sugarland, wonderland

Let me just say that Negros Occidental is so spectacularly BEAUTIFUL that again and again, I find myself thinking, "Am I still in the Philippines?" Politically-incorrect and kind of unpatriotic, yez, but it's just so danged clean and vast and green. And the architecture is... well, see for yourself.

The loveliest little chapel in the world: The Chapel of the Cartwheels in Manapla. Monsignor Gigi Gaston used old molave cartwheels, broken glass bottles of different colors and chopped-up cement blocks to create the house of worship of his dreams.

The interiors are just as fantastic. Before anyone had even HEARD of recycling.

I shot mostly black and white because of the contrast, but in color, everything is even more breathtaking.

The chapel is inside the Gaston family hacienda. To get there, we drove through sugarcane fields that stretch out into the horizon, as far as the eye can see, and met some ancient giant trees.

BenG: "Hey, I noticed that you don't take my picture anymore. Did I become ugly since the last time we saw each other?"

Oh, almost forgot. The holy water container. It's so cool.