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Rice Terraces of Banaue
These were built more than 2000 years ago. Thursday June 28th
The roosters woke me up again this morning but I'm getting used to it. I had a lot of things planned for the day so I was happy to be up by 5:30. I quickly dressed up and went directly to Echo Valley to see the Hanging Coffins. I took the right turn this time and went in the cemetary and asked an old man for the right trail and he showed me. Once you found the trail , you just have to follow it. The way down is a bit tricky after rain (it rained most of the night) but nothing that can't be handled. It doesn't take that long, after about 30 minutes of walking you suddendly see the coffins hanging off the cliff. It's very bizarre to see coffins floating on a cliff. At this point I tried to take a picture with my camera but it wouldn't work. The batteries I bought the day before just didn't seem to function properly. My camera would open but close when I tried to take a picture. I tried everything I could but didn't manage to get a single shot of the coffins so you'll
have to trust me on this one: I managed to find the right trail and found the coffins and they were cool. There were also a few abandoned rice terraces nearby that looked neat, I tried asking around why they were abandoned but didn't get an answer.
After trying to get my shot I just walked back from where I had came and the way up was much easier than the way down. At this point it was really cloudy and my camera wasn't working so I figured there was no point in going to Mount Kiltepam, which has nice views of Sagada. I went back to the Resthouse, packed my bag, ate breakfast (pancakes) and walked to Sagada Weaver, a small shop that sells products weave in the traditional patterns of the region (or so we're told). I'm not a big souvenir buyer but I wanted to get a bracelet.. I found one that pleased me and bought it for 35P. There were also some really awesome scarves there that I didn't buy.
I walked back to the town center to pick up the jeepney to Bontoc as it is the first step to Banaue. After about
Banaue 3
View from my hotel 20 seconds of walking the jeepney passed by so I hailed it and got the last seat left. There was a korean couple in the jeepney but aside from that it was all locals. There was an old tatooed women in the jeepney, she looked even older than the one I saw in Bontoc previously. At some point during the trip she wiped out a cell phone and started texting someone... there is no doubt, every filipino is crazy about cell phones. Aside from that, the road was uneventful and my first task in Bontoc was to buy new batteries for my camera. I bought some which seemed to do the trick and went up to Bontoc museum because I had more than 2 hours to kill before the jeepney to Banaue left.
The Bontoc museum is right next to an Elementary school and it was recess time so I had to pass by kids who were playing and who said hello back when I said hello. The museum was fairly impressive, showing artifacts excavated from the surrounding areas and picture of the people in their traditional clothes. It was interesting to see that some of these pictures dated
On the way to Batad
On the side of the mountain facing the road to banaue only from the 1950 and 1960's. There was an exhibition of weapons that were used during head hunting with an explanation of the head hunting ritual. I took a photo but then was told that it wasn't allowed to take pictures in the museum (which I didn't know). Outside there were several reconstructed traditional huts and in the hut where they used to keep animals they had 2 wild boars which seemed quite interested in my backpack. At this point I tried to take another picture (it was allowed outside), but my camera failed me again.
I then went in the village trying to find batteries of well known brands, since by then I was thinking that the batteries I was buying, even though they are AA, didn't work in the camera. I didn't find anything in the village by the time it was time for the jeepney to leave. The driver had a haircut that can only be described as a very long rat tail, something which I hadn't seen in a very long time. But not to be out-done, his helper had a perfect mullet. I hopped in the jeepney but I waited almost 45 minutes because
View from the top
Batad is hidden in the valley behind me. the driver was waiting for someone who had told him would take the jeepney but wasn't there. When he did get there we took off for 2 hours. It goes without saying that the road was dusty, high on the mountains, that we took several sharp turns at high speed in places where there was only enough space for 1 vehicle and that there was generally no real protection against falling down.
We arrived in Banaue safely, I asked the driver to drop me in front of Greenview Lodge and I took a room there. It was around 16:30 so I decided to go to the viewpoint to see the world-famous Banaue rice terrace but before I had to make my camera work. It didn't take a long time, the first store I entered had Panasonic AA+ batteries, I bought 2 and everything worked. I went to a tricycle and asked for a ride to the viewpoints for 180P and they agreed. The guy who drove me was probably not older than 16 and didn't speak a word of english, he had his little brother of about 10 who was doing the talking. They were nice and took me
Batad
The famous rice terrace of Batad to the viewpoints and I took pictures. At some point in the ride the tricycle started making a lot of noise and the kids on the street made fun of us because of that but we kept going. Next time we stopped we realized that the tire was kaput and the driver looked really pissed.
