Rediscovering Baguio

Mountain or sea? During our teens, the sea usually won. After an all-night, all-morning bout of partying, the lure of the sun and the shores of Matabungkay was just too much to pass up, hangover be damned. Straight from the clubs we would hurriedly pack for the weekend. You really didn’t need much — swimwear and a sarong, perhaps. Skin salves and lotions, of course, since worshipping the sun would be a major thing, when not indoors overindulging again like the night before.

But how much bacchanalia can one take? During those quelle overdose moments, one just heads for loftier pleasures. Baguio was the place for more serene days and quiet evenings with cool, crisp mountain air and the scent of pine providing the instant detox. Baguio has always been associated with family as well, making a trip there always a wholesome affair, even with friends. There was also the romance of it all, with Mike De Leon’s take on Un Homme et Une Femme — Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising — playing in our minds each time we would do the ascent up Kennon Road.

Then the famous earthquake happened and for various reasons we never made it back to the summer capital for the past 20 years. The extended trip on the road and constant news of development and commercialization always made the resort capital one of our last choices for a holiday.

But a few weeks ago, features about a coming flower festival called Panagbenga caught our fancy. We’re suckers for flowers any day so a month-long fiesta devoted to it seemed too good to resist. We also heard that the drive was a shorter five and a half hours now and many good restaurants had opened. We invited some friends to come along, including Rey Drilon, a Bacoleño who’s never been to Baguio. It was refreshing to rediscover the city together with a Baguio virgin.

The garden at the BenCab Museum combines art with nature.

The Manor at Camp John Hay appeared to be the ideal home away from home but since the Panagbenga was the highlight of the Baguio, as well as the Philippine, fiesta calendar, we had no luck in securing a booking. After surfing various options, we settled for a new place near it called Chalet Baguio. It looked good on the net with all the modern amenities, a fabulous view, and the assurance of a good in-house restaurant from childhood days — Dulcinea.

Securing E-Z and Accu-maps of Baguio and Northern Luzon, a fully loaded iPod, the requisite junk food to make it a true vacation, books and magazines, we began our journey from Makati at 7:30 a.m., hoping to make it up there in time for lunch. EDSA and the North Expressway was a breeze but once we hit the towns of Pampanga, a few wrong turns and detours delayed our lunch plans. But no worries on a holiday so we just made Urdaneta, Pangasinan our lunch stop before doing the Kennon ascent.

Thanks to Claude Tayag and Mary Ann Quioc’s Linamnam book, we found a seafood restaurant called Matutina’s along MacArthur Highway. The Bonuan bangus milkfish is the star here, renowned for its wide, fat belly. We had ours grilled, gutted and boneless, with a side dip of kalamansi and anchovy paste though more adventurous and seasoned diners will order it Ilocano-style with liver and innards intact so that one gets the papaitan bitter flavors of the bile. The dip also becomes more exotic with bagoong dilis, mashed liver, kalamansi and chili. It was so fresh, fat and succulent, one person could easily devour a whole bangus and still want more. But there were other attractions like a sinigang sour broth of samaral rabbitfish; a classic pakbet of mixed vegetables and tomato sofrito; a rich, adobo squid with green peppers; and chili crabs. For dessert, there were complimentary buko pastillas made from fresh coconuts and glutinous rice that were perfect to end the meal.

Bellies full and waistlines expanded, the drive up Kennon was a pleasure indeed, just like old times. The mountain scenery with waterfalls, brooks and greenery was always the perfect prelude to a Baguio vacation. Our hotel was conveniently on Military Cut-Off Road, a street off Kennon so we got there before hitting the city. It was pretty much the way it looked on the web, with modern rooms and great mountain views. An added plus is the addition of drivers’ lodging on the lower floor. Since it was off the main roads of Kennon and Upper Session Road, it was central enough without the madness of the city center. And as promised, Dulcinea was there to indulge in our favorite churros con chocolate.

They make horses at Wright Park colorful, don’t they?

Walking out on the main road, we spotted Mario’s (6 Upper Session Rd. Extn. Tel +6374-442-4241), an old favorite which instantly became our choice for dinner. The Caesar’s salad was prepared fresh, tableside as always, and the lengua con setas was as good as ever — the ox tongue so tender as only painstaking slow cooking can make it. The salmon was grilled to perfection. The pièce de résistance was the cheesecake which probably only a Brooklyn one from memory could rival. 

