There's no place like an old home

Early Monday morning Antonette and I caught a bus to the province of Bulacan, about an hour and a half north of Quezon City, Cubao. Only 75 pesos, not bad! Clem met us in the town centre of Baliwag with a family van and drove us up to the Maniquis family resort in San Miguel - kind of like the cottages we have in Lake Country in the Canadian Shield - the families can also rent out the resort to various people.

There's three side-by-side hotel-like rooms each with two beds and a bathroom, a beautiful fresh-water pool, a pond with a villion (a thatched-roof gazebo structure) built over top, and a covered bar with kitchen and sinks.

The garden was beautiful, full of flowers and Tonet's mother's collection of little sculptures. We arrived mid-day and too late to go hiking so we planned to go first thing in the morning to Biak na Bato National Park since Clem had to return the van by Tuesday early afternoon.

Instead we drove through town hunting for some historic houses. One monstrous mansion in incredibly ramshackle state: the Sevilla residence is too structurally unsound to enter, but the grounds are still inhabited by custodians to prevent squatters. The owner apparently built the epic-sized structure to prove to his father-in-law that he had money. Local legend has it that when motorcycles drive by late at night, a white lady appears in the mansion and shortly thereafter the motorcycle has a fatal accident.

Next we stopped at the former residence of Tonet's mom's adopted mother, Narcisa Dona Sisang de Leon, late co-founder of LVN studios, which launched the movie industry of the Philippines. The house was built in 1914.

The floors and some furniture still stored in the house were made of narra wood, the Philippine national tree, now nearly extinct. It is forbidden to cut these trees now, but back in the day, practically everything was made from it.

Hungry, we drove to the town centre for snacks, and then returned to the resort to rest. While Tonet napped, I enjoyed a rare opportunity to play music with Clem - a major reason for my return to the PH.

We decided on dinner at Rockwood, a spacious place with a wide variety of food, and ended the sweltering day with evening swim among pink flowers that had fallen into the pool. Then much needed sleep since we planned on getting up ridiculously early to go hiking at Biak na Bato National Park.