Story & photos by Benjamin Locsin Layug
For those who want to travel and experience 11 regions of the Philippines without having to leave Manila, then you should visit the IG-worthy Lakbay Museo within Conrad Manila, Mall of Asia Complex.
Prior to its official opening to the public on July 12, we were allowed a sneak preview of this unique and new destination that describes itself as the “first PH interactive millennial museum.” A project of The Millennial Concept Factory Inc., headed by President Lawrence Li Tan, Lakbay Museo offers, in one massive space, a chance for young Filipino millennials to travel, within two hours inside the museum, across the Philippines’s best vacation spots, and know more of the country’s unique history, food, music, arts and culture.
Before we entered the museum, we were dressed up with authentic handwoven fabrics with colorful designs, by staff wearing traditional Filipino attire. To enter the museum, we were given the choice of entering via a vinta, hopping on a distinctly Filipino and colorful jeepney, or climbing a unique airplane display (where you slide down to enter the gallery), a reminder of the many options for traveling around the Philippines—by land, water or air.
The museum, boasting 1,000 square meters and divided into 11 areas with well-trained guides, is filled with interesting portals, displays and interactive stations which you can explore and experience through different senses. Lakbay Museo also offers 14 unique experiences plus 10 freebies for tasting experiences. At the Luzon Exhibit, you’ll find Luzon’s gorgeous traditional houses (Batanes’s Ivatan house, the Ifugao bale, etc.) and festivals, including the life-size display of the gorgeous and colorful Pahiyas Festival of Quezon province.
One of the highlights in the museum is the miniature display of a replica of Mayon Volcano and the Cagsawa Ruins. A small tunnel, under the volcano, is filled with mirrors and lights you can play with, perfect for photo experiments and extraordinary shots. The Visayas region, known for its beaches and seas brimming with life, showcases the Philippines’s one-of-a-kind underwater world. The amazingly vibrant and colorful Mindanao Exhibit display depicts the island’s dances, traditional instruments and local cuisines.
A section of Lakbay Museo is dedicated to a fabric collection of colorful traditional textiles (t’nalak from Lake Sebu, inabel from Northern Luzon, etc.) and original tapestries, created by actual ethnic and indigenous groups from all over the Philippines that comes with local stories and whose textures you can touch. There are also over 120 synthetic mannequins wearing authentic Filipino fashion. The museum holds hourly and live cultural performances of traditional dances (Pandanggo sa Ilaw, Tinikling, Cariñosa, Sayaw sa Bangko, Ifugao Kaloob dance, Maguindanao’s Sagayan, etc.) from Luzon to Mindanao, performed by dance troupes on the big stage. A puppet show also educates children on Philippine heritage.
Learning about Philippine culture is, of course, not complete without learning about the variety of dishes in the country. Lakbay Museo, housing a large collection of Philippine staples has, literally on exhibit, over 600 known Filipino dishes in the collection. A replica of Cebu’s famous Taboan Public Market displays an array of local fruits and dried fishes (palad from Samar, bisugo from Ilocos, labahita from Batangas, etc.). However, since what they have on display are just life-like replicas, you won’t end up smelling like tinapa.
For the full experience, you can smell the real deal inside sealed jars on shelves. They include different kinds of local vinegar with different strength levels (sukang Iloco, sukang paombong, etc.), delicious bagoong or shrimp paste (bagoong alamang, bagoong sisi, etc.), coffee beans and roasts (kapeng barako, kapeng alamid, etc.) and rice grain varieties (from the Ifugao’s Minaangan to the Mountain Province’s Ominio). While most of the displays are replicas, you can also try some snacks using the 12 tokens that come free with the admission fee. These, you can use to buy full meals and Pinoy street food from the carinderia and chips, candies, native treats and more from the sari-sari store. As Filipinos love sawsawan, you can try the local vinegar with their fish crackers.
Lakbay Museo, built on the foundation of environment conservation, aims to raise environmental awareness. Most of its displays were made from recycled materials (4,560 old and used rubber slippers, 328 old tires, 453 old car mats, plastic bottles, etc.). The museum also provides job opportunities to the marginalized sectors of the society—out-of-school youth, nonprofessionals, disabled persons (PWDs) and senior citizens. Local artists also lovingly handcrafted the thousands of realistic, life-size and perfectly flatlayed replicas of various market produce, multitude of fish species and a variety of vegetables and fruits on display.
We ended our tour and exited the museum at the museum shop, which sells local products and unique souvenir items, in partnership with 189 micro-, small- and medium-scale enterprises in the country.
Image credits: Benjamin Locsin Layug