Early one morning, just before sunrise, I woke up early to take a short walk and take photos along the shore where a fishing boat was beached into the shallow water for a few days already. After a few minutes of seeing, composing, setting and clicking, I started to notice a group of fishermen starting to pull at a rope. They were trawling the shallows and this got me curious since I haven’t seen this before.

Be careful of what you wish for, it might come true. For many years, Cuyo is a fascination. A sprinkling of islets between Panay and Northern Palawan, I have wondered many times about its isolation, its people and the rich religious cultural heritage found on its soil. It all started way back more than a decade ago when I used to collect butterflies.

It is not only old churches that I am fascinated with but I find Spanish colonial era cemeteries, and to some extent, those during pre-war period with their wonderful architecture very interesting. When I get to places, after asking about the churches, I follow it up with: “Is the cemetery here old?”

In the Visayas, and possibly in the entire country, Iloilo has the best samples of colonial era, as well as pre-war cemeteries.

No doubt about it, I’m a sucker for old churches. That’s why when I travel, the first place that I go to see is the church, especially if it is colonial era. Not to pray, but to admire these architectural wonders as well as to take photos or do some documentation. I always find time to make my own visita iglesia.

For religious heritage lovers, Iloilo and Negros are must go to places in the Visayas.

Our Southeast Asia wide photo exhibit kicked off in Jakarta Indonesia last 3 June 08. The Manila leg will be this October.

Last 24 and 26 May, I visited fellow travel blogger Ferdz’s first monochrome exhibit entitled Living By Water at the Filipinas Heritage Library. It is his tribute to, in his words:

“…water and its significance to how and why people live by the water. ”

What piqued my curiosity most were the locations where the images were taken: stilt villages in Basilan and Zamboanga, Itbayat, Lake Sebu, Siquijor and Iloilo.