Negros
Occidental is like an enchanted place. So near yet so far. I heard so
many stories about the place. Some tall tales. Some, grandpa promised, real and true. Grandpa would tell us of sugarcane views as far
as one can see and haciendas and hacienderos and the joke, I would like to believe, about uncut men of Negros. These childhood
stories made me long to visit that place and kept a promised to myself to kiss the ground when I go there like it’s the holiest of places.
That dream
was realized just recently.
First stop- Silay
Everything
has a story in Silay. Stories of lovelorn couples. Stories of forbidden love
because of social disparity. Stories of why that house was built, or that
cafe. Some were whispered, some were whispered loudly and some remained an
open secret. From the decrepit house in a corner to the dulce gatas being stirred in the kitchen, Silay
never ran out of stories.
My
story will become a part of the huge library Silay already has.
Silay City is
like an old, quaint town in Negros Occidental. Despite the addition of a new airport (the
old one is located in Bacolod, Negros Occidental’s capital), the city’s
aura of progressive development was drowned by the old houses and buildings. The heritage houses were actually a contrast to a new city life.
Unlike most cities, Silay has kept its culture (including her heritage) intact.
Kapehan sa Silay
Our tour
organizers-cum-hosts Lee Santiago and Lynell Gaston brought us to this old
building to have coffee and some breakfast goodies, my first taste of Negros.
The Kapehan sa Silay was a good example of well-kept heritage site and reminded me of Cuban movies where folks while the time away, drinking dark coffee,
talking about cockfights. The old musty smell of the place combined with good
coffee wanted me to linger and know the place more. Personally.
But there were so many things to discover in Silay that lounging in the Kapehan is not a
good start.
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| photo by Lynell Gaston |
Next stop- 1925 Cafe
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| Mayor Montelibano of Silay |
The smell
at 1925 was intoxicating! Whatever the kitchen was cooking wafted back inside
with a delicious guess of what the next plate would be when it comes in. No! I was not in the year 1925!
The aroma of food was never this old but I believed all that has been cooked here
stayed in the tiniest crevices of the walls of 1925, the café.
The
smallness of the place made dining there really intimate and personalized. We
chanced on the mayor of Silay, Mayor Montelibano, eating there and we were introduced like we used
to be friends with him.
The Locsin ancestral home
The Locsin house was a home, that I am very sure. Despite its antiquity, the Locsin Home was still
functional and without doubt being lived upon. The special edition literature pieces
written in Spanish were intact. So were the gynaecology books, still in Spanish, in
good condition. The old-style toilet, the handed-down china, kitchen paraphernalia,
the lamps, the well-polished floors, the luggage bags in the attic, everything
in the Lacson household were well-preserved and well-kept.
This was
where I tasted my first Dulce Gatas sang Silay.
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| photo by Lynell Gaston |
Emma Lacson’s
Emma Lacson’s
house was like a fortress to those who were not familiar with Silay. But if you were privileged enough to get in the premises early in the morning, a gustatory wealth awaited for every welcomed visitor upstairs. Lacson makes the best of Silay’s
delicacies involving pili nuts, the rest being lumpia and hopia.
It was
here I saw a real pili individually pounded by hand just to get the nut. Sure it was nuts
cracking them like that.
Mambag-id, Silay
One of the
most exciting part of my Silay travel was the trip to Mambag-id. This place used
to be a big sugarcane plantation with special railroads for transporting
harvested sugarcane to waiting ships at the Mambag-id dock. Nowadays, with the
decline of the sugar industry in the country and the imposition of the Agrarian
Reform Law, the railroads have become obsolete.
But some enterprising
residents made innovative ways of transportation to make use of the tracks. It was then that the Bagoneta came (some called it Karito), an improvised version of a kariton, pedal-powered
ride using train wheels and slabs of wood formed like a platform where
commuters 10 persons up hopped in and ride towards the now non-existent docks.
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| photo by Lynell Gaston |
At the end
of the ride where a community lived there, we were treated to a confusing
array of Silay’s favorite kakanin: baye-baye, puto lanson, ibos mais, lumpia, siomai, and
fresh piaya of Silay.
I dozed
off in an airy nipa hut beside the river.
Balaring, Silay
As if the gustatory
offering in Mambag-id were not enough, our hosts brought us to barangay Balaring and stuffed us again with fresh seafood the city can offer. It was at Ken’s, a cozy nipa hut close to the sea where the lapping waves would remind you that you were in the territory of the things you were eating.
Being a person born in the hinterlands of Bohol, I am ignorant of the names of the seafood species. But my host said we were eating: tinola nga lison, fried tilapia, grilled pork chops, grilled squid, alimusan with gata, kinilaw nga tangigue, talaba, with ripe mango slices as dessert.
Being a person born in the hinterlands of Bohol, I am ignorant of the names of the seafood species. But my host said we were eating: tinola nga lison, fried tilapia, grilled pork chops, grilled squid, alimusan with gata, kinilaw nga tangigue, talaba, with ripe mango slices as dessert.
THE Charlie Co
My stay in
Silay was made complete when we were invited by Ann Legaspi-Co to taste her
frozen brazos and sans rival in their residence. The brazos and sans rival were
honestly without rival until we met Ann’s husband, my idol artist from Negros - Charlie Co!
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| photo by Lee Santiago |
The Negrense’s way of saying goodbye
Each
moment of my stay in Silay was worth the trip. Our goodbyes were made more memorable
when one of our hosts, Lynell Gaston, made a sendoff lunch for all of us.
Maybe this was the Negrense way of saying goodbye - stuffing guests until they could
no longer move with ecstatic joy.
How about
coffee to top it off?
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| photo by Lynell Gaston |
Addendum
We were
actually the guinea pigs of Lee Santiago when he thought of a Negros Food Tour.
With the help of Lynell Gaston, they cooked up an interesting combo of food
tasting and having a beautiful experience in Silay, Bacolod and nearby towns of Negros
Occidental.
There are
no specific rates to the tour. Wherever we go, we share the van rentals. Whatever
we decide to eat, we share them with the group and divide the payments per
person. We pay our own accommodation.
Since Lee
is outside of the country as of this time, I could not be sure if this kind of
trip is still going on.
I fly in
and out of Silay City with free tickets courtesy of my sister who works for
Cebu Pacific. Cebu Pacific flies from Cebu to Silay City/Bacolod twice a day.
