Thu 14thMay – Set off to Lucban in Quezon region of South Luzon province this
morning. Every year Lucban hosts the ‘Pahiyas’ festival, where hundreds of
houses are decorated in the most elaborate way to celebrate a bountiful
harvest. Being one of the areas with the highest rainfall in the Philippines,
guarantees it to be a fertile land.
Getting there
was a combination of Jeepney to Pala-Pala in Dasmarinas followed by an FX van
to Pagsanjan, then another Jeepney to Lucban.
Even though
the festival was to have begun on 11th May, heavy rains had made
preparations difficult, so when we arrived the day before the main event, the
roads were chaos with activity buzzing everywhere, as teams of people were busy
decorating their houses. In some ways, this was a stroke of luck for us as it
meant seeing the interesting bit in full flow.
A brief chat
with a local yielded a surprising fact….one day to prepare for the competition,
one day for the event itself and then the following day it would all come down
again! This seems an incredible amount of work for such a short span of time.
We felt that it should be on for many days and a waste to be removing the
decorations in such a short time, but that is their policy. The houses are
competing for a substantial cash prize and so make a lot of effort in their
artistic use of fruit, vegetables and any naturally occurring materials at
their disposal. Most will be using stuff only from their own farms. One of the
houses was being used by the network television channel GMA for a news article,
and so the streets surrounding it were crowded with folk desperate for a glance
at familiar faces.
Lucban itself
is a pleasant small town. As normal, the dominating feature is a lovely old
church from the 18th century. The site was previously occupied by a
succession of churches; the first in 1595 was ruined in 1629. The next was
completed in 1640 and destroyed by fire in 1733. The present church was built
in 1738 and had a convent added in 1743. The nuns from there were a regular
feature walking around the town.
A surprising
number of beggars swarm around the town, mainly in the church and street stall
area. Sleeping in doorways of a night, they are a sorry sight of a group of
people who float from one festival to another in this region. The babies seem
to be born with their hands held out asking for money. They walk up to you and
poke you and moan. After a while it gets annoying and intrusive, but not to be
condoned by giving in to them. The kids are also pick-pocketers and you have to
be well aware of everything you carry.
Along with
the event come the sideshows. The sponsors for the event were ‘Smart’ the internet provider, Jollibee and a number
of drinks companies, so banners were plentiful around the town along with free
samples where appropriate. The best one for us was an infinite supply of fresh
coffee, which we availed ourselves of regularly.
Fri 15th May – The day starts with a church ceremony which we didn’t attend, but of
more interest was the street parade which began at 7am. We were staying at the
‘Summer City Inn’ (800 pesos for basic and noisy room), one of only two
accommodation options in the town and located behind the church where the
parade was to start. The other place is the ‘Patio Rizal Hotel’ (2100 pesos upwards)
in the pain town plaza, where Smart
had set up an events stage for live bands. The parade was complete with some
nice floats, mainly based around covered Jeepneys. Every year they choose a
different route so that different houses get the chance to decorate. A good
idea to prevent the same houses monopolizing the show every year.
Lucban, like
most places in the Philippines is famed for some form of specialty food. Here
it is Hab-Hab, a meal of noodles and
vegetables. They serve it as a snack on banana leaves and in every restaurant.
They even had a competition for the best hab-hab.
The ladies who made their own special version dressed in long gowns adorned
with various décor, such as mini hats. One guy dressed in an outfit made of
bamboo shreds. The town is also famed for other things, another being Longganisa sausages, which you can see
being made in their thousands along the streets. To be honest, they aren’t my
favourite as I think they are too fatty, but the locals flock to buy them in
vast numbers. Another food is Kipin.
This is made from rice and for anyone who knows what Indian popadums are like,
this is a form of equivalent. The difference is that they come in many bright
colours and are used as decoration on the houses. Very brittle to use, but can
be modeled when soft into lots of interesting shapes. They make lanterns,
flowers and all sorts of things from them. It is interesting to see them being
cooked. One stand had a box of broken up kiping which they cooked in a wok of
hot oil. Seeing a pan full of colour burst into life as it swelled, twisted and
spat oil as it cooked is an interesting sight. Very bland in taste as it is
really only rice and a dye, but can have a little salt added for flavor if
wanted.
Stalls are
everywhere selling typical Filipino sweet treats such as Yame (soft fudge like cone sweet in coloured cellophane wrapper), Tikoy (a soft toffee made from rice), Broas (long biscuits), Otap (another flaky biscuit), plus many
others aimed at fattening up and rotting the teeth of this nation that seems
totally disinterested in counting calories!
After a day
of walking the parade route a number of times, on each occasion seeing
different things, and indulging in hab-hab, volumes of coffee, and free
alcoholic beverages, it was a shattering time. No time to rest, as the night
brought another treat as many of the houses lit up fairytale fashion, many with
moving characters. An area of the town adjacent to the market had an outdoor
stage set up by St Miguel beer and a live band. But in true tradition, the sky
opened and deluged the event with rain. The cover that had been provided wasn’t
sufficient for the number of people there, and so we had to escape eventually
for somewhere under cover. The fireworks that had been laid on were washed out
by the rain too.
Later in the
evening whilst sitting in the Patio Rizal hotel having a meal, Pakistan’s
tallest man was sat outside having his photograph taken with a mob of folks
vying for a closer look. He had a side-kick who was asking 50 pesos for a photo
with him. I actually felt very sorry for him as he looked to be in agony every
time he was asked to stand up for the photo. When he walked he really
struggled, looking crippled with arthritis. I later learned a bit more about
him. At 26 years old he is still growing and is expected to put on another 3 or
4 inches, possibly making him the tallest man alive today. He had a car
accident a while ago which left him with a foot injury that will cost maybe
50,000 dollars to operate on. To cover the cost of his operation he set off on
a fund raising tour and has been in the Philippines since early May.
Sat 16th May – Before heading out of town we decided to make one last loop of the
town to see what stuff was being given away. Collected a load of kiping, shaped into
leaves of many colours for free plus some really nice ornamental flowers to put
into a vase as well as some garden plants. If you have your own transport,
there are mounds of stuff being given away.
Before going
back to Silang we decided to go to another town not far from here called Paete. Famed for its artistry in
woodcarving. A couple of Jeepneys away on the eastern side of the Laguna lake
via Pagsanjan, where we had been earlier in the year to visit the falls. It
doesn’t get many visitors but there seemed to be a disproportionate amount of
shops selling locally made articles. Really good quality, much of it of a
religious kind, and not sure how they all survive. It was a great place to break
for lunch too as we found the lovely Capati
café to get out of the scorching heat. Artistically presented by its owner who
was happy for us to leave our luggage there whilst we toured the town. There is
even a tourist office by the health centre. It was amusing when we went in and
asked what there was to see here…”well what do you want to see”, the man said. “How
do we know….what is there to see here”, we replied. Well, not much…as it turned
out. There are three crosses on a nearby hill, and a couple of churches, but it
was worth a couple of hours break.
What we hadn’t
realized or given much thought to, was it being Saturday. The journey home was
ridiculous. The volume of traffic was horrendous, and instead of a couple of
hours, it took is 6 hours; mostly sat in queues of horn honking, diesel spewing
traffic! By the time we reached
Pala-pala we were ready to fall asleep and hungry. Jumped into a nearby Korean
restaurant for a great meal before heading for home and collapse into bed.
That's all for now folks....
