Tabaco Reviewed (Tabaco sa hiling ko)

A 5 minute Guide to Tabaco


You will know when you’re there when a blue triangular mass appears on the left-side window. That folks is Mount Mayon in the flesh. You are now officially within Albay territory. Home of the so-called labuyo-eaters, of Sarong Bangui, Cagsawa Ruins, Hoyop-hoyopan Cave, Cagraray Virgin Islands, of hot and cold springs, of pantomina, tigsik and rawit-dawit, Ibalon, tabak, abaca and most of all the Oragon spirit. So you have traveled more than 8 hours, lost count of the kilometer stones, played 8 albums in your discman, and now you’re here; in your mind: damn, it ought to pay off!

The bus door opens with a hiss and the first thing you see are these hands coming at you, and your luggage. Before you whip out your peppermint spray or apply a wrist-breaking aikido grip, let me orient you about the owners of these limbs. No, they are not your usual snatchers, but a bunch of sweet-loving tricycle drivers. Commonly known as padyak in the metro, and sikad-sikad here in Tabaco. The streets are practically swarming with these three-wheelers. Seriously these ice-cream-cart-looking rides are no generic carrier in the Bicol region. You can’t find these de manos as easy as spotting Mount Mayon anywhere in Albay. Not even in the next city. Really an authentic Tabaco identifying mark.

If you’re here totally by yourself, meaning no welcoming party a.k.a. relatives to fetch you or a cousin’s house to crash into, you know if you want, you can sleep in the park, just across the city hall. Aside from being free of charge you will most probably be spending the night with the usual lodgers of bums and late-night romantics.

Or you can always go to a hotel. Decent bathrooms, food, not to mention beds, and a height that offers a little birds eye-view of the place. Now unless you climb on top Rizal’s forehead, you won’t find this view anywhere in the park.

I'm talking about Casa Eugenia hotel, also a famous night spot in this early-sleeper city: a sort of jazz bar at the ground floor, a restaurant at the second, and ballroom-dancing-in- some-days-disco-in-other-days in the third. This is the place to be if comfy sleeping is your priority, after a little night out with the locals.

Option number two would be Gardenia Hotel, a new comer in the star-rated board and lodging business, and is becoming a real tough competitor: a garden (or an impression of a garden) at the top floor café with band shows, rooms and things all with the smell of fresh. So these are the likely choices for tourists who are a little business-class.

Now for the backpackers: you’re those guys who’d rather spend cash on souvineers and beach entrance fees, than on the luxuries of a bath tub and a little aircon. You guys can very well sleep on a room, defined as a bed, a wardrobe and a key. Then go check in to tourist inns and travel lodges. With this one we ‘ve got sufficient varieties, e.g. tourist inns slash motel, pension houses slash video oke bars, and so on. Check out these names brother: Tago Inn, Q-place, Maeville Inn, Silvercrest, to name a few of the top grossers.

Now that you’ve found a home within this strange place, let’s find something to stuff your belly with.

Bicolanos love hot food is a cliché, but is the truth. Traditionally, almost all food taken by these people contains either lada (which is sili in Tagalog) or coconut milk or both. And probably you are here for that too. If not ponder on this: there are ways to know a place: by looking at its wonders, by hearing its language, and by tasting its food. Don’t expect too much though, people here still eat normal food, mostly the immigrants. Look around for Chowking, Jollibee and a bunch of imitators.

But if you’re looking for that palatal intensity preffered by the locals, then sit yourself among benches of the many, turo-turo stands all over the city. Ninety percent of these eateries served either the infernal bicol express (spicy pork and bagoong in coconut milk, will definitely make your nose run like waterfalls), laing (natong or gabi leaves, coconut milk, lada and bits of meat) or pinangat (sometimes referred to as tilmok: crabmeat or pork wrapped in natong cooked in coco milk and lada). That is if you don’t mind vehicles passing behind you or street kids asking for your leftovers. If eating in the bangketas in Recto or Divisoria is not your idea of dining, then forget all about the cowboy tolerance and move over to a more customer-friendly place.

Its not hard to locate this places as their turista-radar is more efficient than NASA. And they are strategically located to where the crowd is. After-six, Abings, Ice Blinker, Noks, Single’s, Bio’s, LCC Foodgarden are the basic restos that also serve authentic Rigion V (V as in volcanic) dishes sans the pollution and hepatitis.

Solamente even offer sawa (python) cooked in spicy coconut milk served sizzling on a hot plate.

Coconut milk and lada if you notice are two constants in the world of bicolano dining: spicy dinuguan in coconut milk and chili, and that dish specially hated by sharks and stingrays (a local joke) malunggay in coconut-lada tandem plus bits of man-eating pating and pagi.

Now that your belly is stuffed, its time to arrive to places.

At the very center of the city is the 400-year old church of the parish of Saint John the Baptist. Now before you cross this one out, allow me to add something that could spike your interest. Belfries are usually attached to the churct itself. This one is not. So it looks like a tower more than a belfry. Actually like a mossy concrete rocket forgotten by an ancient civilization (for the sci-fi freak in me). Legend has it that this belfry was used as a lighthouse and a watchtower for raiding pirates. When the moros are in sight, a big bell in the belfry is rang like hell, and people would flee to the nearby mountains carrying with them their valuables. Thereby causing a lot of financial crisis to the part of the pirates. So in their hatred for the thing that gives them a lot of headaches, they brought down this bell, buried it in a river and casted an enchantment so powerful that no one can remove.

If that’s not enough, allow me to add the crucified icon of Jesus, which years ago according to some terrified witnesses tried to come down from its cross. Now everyone’s kissing the santo’s bloody feet.

