Bicycle touring the Philippines: Ilocos Sur to Ilocos Norte

Jeff and I continued north, cruising along on the flats, until we ran out of road. We made it to the northern end of the 15th largest island in the world. Luzon is the largest of the 7000 islands that make up the Philippines.

Back in Manila I wasn’t terribly impressed with San Agustin, one of the UNESCO-listed Baroque Churches of the Philippines. Jeff and I saw another one in Santa Maria, ever so slightly more interesting than the one in Manila.

Most people’s favorite, and even UNESCO considers it the best example, is the church in Paoay. The front of the church faces west so in the morning (when we were there) it’s hard to get good photos. Here’s an artist’s rendition:

The Filipino baroque style is sometimes called earthquake baroque. The fortress-like churches had to be built to withstand the frequent seismic activity in this part of the world.

You can see similar reinforced walls in the San Juan Bautista Church in Garreta.

Here’s the interior of the church at Paoay:

The bell tower caught some nice morning light, but it’s a later addition (mid-19th century). The main church was built at the beginning of the 18th century.

The riding that we did in Ilocos was fairly flat and fairly fast.

We started to get sea views for the first time.

Throughout all the riding that we did in the Philippines it wasn’t uncommon for the road through a village to go straight through the covered basketball court. Here’s an example:

Certainly our most interesting stop in Ilocos was the Spanish colonial city of Vigan. We spent two nights. The grid pattern reminded us of Spanish colonial towns in the Americas,

but the architecture is some sort of Filipino/Spanish/Chinese fusion.

Or perhaps Art Deco?

A notable feature — and we saw this in other towns in Ilocos as well — are the window panes made from shells. Supposedly they withstand typhoons better than glass,

but you can’t see out of them very well.

The house belonging to Quirino, the Philippines’ 6th president, is now a museum. The garden reminded me of Spanish missions in California.

Vigan warrants its UNESCO World Heritage Site listing. I had never seen anything like it — a slightly run down mix of Georgetown (Penang) and San Cristóbal de las Casas.

In Ilocos Jeff and I felt we were figuring out how to find good food in the Philippines. Partly being in a more populated area helped, and also we were doing a better job ordering. Mungo is a mung bean soup that we ate quite a few times. Bitter gourd was surprisingly tasty, not as bitter as I found it in Sri Lanka. Fruit shakes with real fresh fruit are not to be passed up, but they’re hard to find. We liked “sizzling” plates, usually made fresh. Here’s an example:

On a hot afternoon in the small town of Garreta, we felt lucky to find an air-conditioned restaurant with Japanese-style noodle bowls.

We used this sugary shake thing with fun tapioca balls at the bottom as an excuse to prolong our time in the blissful cool.

Farther north, in Suba, we visited Malacañang of the North, one of kelptocrat Marcos’ homes. It’s now a museum. The house has a wonderful setting above Paoay Lake with large open rooms getting a pleasant breeze.

There’s a Chinese Garden too, completed in the last two years.

Marcos’ son, Bongbong, the Philippines’ current president, claims the property belongs to their family. I wondered how much influence he had over the exhibits describing what great work Fernando Marcos the kleptocrat did in various sectors including agriculture, art, diplomacy, and infrastructure development. They even bragged about cutting down forest in Mindanao to graze cattle!

Jeff and I finally took a few rest days at the pleasant beach at Saud, a bit north of Pagudpud.

We enjoyed the view from the balcony of our hotel.

Surprisingly it was so cool at night that I didn’t turn on the a/c or the fan and even had to put on my long underwear, fleece jacket, and wool hat one night!

The area was decent — not great — for walking. There are too many ugly concrete walls blocking access to where it might be nice to walk.

One morning I went out on my bike for about four hours to see Kaibagan Falls. I was a bit surprised by how much water there was ’cause it was the middle of the dry season (early February). On our way north through Ilocos we had crossed dry stream beds, and Tanap-Avis Falls near Tanap wasn’t flowing.

On the return I looped north through Nagudungan on quiet roads.

This is as close as I got to Mayraira Point, the northernmost point in Luzon. It’s probably a bit around to the right of the point in the center of this photo:

Cheers to a super ride on Luzon.