A trip to the olden times - Vigan!

 Vigan is the home of the old. Here you will see old houses, old buildings, and several old filipino customs and traditions still being practiced. In the streets you will see the kalesa (horse-drawn carriage) which was popular in old Europe. Sure, the old market is now made of concrete and you can see a Ja-bee (Jollibee, a popular fast food chain in the Philippines) store in the corner, but everything is still pretty rural.

We stopped by the home of Vigan’s biggest cats, the Baluarte. This is a free roaming zoo established by the controversial Governor Singson. Here you will find different kinds of animals, but the zoo is most famous for its min rous tigers. The best thing about this zoo is that admission is free and there’s an animal encounter show which is held four times every day. During the show, visitors are allowed to pet the animals and pose for pictures.

The best part of this vacation was my trip at the beach. The water was clean and peaceful and there were no other visitors at the resort, A walk on the along the shore led me to a fishing village. In the village, people still cooked using fire and lived in the traditional houses called a “bahay kubo“. Children played near the beach as their parents go about in their dialy chores. I stopped to take pictures but I was only using my phone’s built-in camera and the photos were no good. Fortunately, I managed to get a couple of shots before it became too dark.

Are you planning to visit ilocos anytime soon? Travel to Philippines is pretty easy. If you want to visit Vigan, or Laoag (the capital of Ilocos Norte), I believe Cebu Pacific offers cheap travel deals during this time.