Lumen's House (Of Birds) In Carigara

I was passing-by, and saw a number of tourists walking towards this house / store / spectacle. Known more popularly as the home of Lumen's Pastillas and Delicacies, I know it's also 'home' to some birds.

I have seen this "interestingly weird" house sometime in 2009 (maybe 2010) so I asked my driver that we drop-by for a moment to buy delicacies and to see how this house is doing - with its resident birds.

Well, it's still generally the same. Oh, for those who don't know yet, Lumen's is an old residential house, where the owner concocts baked and other sweet delicacies -and they are quite popular in this region.

They have pastillas and things like roscas, uraro banana/camte chips, tablea and so on. I learned they even also sell 'queseo' (do you know what that is?), soon other things like jams (sabi ni Mana Lumen)!

Now...

The other thing that make this place a tourist-draw is the living-room ceiling. Birds made it their home too! Owners, their friends, and soothsayers think that's "swerte", so they let those birds virtually own it!

Look at the ceiling edges. Those are clusters of nests of the balinsasayaw birds (swifts or swiftlets).

Unperturbed all through these years, the birds (swift-balinsasayaw) have multiplied. And they keep on multiplying that their nests are now 'permanently' stuck to many parts of the ceiling at the living room.

Swerte means lucky. But swerte or not, they probably know that the popular "birds nest soup" is made out of those swiftlets' nests that they craft with with their saliva. AND, the truth is: it is very expensive!

I asked them about it, but they said they don't harvest the nests. So okay, fine hehe!

The downside is... you guessed it... all the bird droppings (poop, ipot, iti) goes nowhere but the floor!

That's why most of the 'era-old-wood' floor is covered with newspaper pages - to catch bird poop. Yuk!

I said "I suppose no one goes to that living room anymore except to clean up the bird droppings daily".

OMG I was wrong! The owner herself told me they still use that living room, like to eat on those tables. OMG because, in my visit almost a decade ago, there were only something like 4 or 5 such bird nests.

I don't know... this is a kind of "tourist-attraction" that has me (and probably you too) doubting if I want to explore more of it or not. There are just so many conflicting truths in my mind that make me cringe!

Health and hygiene-wise, I'm not sure this is an ideal mix - fresh bird poop inside the very same house where they make their pastries. Pero masarap eh! But those are free wild birds that can pick diseases.

I don't know... maybe I'm over-imagining things. Do, just go and see the house for your self!

That house, by the way... is endorsed by the provincial tourism office as on of their attractions!

Let's just go away, shall we? hehehe!