Vigan Plaza Hotel

<br> Vigan is a small city on the northwest coast of Luzon. Lily and I wanted to ...

... tres jolies. Les vehicules ne peuvent circuler dans le centre historique, ca fait un bien fou. En plus, les caleches a cheval sont encore en vigueur, ca sent bon le crottin, on se croirait au Mexique (note de la redaction : je ne suis jamais alle au Mexique). D ailleurs, il y a beaucoup de philippins qui pourraient se fondre dans la foule mexicaine sans probleme, merci les espingouins... Mon hotel un charme fou, il sent bon la cire, tout en bois et ...

Salut tout le monde Nous allons bien. Nous sommes toujours dans Vigan mais pas dans le meme hotel. C'etait jolie mais cette fois ci c'etait les employes qui criaient sans arret. Nous avons rencontrer des petits quebecois a notre hotel. Nous sommes maintenant dans une vieille maison de 130 ans, qui appartenant toujours a la meme famille depuis 5 generations. Tout est d'origine ainsi que les meubles. C'est vraiment beau. Pour le dejeuner nous avons ...

... espagnols (enfin presque, puisque les batissents ne sont pas trop entretenu), c'est une ville qui fait partie du patrimoine mondiale. Une des rares villes a avoir survecue au bombardement de la 2 ieme guerre mondiale. Nous sommes encore dans une fete ou festival. On ne sait pas encore ce qu'il fete mais lorsque nous le decouvrirons on vous fera savoir. Bisouxxxxxxxx France et Rejean

... woken up and their prices were exorbitant. Eventually we found a cosy little place with just one catch. Yes sir we have a room, yes the price is reasonable. Yes you can have the room now, you look like you need the sleep. And by the way, check out is at 10am. This was not what we had intended, so the kindly receptionist stated if we wanted to wait until 8am, and check in then, we would get our room until the next day. What the hell to do in a small backwater ...

... also headed where I wanted to go, took off with other passengers aboard. Thirty minutes had passed in total and this was too much. With my bags I went to try to find the driver or the ticket taker and find out what was going on. But in the Philippines an aggravated man is a man who doesn't get what he wants. I put on my best jovial attitude. It worked, more or less, and ten minutes later I was on the next bus towards Vigan. It was cramped, stopped a bit too often, and the seat was ...

... I decided to eschew those endless miles of coastline. Coasts are not such interesting places when you're travelling alone. Colonial towns, cities, remote villages - these were my target. How hard could it be to move between them? Though those smashed fragments of land number around seven thousand, I planned to stick to just one, the big one, Luzon. It had plenty of coast line, but it also had Manila, and old Spanish towns, and Taal volcano, and apparently ...

... Barockkirchen der Philippinen steht. Verdammt wenig los und auch nicht besonders gut gepflegt. Das schoene am philippinischen Bussystem ist dass die Busse mit 50% Auslastung (im Schnitt) fahren, so habe ich immer genug Platz:-) Das schlechte ist die Geschwindigkeit, hatte ich ja schon mehrmals angedeutet. Auch die Strecke Vigan - Santa Maria braucht ueber 1h, es sind immerhin 38km... Gruss Ralf

... to fill up the gas tank, and grab some breakfast, coffee, and anything else we might have forgotten to bring. Mt. Pinatubo, the volcano that got the whole Philippines in panic with it's 1991 eruption, is clearly visible as soon as you reach Pampanga. Every year, we hear parents (including myself) with kids who were not yet in existence in 1991 ...

At 11 p.m., my mom and I arrived at Manila airport. There were long lines waiting in front of the checkpoints. I took off two jackets I had worn in Japan, because of the heat there. We had a plenty of time before leaving Manila to Vigan by bus, but it was unconfortable to stay in the airport for a long time. About midnight, we finally took a coupon cab to the Partas bus terminal in Quezon city. We paid 600 pesos, which may be quite expensive, but must be the best choice to get there in ...