Pagudpud

Last week it was Holy Week in the Philippines, which means that everybody is free from work and can spend 5 days to religion. In some areas of the country people show their believe in religion and Jesus by actually crucifying themselves. The nails they use are 20cm long and go through hand and feet. It is a strange spectacle to see. Five huge crosses with bleeding people hanging from them....

Besides bleeding people and crosses, me and a couple of friends made use of our free time by exploring more of the country. For four days we went to a small village in the north of the Philippines: Pagudpud.

Pagudpud is 430 km from Manila and it takes 14 hrs to get there by bus. Halfway we decided to visit an authentic Spanish village called Vigan. In the Lonely Planet this village is decribed as one of the highlights of the country, with its special spanish architecture, culture and rituals. When we got off the bus at 5am in the morning, the village was waking up and we were ready for this spanish experience. However after an hour walking through the village we all came to the same conclusion: Vigan is as filipino as balut, notthing special or spanish about it.

After my sunglasses were stolen from my head, we decided that it was definitely time to leave this touristtrap and go on to our final destination: Pagudpud. Arriving in Pagudpud we first had to find accomodation, this took us 4 hrs since everything was booked. Our last (and in the end best) option was to home-stay. This means renting a part of the house of a filipino family, we were really, really lucky because our family was fan of Dirty Dancing. So Patrick S. and his moves were 24/7 on the TV.

We spend the three days by relaxing and reading at the beach, playing soccer and by singing our favorite filipino songs in the local karaoke bar! Some pictures can seen here!