi drivers here in Manila refuse passengers, don't they want to make money, very annoying, pain in the butt. Took about an hour to get to the station because of traffic. Once there the small station which can fit only 2 buses at a time, is very chaotic, people everywhere with their luggages, I need to queue for ticket as you can't buy it in advance, the queue snakes around the crowd and have to ask people where does the line end so I can take my place, I have carried my pack the whole 1/2 hour in ... read more

Last April 4-7, 2007 during Holy Week we(together with my co-workers at Analog Devices Inc.) went on a tour of Ilocos Region(i have another blog for Ilocos Norte tour which i created separately since this is about our Vigan Tour at Ilocos Sur). We went to different places and ate local foods and we all have a great time! We stayed at allan's house where we were treated to a sumptuous meal prepared by his mother! i really liked the dinner that they served us where the mangoes are really sweet and the ilokano style pinakbet was just yummy! Our first stop was Vigan City and below are some info on Vigan City: About 400 kilometers from Manila is the Unesco World Heritage Site of Vigan. It is the capital city of Ilocos Sur located on ... read more