Iloilo - Vacation in a remote Barrio

Early this year, one of my friend invited me to join them on vacation to their province from April 13-20 - for the barrio fiesta and Guimaras side trip.
I immediately booked myself so I could join them. (Excited much!?) Yeah!

... she already set my expectation that it's gonna be a real province life, because her lola is living in a remote barrio of Iloilo....

that made me more excited since I live and grew up in the City, so I'd love to experience living in a Barrio.

I booked my ticket via Airphil Express for around 1500Php - round trip Manila-Iloilo-Manila

and since I booked a different airline, my friend and her cousin arrived in Iloilo 2 hours ahead of me (supposedly 1 hour - because my flight was delay)  they decided to went straight to SM City Iloilo.  So when I arrived at Iloilo International Airport, I get the 1st  cab I saw from there --only to find out that the cab driver will charge me a fix rate of 500Php from Airport to SM.... I was like OMG!

I started to argue with the driver who speaks ilongo most of the time... good thing somehow I was able to grasp what he's trying to say... and after almost 30 mins of arguing with the cab driver, finally I saw the SM signage.... I ended up paying 400Php. Grrrr!

From SM, it took another 2 hours before we got to her lola's house.... in Dueñas, Iloilo - (known from the myth of Manananggal/aswang stories).

Good thing they told me about this myth after our vacation.... hahaha

 the rough road going to her lola's house in Brgy. Romblon-Dueñas, Iloilo

finally arrived here almost dawn

 we actually planned to sleep on this "kubo" outside the house

and this was the view we witnessed the next morning

so relaxing and refreshing to wake up in the morning with this view around you.... 
that includes NO SIGNAL on our phones....so no text, no call, no fb, no twitter

but then again there were times when we're bored -- we tried to find our spot in every corner of the house just to find signal.

I also witnessed how they prepare for the barrio fiesta... it's like 3 days of preparation, that includes the 2 consecutive nights of disco/party in their plaza 
(where I witnessed dancing madlang people of all ages)

We pigged out most of our stay here... no expense at all. :)

 we get bored one day and decided to go to the nearest city... Passi City where the nearest mall is and tried this mouth watering food...

Pansit Canton

and Iloilo's signature La Paz Batchoy @ Ted's in Gaisano Mall -Passi

after spending 4D/4N in the barrio (without seeing any unusual creatures from the myth) and witnessed how they celebrate their Barrio Fiesta plus the Coronation of the 

Fiesta Queen Mia (my friend's cousin)
on our 5th day, we headed to our Summer destination- Guimaras


and spent 3D/2N in Costa Aguada - Guimaras
(See on my next post)


all tanned when we got back to Iloilo City to spend our final night.
We had booked at MO2 Westown Hotel -Iloilo Smallville which is located in the heart of the city.

http://www.mo2westownhotel.com/iloilo/smallville/#

 
De Luxe Room - 2300Php/night/3

We decided to eat out for dinner and picked this restaurant because this is where most people are....so we have to find out why....

while we are waiting for our food, we found ourselves reading their table liner...and smile!

we tried their signature Afrique's pasta and baby back rib for a very reasonable price...
we spent less than 1000Php/3 from there


and before we call it a night... we had a few drinks at MO2 Ice next block.


The next morning... it was hard to get up from bed, we had to cancel our day trip supposedly to Miagao Church because it was raining... we ended up staying in our room till check out - and left our baggage in the lobby before we went on Pasalubong shopping at

to get a box of assorted pasalubong like butterscotch, biscocho, and piaya


since we can't get enough of La Paz Batchoy.... we decided to get our last serving of Ted's 


and headed back to our Hotel to pick up our bags and went straight to the airport to catch our flight back to Manila.


It was one of the most relaxing/laid back vacation I had so far... we're planning for a repeat next year, but this time... Iloilo-Boracay!
(our original plan for this trip was Iloilo-Guimaras-Boracay, but we didn't push it, because we had to extend our stay in iloilo)




we'll see...