Experience Dinagyang
Do you love stepping up to the beat? Ever enjoy the sound of drums and bare feet stomping into the pavement in perfect unison? How about joining the locals dancing in the streets with a bottle of beer? If you do, the Dinagyang Festival is just for you! It is celebrated every 4th Sunday of January in Iloilo.
Stay a week longer and experience the Jaro Fiesta. Visit the Jaro Cathedral and join the devotees, get yourself invited in a Jaro resident's house to experience Filipino hospitality, and also pass by the temporary market set up in the Plaza park across the cathedral. Lately, the Jaro Plaza market has acquired a dowdy reputation for its second hand clothes stalls, and preponderance of pickpockets, so exercise caution.
If your timing is right, i.e. if the Chinese lunar calendar's aligned with your lucky stars, the Chinese New Year falls right smack within a week or two of the Dinagyang or Jaro Fiesta. The Iloilo Chinese Lunar New Year celebration has built up quite a reputation for a decent enough food fest, dragon dances, a variety show and fireworks. Worth staying around for.