It's been a year since I backpacked solo to Bacolod, Iloilo and Guimaras Island. I love the blue - gren colored beach in Guimaras, I and that local pizza store in Iloilo. In Bacolod I still want to drool when I think of that chicked adobo at Chicken Deli's and most of all this old house actually a replica because the original was burned years ago. This is The Ruins in Negros or also called The Taj Mahal of the Philippines. Why? Because the love story behind the two are almost the same. Both wives of the owners of Taj Mahal and The Ruins died while delivering their babies. Their husbands buit these houses in memory and love for them. I first knew about this when I attended a travel mart few years ago and it got featured in an inflight magazine. I said that time I will come and see this myself! So here's the copy of my blog post (I already deleted the original) to give way for the photos I took myself:
Imagine Philippines in 1900… large rice fields that spread up to the horizon and the traditional Filipino houses - the nipa huts made of bamboo trees and anahaw leaves. But somewhere in southern Visayan region, there is a place called The Ruins in Negros dubbed as the Taj Mahal of the Philippines by Zest Air travel magazine August edition. What is this magnificent mansion of Italian architecture and with a touch of Renaissance structure doing in a suburb place in the Philippines at around 1900?
The Ruins in Negros is the ancestral home of Don Mariano Lacson, a rich and young Filipino who travels a lot. In one of his travels abroad, he met Maria Braga, a young Portuguese woman who struck a lightning to his heart. He then did not waste much time and married her. Such a sweet girl who agreed to live with him in his town in Negros! They had ten children. One time Maria who is heavy with her eleventh baby, while walking in a slippery floor inside their comfort room, lose her balance, fell and bled badly. She died and her baby before reaching to the doctor in the nearby town which would take them two days to get there.
Like the Taj Mahal which was built in memory of the King's late wife, he built this big mansion in memory of her. He said anyone of his ten kids can live there as long as they're unmarried. The Ruins in Negros has a garden of lilies, a four-tiered fountain and has collections of the finest furniture, chinaware and decorative items from the owner's travels across Europe and Asia. It is said that three of Don Mariano's daughters remained unmarried since they stayed on the second floor while their brothers stayed on the ground floor, making it hard to the suitors to pass through. Today, The Ruins of Negros has an average of 800 visitors a day. Its ground floor has been converted to a restaurant that offers authentic Negros dishes for everyone too.
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