Next on the agenda was arranging our viewing of the Panagbenga parade. The hotel front desk staff was so helpful and gave us an invaluable tip: watch it from the Session Road restaurants like Zola Café and Chowking. We opted for Zola, which seemed less crowded, had second-floor balconies and a corner table with a wide window which was the perfect vantage point to view the oncoming parade below. There was also a wide flat TV behind us that showed close-ups of the parade, thanks to network coverage.

The Saturday morning parade turned out to be almost flowerless except for the ones carried by the performers. We found out later that the big parade with all the flower-bedecked floats was on the next day. This parade was still something to see, however, with traditional bands and dancers not just from Baguio and the Cordilleras but even from the lowlands as far south as Quezon province. The color, the verve and the efforts of participants in outdoing one another with spectacular costumes and choreography was a delight indeed.

After the parade, we headed for BenCab’s museum on Km. 6 Asin Road. We’ve heard a lot about this museum and true enough it was a must-see: a sleek, four-level site built on a promontory with a breathtaking view of the mountains and the South China Sea. It has an adjacent garden with indigenous Cordillera houses, a farm and a mini forest. All these are enough reason to go there but of course the collections are the raison d’etre of the place: aside from BenCab’s works, there are those of other masters and rising contemporary artists. Three exhibits were opening that afternoon including one by Rodel Tapaya. Another highlight is BenCab’s collection of rare, indigenous Cordillera arts and crafts, many of which can no longer be found on the market unless bought from private collectors. Our visit was capped by a Café Sabel lunch of various pasta dishes, all of which were delicious: a pomodoro, a pesto and a chicken paprika which was BenCab’s recipe.

Cordillera tribesmen and maidens with flowers at the Panagbenga Parade

The afternoon found us in Camp John Hay which is still quintessential Baguio with all the pine trees and colonial structures, bringing back memories of the time when you had to pay in dollars at the restaurants. There’s an arcade now, Mile-Hi Center with outlet stores and restaurants. Carlo’s was a good merienda stop with salads and pizzas from their wood-fired oven.

For dinner, we revisited Casa Vallejo, an old hotel (c. 1909) on Upper Session Rd. that has been refurbished into a boutique hotel but still retains its colonial charm with a bookstore and a gourmet restaurant called Hill Station. We feasted on a salad of organic greens with artisanal feta cheese, blueberries and walnuts; a spinach and mushroom ravioli on a bed of pumpkin puree and Malagos blue cheese; and a most pleasant surprise: crispy duck flakes with laing sa gata on a bed of mountain rice. The Deep Dark Chocolate cake satisfied our sweet cravings as did homemade ice cream like Benguet Coffee with chocolate chips, Vanilla Cinnamon and Avocado with jalapeno.

Sunday was the grand parade. It seemed getting to the streets by 7 a.m. was not early enough as the crowd was so thick on Upper Session road that we could not make it anywhere near Session. We decided to follow the children and ensconce ourselves in an elevated garden on the side of the road for an unobstructed view. The floats were quite awesome, with some obvious favorites like SM’s dragon float with a smoking dragon made of multicolored flowers. A Star Wars float with the full cast in costumes also wowed the crowd. But maybe the biggest hits were the television network floats, not because of the flowers but because of the stars like DingDong Dantes and Marian Rivera. Sitting pretty and looking like they had had very little sleep from last night’s taping, they were overshadowed by the vivacious Vice Ganda who drew more wolf whistles and adulation. 

It was quite a production number. Wending our way through the crowd, and with just a glass of strawberry syrup-flavored taho in our tummies all morning, we were ravenous by lunchtime. We made a beeline for the nearest restaurant on Leonard Wood Rd. called 50s Diner which seemed to be so popular and we found out why: they made the most obscene sandwiches with the thickest two-inch slices of bread with even thicker slabs of chicken and egg salad fillings. You can just imagine how humongous the clubhouse was, and we won’t even mention the pancakes with loads of toppings. It reminded us of the infamous cocido dinner in Madrid for two that could feed 10 — we lost our appetite just looking at all that food.

