A Passage to the Philippines – Day 4: Vigan and Paoay

My night bus from Manila to Vigan had its ups and downs – both literally and metaphorically. One of its indisputably positive attributes was its one-by-two seat configuration. I sat on the single seat, which reclined quite far, and the monitor in front of me had a USB charging port for my phone. These were already great improvements over my long-haul bus rides in Europe, but there were considerable downsides as well. First of all, the driver only turned off the lights once we were well outside of Manila and all the tickets had been re-checked. Second, it kept getting colder and colder on board, and while I thought that wearing all my spare clothes would provide enough insulation, I still ended up feeling chilly. To that end, I repurposed my pyjama trousers from serving as an eye-mask to becoming a scarf, and shamelessly put my black underwear on my face.

My biggest shock, however, was that Filipinos have a very different perception of what constitutes acceptable levels of noise at night. The bus TV kept playing until the wee hours of the morning, pivoting from a gratuitously violent American flick to a full recording of a Taylor Swift concert. People were still having loud conversations next to others who were trying to sleep, many were watching videos on their phones without headphones, and hardly anyone turned off the sound of their notifications. In their love of Western pop culture and ravenous consumption of social media, Filipinos are more American than Americans, which complements the fact that their fervent Catholicism makes them more Spanish than the Spanish.

We arrived in Vigan almost an hour later than planned: not at five but nearing six in the morning. Once I had returned all my clothes to my backpack and rearranged everything inside, I figured I might as well begin my tour. Passing by the colonial buildings along narrow roads, I gradually made my way to Plaza Burgos in the centre of the old town. The Plaza stands right in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle (which was undergoing reconstruction) and leads to Plaza Salcedo and the Archdiocese of Nueva Segovia. On this second plaza stands a statue of José Rizal, and it overlooks the beautiful building currently occupied by McDonalds. This is where I ate breakfast, as everywhere else seemed to still be closed.

Vigan began as a Fujianese trade settlement, referred to in Southern Min as bí-gān (美岸), meaning “beautiful shore.” This name was corrupted by the Spanish into Vigan and many of the local Chinese households were Christianised when the Spanish came, which led to the creation of a unique Chinese Catholic ethos. While the streets tend to have Spanish names and the houses bear distinctive Spanish influences, the interior décor of mixed households includes details like Chinese calligraphy and some houses have Chinese guardian lion statues by their entrances.

After eating breakfast, I crossed the river to visit the Bantay Church and its sixteenth-century bell tower. Originally, this tower was in fact a watchtower that helped the populace defend against pirates; indeed, the word “guard” or “bantay” gave this area its name. This fact may seem strange as the area is solidly inland, but in the seventeenth century, Vigan was an island, and it only became joined to the mainland by silt deposits from the Govantes River.

I returned to Vigan to visit the Syquia Mansion Museum and the Crisologo Museum, but the former was closed. It was only half past eight, but I was content with what I had seen, so I returned to the bus station and asked whether any bus was headed to Paoay. By a stroke of good luck, there was one scheduled for nine thirty. Despite the driver telling me that the bus would stop in Paoay, however, the arrangement on the ground was a little different. The bus stopped in Batac when the driver made the announcement for Paoay and gestured at me to come to the front. On the side of the road, he handed off the alighting passengers to tuk-tuk drivers, who drove them west to Paoay for an additional 100 pesos.

The main attraction in Paoay is its UNESCO-listed baroque church completed in 1710. The church is famous for its giant buttresses, which give it an almost triangular shape. These were specifically erected to withstand earthquakes, possibly borrowing from the earthquake-resistant architecture that the Spanish encountered in Mesoamerica. Inside, the church looks unremarkable, but the exterior is unforgettable. I spent the afternoon sitting around different cafes and reading on the lawn, as there is little else to do in Paoay. Indeed, it does not appear to attract very many tourists despite its fame and proximity to the relatively sizeable town of Laoag.

The lack of tourist infrastructure soon raised another problem for me: I could not find a way to quickly reach Laoag Airport. I had initially intended to use Grab, as I knew it was available in Laoag, and Paoay lies less than half an hour away. However, when I opened the app, I found that it was unavailable in my location. Another option would have been to walk or hail a tricycle back to the junction in Batac, wait for another bus to ride by, and then take a second tricycle from wherever it ended. This solution, however, seemed far too inefficient and possibly no less expensive than simply hiring a tricycle to the airport in Paoay itself. Initially, the request raised eyebrows among a group of tricycle drivers, but one of them eventually consented and took me on what was clearly his own first half-hour ride to the airport.

We arrived very early. Too early, in fact, as the airport had not yet opened. So few aeroplanes leave Laoag each day that it would not make economic sense to operate it round the clock, and the only staff members with a permanent presence are the security officers. Seeing me arrive, one of them told me to wait in the outdoor seating area for another two hours until the airport opened for the check-in of my flight – the only flight since early in the afternoon. He also turned on a fan and set it opposite to where I was sitting, which was a very kind gesture. Once I had finally checked in, I was shocked to find that my bag was subjected only to a manual inspection: the security guard in charge opened each pocket, poked around perfunctorily, and waved me through.