If you’re the more romantic type, catch some poetic instances at the Tabaco International Sea Port. Just say “pier” to yoiur friendly sikad-sikad. There you’ll catch a glimpse of the “long island” version of San Miguel, minus the skyscrapers of course. Also a sun set without a sun. (Aaa, irony!)

While you’re still strolling around town, grab yourself a taste of what they call pili. (Never leave Tabaco without doing this). By pili it could mean two things, it could be a dark-looking oval-shaped fruit. That one is dessert: boiled in water and peeled off of its dark rind, and sauced up with coyog (pickled fish). After the meat is the smooth shell holding the nut like a pearl. This, according to some people, mostly tourists, is more superior in taste than Persian pistachios. You can get them in the handicraft section of the city, near the city hall as candies sweetened or salted or in many variations as boding, marzapan or as simply raw pili nut. During old days when everything was cheap, pili was even made into garlands for graduations, like the everlasting or the sampaguita.

Next stop: Mayon skyline. Four kilometers from the proper is a baranggay called Buang (no, the residents here are not insane; translated from Bikol as “cut in two”). Nine kilometers from this place in an ascent to 2500 feet above sea level is Mayon Vista Lodge (foremerly Mayon Resthouse).

On a really clear day, even from the city, you can spot this cluster of structures at the lower left side of Mayon as thin streak of white, and by night a floating city of lights against the darkness. The look from the city is nice, but the look 2500 feet down to the city is even better. A view of almost five towns, San Miguel Island and the Pacific ocean stretching to a hazy endlessness.

The only way to get to the Lodge is by renting a vehicle. Passenger jeepneys and Philcabs in the city, can be hired by tourists to go to almost any point in Albay and beyond. To avoid overpricing go directly to the parada (or terminal) where there are drivers associations or “todas”, protecting commuter’s rights and so on.

Experience will begin at the nine-kilometer ascent. A breath-taker: beauty and a fear of heights. Welcome to the road that slices through Mount Mayon herself. You’ll find a lot of wild ferns, crosses for pilgrimages, waving children asking for piso, several bangins revealing heart-stopping death by depths and carpets of coconuts, crop farms, and mountain flowers appearing and disappearing from time to time.

A white cross against the greens also goes in and goes out of view behind winding hills. A church in a sky of green growing larger as you go higher, as your ear drums ring with increasing air pressure. Sound like rising to heaven? That’s the idea. On holy week, this steep road is an intentional Calvary for a lot of devotees of the Lord of Pardon, thus the abundance of white crosses with roman numerals I to XIII.

At the top is a hotel and a chapel in a very elevated place. That’s the highest point you could ever get on this trip (unless you want to camp at the crater; that’ll take you weeks and a lot of guts.) Also on top are gazebos for family picnics, see-saws for kids, a view of Tabaco several thousands of feet below, orchid peddlers, a newly constructed planetarium, souvenir shops, an abandoned Philvocs office, 69 steps, hunters selling monkeys and strange birds, people selling salagisog (dried giant ferns) carved into monkeys and birds, this one is a killer: a man selling bonnets with “I love Baguio” embroidered on them.



Tabaco at night

Tabaco, despite the brave-new-city get-up, still has hang-ups about its so called “panahon ni Mahoma” type of living. The city sleeps early—but the bars are open ‘till two.

Along Ziga Avenue is Gloss & Glitters, a cozy place with a show band slash video-oke-time-after-every-set schedule, an open balcony four floors above the road. From here is a sufficient view of the sentro (town proper) at night. You can see the belfry from here, sticking out as usual with its roughness and gray monotony among well-lit glass and steel establishments.

If you’re the jazz bar type, River Sound in Casa Eugenia has the quietness which you are probably searching for. The music is soft enough for you and a couple of friends to talk over beer and billiards. And if you’re drunk enough to sing like Sinatra, video-oke Zone is upstairs.

Al’s Jazz bar, near the police stations is the real deal, the only thing missing is a jazz band. But the ambience caused by dim lights made hazy by smoke and alcohol, can very well compensate Tony Bennet on a CD player.

Solamente markets itself as an exotic resto serving beer. This is the place where you’ll most likely find reptiles on a plate. Guto (bayawak, salamander) and sawa (python) are their best sellers.

But if you think that you’re too young for jazz and too grossed out to bite on a salamander (despite the disclaimer: tastes just like chicken), then be with the ravers and do the favorite past time of Tabaqueno kids: disco.

Other Places to Visit Near Tabaco

Tabaco is like a spring-board to “dive in” to other places worth your time. Thirty minutes jeepney ride south is the steamy town of Tiwi, home of the koron-makers (pot makers) out of red clay called dalipay. Theres a beach there in baranggay Bay-bay, a walk from the town proper, with rock formations carved from the cliffs by the ocean waves. Soft sand, swimmer friendly sea, and no entrance fees.

Between Tabaco and Tiwi is an old town called Malinao. Toursist flock this place for its ice-cold springs flowing out of the nearby mountains. Don’t go here during summer, if you have agoraphobia (fear of crowds).

So there you have it folks, an introduction to Tabaco, I may have left out other places worth mentioning but that's as far as I can go. For the rest of the story or whatever this is is up to you to close. Tabaco may not be Florence or Paris, and it may lack a lot of things tourists may be looking for, like proper resorts, tourist guides and signs so on and so forth and that for me is the beauty of it. Some of the best things in Tabaco may yet to be discovered. The paths vary but most of them hard. And in jelousy or a plain "find out for yourself" kind of attitude, will not be put into writing