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!

Balut

Last Friday my weekend started with a Hawaiian Beach Party at the office with my workmates; cool drinks, chill music and a smooth atmosphere. Everything went pretty smooth until Ronald, our IT guy, brought in a Philipino treat; Balut.

Balut is something that does not qualify as food, or a thing that should be consumed at all! A Balut is a duckegg. Sofar so good, however there is a dead baby duck inside this egg. The preparation and consumption is to boil the egg for a couple of minutes. You take the egg out of the boiling water and peal off the top of the egg. Then you put the egg to your mouth and drink the partial clotted egg white. Then you peal off the rest of the shell and you separate the egg yoke of the embryo. With some rock salt you eat the yoke, still doable, and then as final treat you eat the embryo with a pinch of salt! You swallow the whole thing; beak, feathers and feet! Bienvenida a las Islas Philipinas!

After a couple of beers I ate my first Balut and was ready for the rest of the night! The party moved to my DHL friends for some more drinks with them, 2 Belgiums and another Dutch guy. At 11pm we left for Tiesto! We were lucky we left early because our friend was casually late and started his set at 2am. The night was great and ended early in the morning with our taxidriver in the McD for a cheeseburger. A couple of pictures can be checked here ! Not a lot of pictures, but believe me it was amazing!