You don't really have to pay a million dollars to own or find a true Magical Kingdom or City, like what the inspiring, bestselling novel of Terry Brooks offers its young readers.
Wandering off-grid in the northeastern quarter of Samar Island in the southern Philippines, just moseying around and shooting the breeze, will probably luck your way into finding the secret entrance into the fabled, supernatural city of Biringan, the one, hidden enchanted city that only lost people seem to find.
The name "Biringan" itself, translates as, "a place to look for missing people."
To enter this hidden city, one must be invited by a citizen (a fair maiden engkantada, or handsome mestizo engkanto according to locals from Samar) of the realm. Strange-folk from Biringan are known to prowl around Samar as human seeming people and when they fancy some local barrio lass or lad, they invite them for a visit to Biringan, and most often the poor kids opt not to leave the splendor of the black city and return to their poor old Samar, backwater towns.
Tales of drivers traveling in the area, getting lost, running into strange roads find themselves going into Biringan City. Publc transport vehicles are often waylaid by strange passengers from Biringan who want a fast ride back to their city--these disappearing passengers time their ride to coincide when a passage into the other-realm is open--usually a midnight run of a bus.
Others claim that you may enter through a waypoint, a place that blurs into that other realm-- waypoints are said to exist in the cities of San Jorge, Gandara, Calbayog and Catarman. A waypoint may be marked by a certain rock or tree which acts as the portal into the realm--or be unmarked like a spot in the middle of a field or the turn of a road that opens into Biringan, at a certain time of night or day.
In Bogo, Cebu, in the fisherman barangay of Odlot, there is a small sitio near the seas near Samar called Danaoan/Danawan. According to fishermen there, the northern spot of Samar has been—multiple times—mistaken by seafarers as having a modern urban city, which only appears during moonless nights, at certain times of the year. Like a 90s Hong Kong harbor lit up at night, witnesses claim to see a well-lit, city skyline along a port, in a seeming, urban enclave. The consecutive sightings surprised area residents because their geographic area is supposed to be in the middle of nowhere--an off-grid rural and fishing sprawl. These incidents according to local fishermen happened around the ‘70s or ‘80s.
More urban legends also abound about businessmen from mid-Cebu or Samar who disappear without a trace from the area and are also suspected to have been lured to Biringan City. Enterprising Biringan folk supposedly engage some successful or up-and-coming business person with deals so attractive that they are lured to visit the enchanted city, and when given the choice to stay there or return to the drudgery of dog-eat-dog competition in the real world, they opt to stay in enchanting city of Biringan.
Biringan strange-folk just lurv Stuff from our dimension
Hand-me-down tales about Biringan strange-folk buying stuff from Manila or Cebu-based stores, from high-end appliances or furniture, all fully paid for in cold cash, with delivery addresses in Biringan, say that the deliveries lead to dead ends after finding out that the persons who ordered the deliveries have long since been dead. But somewhere along the line, the purchases still get delivered to the Biringan address, and the vehicles (supposedly Kias) vanish after 2 to 3 days, and the dealer knows for sure that the cars go where they where intended to be used: picked up surreptitiously by Biringan strange-folk themselves.
In the 60s or so, a big delivery of construction equipment, bulldozers, cement mixers, was dropped off at Tacloban port, fully paid for again in cash, but got stuck because the final drop off was in Biringan City--the shipment was sent back to Manila, but the ship never returned and was believed to have delivered the goods to Biringan port during a late evening trip there. Some of these big ticket deliveries are specifically scheduled at night to time the moment when a passage into the city is supernaturally available.
The traveler mischief stories about Biringan, start with the Silver Star bus hired out (pakyaw) by a group of people from Manila for a Biringan field trip, had the bus driving around strange dirts roads until late at night and getting lost until they had to spend the night on an unknown roadside—come morning all the people disappeared and the bus driver found his bus in the middle of a mountain with no tracks showing how it got there, and having to call his home office to get special tow trucks to get it out of the mountain.