The afternoon was devoted to the flea market on Session Road, which was closed for the fiesta. We found some unusual orchids and ferns as well as a few craft stalls and branches of Baguio restaurants serving meals and snacks. We eventually made it to the market and Maharlika livelihood center below which houses some antique and craft stores. The Market still had the military surplus stores and PX stores of yore. Behind the main market, the Hangar Market had a shop selling coffee beans, freshly ground coffee and muscovado sugar. There was a wide choice of coffee from Benguet and Barako to Italian Espresso and Hazel Nut and even the prized Civet variety. (Garcia’s Coffee, 10 Chucheria Section Tel. 0917-5071365). There were also tightly woven walis brooms which most of our staff were requesting as pasalubong. In the main market, towards the end on the left side, you’ll find the sweetest oranges from Sagada, wild blueberries and organic raw honey. We postponed the strawberry shopping for Trinidad Valley where you can pick them yourself.

For more antiques and crafts, we drove to Teresita’s at 90 Upper General Luna Rd where we found kamagong and molave furniture, heirloom jars, bulols, Cordillera jewelry and other objets. After that we decided to check out Mines View Park, a fond childhood memory. On the road, we chanced upon a carved pine tree, a stunning sight with a mother figure and various animal motifs. A statue of a child balancing himself punctuates the edge of a lone branch. We found out later that this was the 200-year-old “Veteran” Benguet Pine that was declared dead last year and was reshaped into a 50-foot “Mother Earth” monument to the city’s remaining pine forests. The artist Kawayan de Guia oversaw and financed the project, commissioning Cordillera woodcarvers to create what he calls “an ode to the city’s environmental problem.” This problem has actually taken center stage recently with the plans of a shopping mall to cut and relocate more than 100 trees in line with its expansion plans. The carvers actually stopped working on the tree to join more that 3,000 people who marched on Session Road to protest the plan.

Arriving at Mines View Park, we were assaulted by herds of cars and tourists and a sight that was the ultimate buzz kill: the place was so congested with stalls both outside and inside the park, not to mention photo-op stations with tired, overworked horses and St. Bernard dogs being abused for the delectation of tourists who can’t wait to post photos with them on Facebook. The view was also disappointing: not the pristine mountains we remembered but denuded ones with houses and various structures littering the landscape. This was the perfect illustration of the environmental problem that was being addressed by the “Mother Earth” veteran pine tree we saw earlier. The only improvement was the absence of the children on the slopes chanting “Give me money, 5 centavos only!” as they tried to catch coins with funnels made from cardboard. Now outlawed, the scene of begging children has been replaced by a tableau with an “In Memoriam” sign describing their former activity.

Rushing out of that sorry sight, we decided to reward ourselves with a meal at Chef’s Home (13 Outlook Drive near the Mansion; call 0999-7746624 or 0916-4445756), highly recommended by photographer Patrick Uy who was there recently to shoot Le Monet, the new boutique hotel in Camp John Hay. This hole-in-the-wall place with a very discreet sign is easy to miss so call first for directions. Chef Alvin is a Malaysian married to Gina, a Filipina whom he met in Thailand. He created a repertoire of wondrous Southeast Asian flavors which you will keep dreaming of long after you’ve eaten there. Using the freshest seafood, spices and herbs (some of which they import themselves), they have the most scrumptious squid salad with lime dressing, beef rendang, fish fritters with a chili sauce, and other delights we would like to try next time. For dessert, we had a yummy Gula Melaka and the most perfectly made roti with peaches and vanilla ice cream. This reminded us of the chewy kaiserschmarnn pancakes with apples from the defunct Mickey’s on Jupiter that we miss so much. Everything was perfect and everyone dining there looked happy.

It was definitely a fitting finale to our rediscovery of Baguio. Yes, some things have changed but many good things still remain. And, as in the case of Chef’s Home, migrations have enriched the city, adding to its attractions and still making it a most enjoyable holiday destination just like it was 20 years ago. We hope it stays that way with the help of its vigilant citizens and officials who should address the pressing environmental issues before the city becomes just another memory of summers past.