I'm back balakubak! I'm here once again to give you a glimpse of my recent trip, this time to the far North. My officemate planned a trip to be a part of the Surf and Music festival that will take place in Pagudpod, Ilocos Norte. A bit of information, the name Pagudpod is a type of grass commonly found on the said place and it was formerly a part of Bangui. So let's go back to the Surf and Music Festival, it was supposed to be in Pagudpod but due to some challenges (as they say) it was moved to San Juan, La Union but since most of us have not yet experience Pagudpod we pushed through our plan with a little twist.
To get there you can ride a plane towards Laoag (45mins) and then a small bus or tricycle to Pagudpod (1 hour) but a little pricey if haven't got a promo fare. You can also ride a bus from Manila to Pagudpod (11 hours) and costs Php650. Since we are on a tight budget we tried the bus transporation and reserved tickets from Florida bus station in Cubao since that is a holiday and many commuters will go out of town. By the way you may ride a bus towards Junction and not the Pagudpod signage because it will only go as far as to the city itself and you still need to ride a tricycle but when you ride the Junction bus it will pass through the beaches itself, for further information you may ask bus station staff.
We left 5:30pm in Cubao and reached our home stay in Blue Lagoon beach about 4:30am. We just slept for about two hours and then we go to the beach that the Surf and Music Festival should take place. We thought that it will just be a long walk but it turns out to be a very very very long walk as we have to pass throught hills to go to the place (we realized that we should have ride a tricycle).
After a day of tiring walks and traveling we go back to our home stay and got ready for our Ilocos tour. We rented a van and a guide to tour us on the spots there in Ilocos Norte.
So first we visited the Saud beach which is found before the Blue Lagoon beach from there the popular windmills can be viewed.
So after the picture taking in Saud we went now to Bangui to have a clear and close view of the windmills of Ilocos Norte. It is a very fascinating sight because it is my first time to see a real windmill.
After Bangui we went to Burgos where the Kapurpurawan Rock Formation is found. They said that before you can go to the rock formation itslef but because of some people vandalizing the rocks the citizens decided to prohibit tourist going to the rock formation but instead they built a view deck to the the sight.
Our last stop is the Cape Bojeador Lighthouse also in Burgos, it is one of the oldest lighthouse here in the Philippines and it is still working, though people are now prohibited on going inside the lighthouse because of security and safety reasons.
After the tour we went to Laoag to take a bus to La Union, this is the twist of our vacation. We really want to attend the festival so we pushed to go to San Juan, La Union. We rode a bus that will pass through San Juan but was a bit tiring because it was already 10pm when we got there and we have no accomodation so we still need to find one. Since there was a festival all accomodation near the beach or even the rooms are all occupied we ended up going to San Fernando a 10mins jeepney travel and rented a room at a hotel.
After unpacking we went back to San Juan to have a glimpse of the festival though it's already 11pm, we just bought some boose while listening to the concert and went to the hotel after the concert.
About 8am we went back to the beach and some of us went surfing. This is also my first time visiting San Juan, La Union and it is a pretty neat place for surfing though I couldn't compare Baler to this place. We went back to Manila around 4pm.
Overall it might be a tiring journey but all is worthit all of the places I have visited there is really fascinating, from the windmills to the rock formation to the lighthouse. It is ok that from time to time we go to an adventure to find more beautiful places.
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