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The impressive Cabatuan Church
This is the 13th installment of the Luzon - Visayas - Luzon Loop series. Click the image on the right to check out the rest of the posts.
In the Visayas, Iloilo is one of the provinces with many colonial era churches. What better way to spend a few hours before my trip to Kalibo that afternoon than with visiting two of these?
The first time I saw a photo of the church of Cabatuan and I was immediately drawn to it. Its impressive and imposing. An architectural achievement. Its squat but massive twin belfries flanks a simple facade built along neo-classic lines. Finished in 1866, it is one of the biggest churches in Panay.
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A delectable batchoy noodle dish.
This is the 12th installment of the Luzon - Visayas - Luzon Loop series. Click the image on the right to check out the rest of the posts.
“Its sahog… are plentiful and its broth very delectable.” This is the best batchoy I have ever tasted! I silently exclaimed mindful of the other customers in the airconditioned branch of Deco’s in La Paz, Iloilo. It must be the hunger and weariness of lugging my things while walking a good distance in downtown Iloilo City. Bernie, who met me at the pier took me here when I said that I want to have a good batchoy in La Paz. Its sahog of entrails, chicharon and scallions are plentiful and its broth very delectable.
There is a small debate, I was told, about the first batchoy in La Paz, Iloilo. There are two contenders: Ted’s and Deco. Both started out as a small eatery in the 30’s. However, Bernie said that the latter is the original. Ted’s has been transformed into a franchise that can now be found in major malls in the country. As for Deco’s, the rights and recipe were bought and developed by Edgar Sia II, the successful young businessman who also owns the Mang Inasal franchise.
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The facade of the mall. Click on image to view a bigger size.
This is the 11th installment of the Luzon - Visayas - Luzon Loop series. Click the image on the right to check out the rest of the posts.
“From the shoe box style… it has been liberated and updated with light, airy and spacious designs.”Believe it or not, with only few hours in Bacolod, I opted to visit Henry Sy’s new pilgrimage center, SM City Bacolod, instead. Yeah, I passed by San Sebastian Cathedral, that beautiful old colonial era edifice but didn’t bring with me my camera. Not that I’m a big fan of malls, where I just find the offerings generic and nothing special, I was more intrigued by its architecture. From the shoe box style of which these brand of malls started with, it has been liberated and updated with light, airy and spacious designs.
View of interior of the mall. Click on image for a bigger size.
Unfortunately, the sophisticated exterior cannot be matched by the interior. Strip it of decorations and strips and pieces and what you have is just an elongated warehouse connected by two footbridges. With the available stores, one doesn’t have much choice but the usual, tired and same products that are offered elsewhere.
Trucks loaded with sugarcane is a common sight across the north Negros highway.
This is the 10th installment of the Luzon - Visayas - Luzon Loop series. Click the image on the right to check out the rest of the posts.
“The.. highway is indeed one of the scenic arteries that one can travel through in the country”Four hours across the north Negros highway and I was reliving memories of more than a decade ago passing this very artery going back and forth Cebu and Bacolod during vacations at my best friends place. I can vividly remember the ancestral houses of Silay with its imposing 1930s church along the road. Or how I am always captivated with the massive Mt. Mandalagan, a pemament fixture in the Negros landscape, lording it over the land. The same feeling of awe that you experience with the Malindang Range in Misamis Occidental or Mt. Mayon in Legazpi or even the Daguma Range in West Mindanao. One is humbled.
Or how can I forget a midnight trip from Bacolod on a VHire (van for hire) sandwiched between the driver and a passenger, ill seated for the duration of the trip to San Carlos without being able to sleep? It was the first time that I have experienced such inconveniences as a traveler that I swore never to do again.
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At the city center of San Carlos City, Negros
This is the 9th installment of the Luzon - Visayas - Luzon Loop series. Click the image on the right to check out the rest of the posts.
“San Carlos is not as progressive. But what I like about it is its old charm.”After three weeks vacation at my home province in Cebu, I was again on the road for the trip back to Makati. I’ve been looking forward to make this trip not only because I will finally be able to visit the provinces beyond Iloilo as well as pass by Mindoro but also to come back, albeit briefly, San Carlos City in Negros.
San Carlos City is just across Toledo in Cebu. I have very vague recollections of this former town when I passed by here over a decade ago during my trips to and from Bacolod. But what I cannot forget, when naively, at a distance during the approach of the roro what I thought were golf courses (!) were in fact sugarcane fields. Ha!
A hawker at the Cebu South Terminal
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