If there ever was a much awaited leg in my trip, this had to be it. For the longest time, I had wanted to visit Vigan – the Philippines’ own UNESCO World Heritage town. Vigan was a name that had captured my imagination. Like a town jumping out from the pages of a history book, Vigan is said to be the best example of a Spanish colonial town in Asia and I wanted to see for myself whether this is really the case. For some odd reason, I had my first exposure with these UNESCO World Heritage towns overseas, namely with Penang and Malacca in Malaysia and then with Luangprabang in Laos. Vigan was a destination that I had kept waiting for far too long.
From Laoag, we had set out early in the morning for Vigan, again stopping by some interesting sights along the way. But before heading south, we detoured east-ward towards Sarrat, which today is more known to be Ferdinand Marcos’ birthplace. The major landmark here is of course, the house where our ex-President was born. Though looking humble by today’s standards, it is certainly well-preserved. Parts of it were redone in brick while the second storey still retained the typical turn of the 20th century Filipino-style wooden panels. Admission here was free and we were treated to actual paraphernalia used by the former president as well as a peek into the actual room where he was born.
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