After arriving in Vigan city I saw the beautiful pictures of windmills. I enquired about the place and got to know that the windmill is situated at the northern tip of Luzon province. Bangui windmill is a popular tourist destination in Philippines and it is really difficult to get to the windmill from Clark or Manila. I enquired about the tour to Bangui windmill and got to know that the trip to windmill is very popular among locals. Trip to Bangui windmill can be done as a day tour from Vigan city. You will visit the windmill, sand dunes, lighthouse and a beautiful church during your trip. We got a reasonable price for the trip and we shared the car with two other travelers.
Paoay Church
We started at around 5 am from Vigan city and reached our 1st stop after 2-hours drive. Paoay Church was our first stop for the day. There were no other tourists at the church because we arrived very early. The church is more than 300 years old. Paoay church is included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage site. The church is famous for unique architecture. A bell tower is situated near the church and it was constructed after the construction of the church was completed. We didn’t visit inside the church because there were some construction work going on at the church during our visit. I loved the unique look of the church and took some nice photographs. After staying around 30 minutes at the church we stopped at a small restaurant for our breakfast.
La Paz Sand Dunes
We reached La Paz Sand Dunes at around 9 am. La Paz sand dune is located near Laoag city. The sand dune is spread over an area of around 100km2. La Paz sand dune is a protected sandy coastal desert. There are very few places in the world where sand dunes meet the sea. The landscape looked absolutely stunning. The brown color sand dunes were complementing perfectly to the deep blue sea. We went for dune bashing around the La Paz sand dunes. We hired a modified jeep and we sat at the back of the jeep for the Dune bashing trip. The sand dunes were ranging from 10m -30m in height. All 4 of us stood at the back of the 4×4. Initially we travelled on flat landscape and after traveling for about 15 minutes we started bashing the dunes at high speed. The dune bashing gave us nice adrenaline rus because we were standing at the back of 4×4. If you sit inside the car, then you don’t feel that scary. We stopped near the sea beach for photograph session. The beach was extremely remote with dark colored sand.
After doing some more dune bashing sessions we finally stopped at Sand Boarding. All of us trading the sandboarding from a 20 m high sand dune. We didn’t do proper sandboarding because it was really tough to do sandboarding at that height. We just laid down on the board and slide to the bottom of the dune. The process just scary at first but we loved it. We did multiple runs of sandboarding at the dune. Dune bashing session lasted for about 1 hour. We stopped at one more spot for photography before ending our session at around 10 am. We paid around USD 80 for 2 people for the dune bashing session. We also collected our professionally shot photographs from the dune bashing session.
Cape Bojeador Light House
Our next stop of the day trip was Cape Bojeador Light House. After traveling for about 30 minutes we hit the coastal road and the view was absolutely stunning. We reached the lighthouse at around 11.30 am. The lighthouse is situated on the top of a hill. It took us about 10 minutes to reach the entrance of the lighthouse from the parking spot. The view of the beautiful coastal area was absolutely stunning from the light house. Cape Bojeador is one of the highest elevated Spanish light houses in the Philippines. I was planning to fly my drone at the light house but I couldn’t fly my drone there because it was extremely windy. Cape Bojeador light house is the most visited light house in Philippines. The light house is a famous shooting location for local movies and series. There is a small museum situated inside the lighthouse. You can’t climb all the way to the top of the light house. After spending around 1 hour at the light house we returned back to the parking lot. We tried some local snacks from the stalls.
Bangui windmills
Bangui windmill was the reason I joined the group tour of Ilocos Norte. I was really excited to see the windmills because it is a unique landscape and I have never seen anything like that before. Just before reaching the windmills we could see huge windmills all around the beautiful coasts. There were around 20 windmills stretching for around 9 km around the shoreline. The windfarm was constructed in the year 2005. The height of the windmill is 70m and each windmill can generate about 1.65MW of power. We stopped at an adventure park for Quad bike ride. We ride the Quad bike for 30 minutes around a designated trail. I flew my drone to take some epic shots of the beautiful coast full of windmills.
My drone gimbal had some problem and it was shaky. I still managed to take some decent shots of the beautiful windmills. After the development of the wind farm there is huge increase in tourism in the region. The place is very remote and windy. After a short ride along the beautiful coastal road we stopped at the main beach. Don’t visit Bangui windmills if you are expecting beautiful white sand beaches. Burgos windmills are situated near Bangui windmills on top of mountain. We purchased beautiful wooden windmills from the souvenir shops located near the beach. Bangui windmills is situated at the northernmost point of Luzon province. We started our return journey at around 3 pm.
Malacanang of the North
Our last stop of the day was Malacanang of the North. It was built as the official residence of the late president Marcos. It consists of bedrooms, dining area, kitchen, office and a spacious ball room. The house con. You can see beautiful view of lake Paoay from the residence. The house is very well maintained by the government. If you are interested in Philippines history then you must visit the residence otherwise, you can easily skip it. After a long 2-hours drive we finished our day trip at around 5pm. It was an amazing day trip to explore the beautiful Ilocos Norte region of Philippines. We ate our lunch at Vigan city and tried some beautiful local food.
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