Iloilo – Bacolod Day 2 (Going around Iloilo and to the South – Part 1)
Itinerary for the Day:
Iloilo New Port, Deco’s, Miag-ao Church, San Joaquin Church, Garin Farm, Camila Balay Nga Bato, Plazuela de Iloilo, and Imjap Tower
We left for Iloilo New Port first thing in the morning to buy ferry tickets. To get there, we hailed a taxi from Go Hotels which cost around P70.00 – P80.00 and paid another P12.00 entrance fee to get inside the port. Upon arrival, we went to Ocean Jet’s ticketing booth and booked a round-trip ticket from Iloilo to Bacolod for P330.00 each. Buying the tickets earlier saved us the trouble of worrying whether they would still be available since the festivities at Bacolod will start the next day and we were expecting that there would be more passengers than usual.
Once we had our tickets, we took the taxi and asked the driver to bring us to somewhere we could try La Paz Batchoy. He brought us to Deco’s since it was the only place open by 7:30am.
Deco’s Original La Paz Batchoy offers, well, their batchoy in three variants: Special, Super and Extra. As of writing time, they each cost P70.00, P80.00, and P90.00 respectively with only the serving size differing. You can also ask them to change the “noodle” they use as they also offer Bihon batchoy and Sotanghon batchoy which costs an additional P5.00 and P10.00. I only ordered the Special since I’m not a very heavy eater and I honestly didn’t know what a batchoy was (I thought it was a flavor or something). Anyway, the batchoy had a lot of sahog (toppings?) and the soup was very flavorful. Aside from the noodles, I only ate the toppings I was sure were meat and not the innards. Because of how savory the batchoy was, we also ordered and tried their puto for a change in taste and to have something sweet. The food was good overall but it’s not something I could eat a lot of and would not want to eat on a regular basis.
After having breakfast, we tried to ride a jeep to get from Iloilo City Proper to Miag-ao but couldn’t find any (there were many students and workers commuting then because it was on a weekday rush-hour). Instead of waiting for a while longer, we decided to take a taxi and headed towards Mohon terminal where jeepneys bound for the Southern Iloilo towns are initially stationed. Finding a jeep at the terminal instead of along the road was definitely a good idea since we were able to find one right after getting off the taxi. Travel time from Iloilo to Miag-ao was probably at around 1 hour or so and cost around P40.00 per person.
Better known as simply Miag-ao Church, Sto. Tomas de Villanueva Parish Church is found right in the middle of Miag-ao, Iloilo. It has been declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO last December 11, 1993 and is one of the four Baroque-Spanish era churches in the Philippines. The place isn’t very difficult to find as the jeepney stops directly in front of it. No entrance fee is also needed to get in.
Although I’m not religious by nature, I could still appreciate a good design and architecture and this church definitely has it. Intricate details have been carved onto the walls of the church and the images are clearly visible even from afar. The place is also well-maintained by the caretakers and a gardener was tending to the place when we were there. Everyone’s allowed inside the church and the entrance can be found on the sides (on the second picture).
Tip 1: There’s apparently a belief that lighting a candle in every church you visit for the first time will help in granting one of your wishes!
Tip 2: Always bring a lot of change as most of the time, you’ll be commuting all over the place.
Up next: San Joaquin’s Church and Garin Farm.
