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After an incredible few weeks in Borneo, we didn't think anything could beat it... but the Philippines have come very close. Not even on our itinerary originally, after hearing some amazing stories, we decided that it couldn't be missed!
We flew into the capital, Manila, and were bombarded with the chaos of the over populated city; taxis, buses, tricycles, people, dogs and jeepneys everywhere! Although very hectic, and at times grotty, compared to many other southeast Asian cities, Manila did have a lot of character and we had great fun traveling around it in our new favorite form of transport; the jeepney!
Now the 'jeepney' deserves a blog to itself! They are absolutely brilliant! They are converted army trucks and each one has it's own unique touch and design determined by it's owner, some even have flashing disco lights and blaring music, you could have a great little party in the back! England definitely needs to get some!
After a whistle stop tour of Manila in a few jeepneys, we caught a very cold night bus (for some reason the filipino drivers put the air con up to arctic conditions) up north to Banaue. Banaue is a town high
up in the mountains surrounded by rice terraces, where we had a quick breakfast before heading off to another tiny town called Batad, famous for it's beautiful rice terraces. We decided to explore the area by ourselves so we took a tricycle (the filipino version of a Tuk-tuk) along a very bumpy road to the point at which the road is so bad that it couldn't go any further and from there we walked through the hills to Batad, about a 1 1/2 hour walk (which was a little difficult as we'd only climbed Kinabalu 4 days before). Batad was really lovely, the rice terraces were very impressive and we visited at the perfect time as they were a gorgeous green. The town itself is tiny and situated right in the middle at the bottom of the terraces, it is very undeveloped with lots of traditional ifugao houses. We stayed in a little wooden guest house on the hill side with a brilliant view of the terraces and spent the afternoon exploring the area. We went on a short trek to a nearby waterfall which was painful as it was pretty much all up and then down hill, a miniature Kinabalu
all over again! The views were worth it though and we had a great time climbing up the terraces. The next day we left Batad and walked to a town called Lana where we picked up by tricycle back to Banaue. We hired a local guide for this walk as it was much harder to navigate and we wanted a bit of a local insight on the area. The walk was stunning, through tiny paths along the terraces, over hills and across streams... Lovely! We are glad we made the effort to get to Batad - definitely worth a visit :D
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