Last Hurrah!

Last Day

I hope you could see the Bangui Windmills from this photo

Pagudpud Beach

My sister and I woke up early so that we could have the beach to ourselves before anybody wakes up. From the hill near the resort, you could see the windmills. We brought along our goggles but it's better if you could also bring snorkels. You could see fish even if you're near the shore. After an hour, we washed up and ate our breakfast. The breakfast for our last day was longganisa. This was different from the Vigan longganisa- it had more stuffing and served in pairs. It lacked seasoning but it was better than nothing. I was really against staying beyond 10am, but what can a person do versus 30+ people. So we spent time waiting for the drivers to finish eating and everybody else to finish preparing. They could have done so a little bit faster. In the end, we left the resort a bit late and arrived at Laoag for late lunch(1pm).

Bolusan restaurant

This is a restaurant serving Chinese, Japanese and Ilokano dishes. We ordered shrimp sinigang(I think this had 4-5 pcs of shrimp), Bagnet with KBL(in case you're wondering, KBL stands for Kamatis, Bagoong, Lasona - tomato, bagoong, onions), fried chili squid and Yang Chow fried rice. Our food was a bit expensive and I was a bit disappointed with their Bagnet(deep fried pork) but overall, the food was tasty.Though I really appreciated their chili squid(not tough) and the Yang Chow fried rice. Price ranges from 250-400php per dish. This restaurant also had several pots of orchids used as table centerpiece.



Badoc Museum

This was supposed to be visited on our first day. When I saw it, I knew that I regretted the decision in agreeing to skip it. Museums are closed on Mondays. So what is Badoc Museum? It's no less than the home of Juan Luna. Who is he? He's a great artist/painter and one of his works was the Spoliarium which can now be found at the National Museum. 

After Badoc Museum, we proceeded to the longganisa and bagnet factory in Vigan. (This was not in the itinerary. I think they only dropped us there so that they could get freebies from the owner, OR someone from our convoy asked the drivers to recommend a place where they could buy these and the drivers proceeded there with the entire group without even consulting the other passengers. How irritatingly unfair for those who were not interested in purchasing anything!) I didn't take note where this was exactly but it was at a corner lot and one of the roads near Calle Crisologo. It was also beside a multi-purpose hall. There were no taste samples for the longganisa so we only bought a small pack. If you wanted a longganisa that's more on the sour side, then you could buy these. But if not, I recommend that you skip it. If you want Vigan longganisa, I would recommend the one that's served at Marsha's delicacy. As for the bagnet(local term for lechon kawali), we usually buy ours at Laoag's public market. I didn't get to taste the ones they offered but my sister assured me that it was nothing special.

Vigan Heritage Houses

What you need here is a good camera --one that could produce good pictures even if it's night time. I bought most of my souvenirs here. I suggest that you also try the avocado flavored ice cream sold by the local sorbetero(ice cream man). It is also advisable to come here earlier(around 2 pm) and ride a kalesa for a tour of the town. We stayed here until 7:30 pm before heading home.

So there you have it, our trip up north with SMB using vouchers from cashcashpinoy worth 4k. In my opinion, this was a rip-off. Using 16k(4k for 4 persons) SMB could've provided us with our own car, driver, accommodation and food, since apart from the 4k, we were required to give "tips" worth 150 pesos per person. And we could've arrived earlier and went home earlier instead of waiting for other people to finish their business which was quite a hassle, especially if they're uncooperative. And yes, this is a downside for not having my own car.