For someone who regularly traverses the South Luzon Expressway, Laguna is just some random province that merely zips past the car windows. I do know that this place has more to offer besides the token pasalubong that is buko pie, Pansol hot springs and anything Rizal but I never found the time to discover more of it. Finally last Sunday, my friend Jake had a sudden urge to drive to Majayjay, Laguna because he read about it in the Saturday Inquirer.
Now Majayjay is one of those towns that ring a bell in my head because of a term paper I wrote in high school on Colonial Churches in the Philippines. Majayjay is supposed to have one of the most architecturally interesting religious edifices in the country, hence I wanted to see it for myself (me and my long-standing romance with old churches).
The trip was about 2 hours long. We started in Batangas City and drove to Lipa, Tanauan, Alaminos, San Pablo, Rizal, Nagcarlan, Liliw and then finally Majayjay. We made a couple of stops along the way, the first of which was the Underground Cemetery in Nagcarlan. I was a bit disappointed since I was expecting something similar to the catacombs of Paris or Rome. The "underground" section was really just a crypt measuring around 20-30 square meters.
The next stop was the town of Liliw, known for its "tsinelas". The pleasant surprise that I got while in Liliw was stumbling into a restaurant called Arabela. I guess it's the only "real" restaurant in town because it was fully packed and we had to be waitlisted. Now I don't really expect much from small-town restaurants no matter how many the patrons appear to be since Manila folks usually troop to the first place they see that has fancy ambience and airconditioning but this place is something else! I had a salad (pecan crusted chicken) and a plate of pasta (pancetta margeta) and my mind was blown away. This place had some serious fare! I didn't mind the fact that the prices were Manila-worthy and that I had some bouts with claustrophobia while inside (I swear, the place seemed to be built for hobbits, though the elbow-knocking smallness sort of adds to its charm). The food was so good that I'd say, "When in Liliw, forget the slipper-shopping and head straight to Arabella".
We reached Majayjay when dusk was about to settle in. The layout of Philippine towns is the same almost everywhere you go so it did not take us long to find the town plaza and the Catholic church. Majayjay Church, dedicated to St. Gregory and built in 1575, is one sight to behold, especially with the "enhancements" brought about by the setting sun. Too bad that I was not able to go inside as the church doors were already closed by the time we got there however, the exteriors were enough to make the trip worth it. A monument of faith, I can imagine how the sight of the Majayjay church reinforced the townspeople's belief and trust in their God in times past.
And so I ticked off another one from my list of churches to visit in the Philippines. Next could be Paete (also in Laguna) or maybe some of those located in Ilocos since I'm due for a trip north in March. This spontaneous Sunday drive was truly both food for the stomach and for the soul.
