Northern Exposure - Day 2

Day 2 (30 Oct) - "Breakfast is served between 6-9 am", the innkeeper informed me upon check-in. We had ours at 8am. This time, I had "tapa" for a choice of Filipino breakfast. It was a short affair, the three of us being excited to be on our way and get to as many tourist spots as we can.

Warning: Do not hire a calesa to explore the tourist spots!!!
Not only will it encumber your enjoying the sites at leisure, it will cause a shock later that you have run up quite a bill. In our ignorance we did. We even paid for the time waiting for the "kutsera" while she negotiated with the car owner, whose car bumper she scratched with the axle of the calesa's left wheel.
But if you must try (the regular rate is Php 150/hr) it is best that you keep to the streets where the old buildings are located. The other sites can be reached by tricycle at (Php 15-20, I haven't seen any fare matrix displayed on their vehicles).
The highlights of our morning tour are limited to appreciation of the testaments to the olden times and getting soiled at the "pagburnayan". If I were to do the tour again, I will leave out the other things altogether ;)
Castano couldn't seem to bear our combined weights, we proceeded with our tour slower than the other groups. Only 15min to checkout, we each quickkly freshened up, left our key and made our way to Partas terminal. With no time for lunch, we just bought a small box of marsha's cassava which we ate on the bus.

The bus dropped us at Batac. By the curb were tricycles offering tours to Paoay (including Paoay lake which can be reached by visiting the Marcos estate - excluded from our iti). Between Paoay Church and the Marcoses' mansion is still part of the La Paz sand dunes. To aid exploration, 4x4's for hire wait for the adventurous souls (Php 1500/hr). Our mistake was not negotiating with the driver first and had him wait while we explored the old church (each buttress width is wider than my outstretched arms). When we reached Laoag, he mentioned that the group the other day gave him P450 after Annie handed him P300. Talk about highway robbery. Oh, well. Not the type to make a scene, we gave what he asked for and headed to our next destination, St. William's and the sinking bell tower located at the heart of the city. There's another matter of the driver from Laoag. He charged us Php 80 for the short trip.
Our day ended with a two-hour trip to Pagudpud. It rained really hard midway and the water even leaked on the side of the bus, soaking the bottom of my backpack. Traveling lite, therefore we brought no brolly with us. A short run from the bus brought us to the public market where we decided to be picked-up.
Saud cove was around 15-20 minutes away from the town center. We were met by our gracious hostess, Auntie Ana Madrid in her large house named Roma Villa (from Romero-her maiden name and Madrid - her married name). Ours was a small bedroom with a table cum cabinet adjacent to the door, two double beds and an en-suite bathroom (without the toiletries) for only Php 1000 a night.