Going out of your way to visit a cemetery (other than those where your loved ones are buried on All Souls’ Day) isn’t something most people would want to do during a holiday. Visiting crypts, graveyards and tombs don’t hold the same appeal for tourists compared to visiting beaches, waterfalls and other natural attractions. But around the Philippines, you can find hauntingly beautiful and bizarre cemeteries that have become tourist spots in their own right.
Here are just a few of the unusual burial grounds in the country worth visiting any time of the year.
Aside from Sumaguing Caves, one of the most recognizable landmarks of Sagada, Mt. Province are its hanging coffins. These coffins made from hollowed-out logs hanging from limestone cliffs and cave walls, are part of Igorot burial ritual of pre-colonial Philippines.
The Lumiang Burial Cave offers a glimpse of ancient traditions as the placement of the coffins was believed to put the departed closer to heaven.
The modern cemetery, which hosts the Panag-apoy sa Sagada, a sacred practice of lighting wood from pine trees to warm deceased loved ones during Undas is also a major tourist draw for photographers.
Here’s what else you can do in Sagada.
One of the most iconic landmarks you can find in this island province in Northern Mindanao province is the Sunken Cemetery, marked by a large cross that memorializes the cemetery driven 20 feet underwater when Mount Vulcan erupted in the 1870s. The cemetery located off the shore of Barrio Bonbon in Catarman, Camiguin is considered one of the best dive sites in the island.
According to locals, the site right beneath the cross offers an eerie and fascinating spot for scuba divers and snorkelers to see marine life swimming among tombstones encrusted by corals.
Read more about Camiguin here.
Dubbed the only underground cemetery in the country, the Nagcarlan Underground Cemetery is located in Barangay Bambang, two kilometers south of downtown Nagcarlan in the province of Laguna. This national historical landmark and museum was built in 1845 under the supervision of Franciscan priest, Fr. Vicente Velloc as a public burial site. Its underground crypt was kept exclusively for Spanish friars, prominent town citizens and members of elite Catholic families.
The cemetery was also said to be a meeting place of the Filipino independence fighters – The Katipuneros, making it even more historic.
This unique cemetery is worth a stop if you’re taking a road trip around Laguna.
Camp John Hay has long been a popular spot for kid-friendly activities, and one of the tourist landmarks that’s been around for decades is The Lost Cemetery, also known as the Cemetery of Negativism.
This isn’t your typical cemetery where people are buried, but one intended for “man’s greatest self-imposed infliction” – negativism. Tombstones and animal markers with pun-filled names scattered throughout a small garden indicate how creatures died from passivity and inaction, serving as a reminder for the living to be more positive.
As the main marker at the site says: “Have a good day – treat today like it’s your last, though it’s the first day of the rest.”
One of the top tourist attractions in Zamboanga City is Great Santa Cruz Island, well-known for its pink coralline sand beach. But before tourists enjoyed the shores and sunny skies at the island, locals from the Badjao and the Sama Bangingi tribes were using some parts of the island as a burial ground.
Visitors can still see the old Badjao burial site underneath a canopy of trees in the forest on the Eastern part of the beach. The Badjaos, known as sea nomads or gypsies of Sulu Sea, believe that the journey continues in the afterlife.
Aside from the concrete markers and gravestones here, visitors can still spot miniature boats made of wood with cloth sails, which are meant to transport the departed on their great voyage beyond the sea.
Here’s what else you can do at Zamboanga’s beautiful Pink Sand Beach.
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