The view from the viewpoint was amazing. The rice terraces in Banaue are some of the oldest in the world, they were built 2000 years ago by the local ifuago and have been maintained ever since. More importantly for tourists nowadays, the rice terraces is probably one of the only human creation built only for a pragmatic purpose but that ends up being beautiful and admired by all who have seen them. I don't think the pictures really do the place justice. Oscar Wilde clearly had never been in Banaue when he wrote: "We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making something useless is that one admires it intensely."
After the ride we went back to the hostel where I met the austrians I had met the day
before in Sagada at the entrance of the cave. It turned out they didn't go all the way in the cave because they were scared and didn't like bat shit (who does?). Only one of them spoke english (which sorta explained why only this one replied to my hello the day before) so I didn't join them and ate alone. I had fried chicken and it was quite decent. I spent the rest of the evening reading "A hundred Years of Solitude" and went to bed at around 22:00.
Friday June 29th
I woke up at around 8:00 and ate a delicious continental breakfast. I knew I was going to Batad but I didn't know if I was going away that day or the one after. Batad is a small village in the mountain that has the most beautiful rice terrace in the world. It is not reachable by car, you need to walk at least 1 hour to get to the village. During breakfast one of the worker of the hostel asked me if I was going to Batad and that he knew people who could get me there for 600P in tricycle. They'd drive me to the
Irene going down the stairs
This was one of the best stairs we saw that day (we didn't have time to pose for the bad ones) junction (1 hour) and wait for me all day and drive me back. I like to do things with local public transport but i knew this was the best option as jeepneys are rare on that road. I decided to stay the night because going to Batad takes time and the only bus I would've been able to take to go to Baguio was at 6PM which would bring me in Baguio at 3AM so I decided to stay the night and take an early morning bus to Baguio. I felt so sendentary though, it was the first time I stayed two nights in the same place since Hong Kong. I took the room for thenext day, managing to bargain the room price down by 50P and said yes to the guy for the tricycle but I wanted to pay 500P which he agreed (that's the price in the guidebook).
The tricycle ride was uneventful except this one time where we entered a sharp turn but came face to face with a SUV, but they both managed to stop in time and we went back to let the car pass. We got to the junction where I saw a
few people waiting including an old western man. I was asked if I wanted a jeepney ride to the top but said no. I knew the austrians got a jeepney ride to the top (from the village) for 1800 and a guide for 900 but I was convinced that I could do it with just a tricycle ride to the junction (so you have to walk up the mountain on the long and winding road and then go back down to Batad instead of just going down) and no guide.
The walk up was not too bad as it is fairly gradual ascenscion. I met a friendly local named Ferdinand who was going to school with a big bag of rice on his head and who welcomed me to Batad. On the way to the top it started raining lightly and about 3/4 from the top I caught up with 2 friendly filipinos brother and sister named Joseph and Irene. Joseph is a filipino american from Gainsville Florida and Irene is from Manila. We staying in small huts with a bench wiaitng for the rain to stop while taking pictures. We talked for a while and decided to join
for the day.
After approximately 10 minutes it stopped raining so we continued to the top for about 20 minutes. We get a really nice view of the mountains from the top but no view of the rice fields, we have to go down closer to the village for that. Joseph and Irene were really sad that there was still no cellphone signal on the top of hte mountains... Some people asked if we wanted guides but we said no and went down the path. Going down was fairly easy, it's a simple trail. After 45 minutes there is a fork and we went toward the viewpoint. There we took some more pictures and we were asked again if we wanted a guide again. The woman was really insisting (it's the low season...) but we said no in the end. We walked down to the village and gave a small donation at the tourist office.
We wanted to go down in the rice fields so we went down and asked kids where to go and they pointed down a path. We're fairly sure they pointed the wrong path because after 10 minutes of walking in the village we
Me
Among the rice terraces, after a nice shower got to a place which was blocked by pieces of wood. There was no other ways so we decided to keep going this way and then we realized that we were in the terraces but not where we wanted to be. We figured it was easier to go forward than walk back up (we went through some relatiely hard trails and didn't want to go back).
We were in the middle of the rice terraces but way too high on them and fairly far away from the village. We asked a farmer and he told us how to go there but he didn't speak filipino or english so it was hard to communicate. In any case we knew there was a way out forward. Going down terraces is interesting. The walls are made of stones and there is a sort of staircase made of protruding stones and this is where you go down. For the villagers it seems as easy as going down normal staircases, but for us it was incredibly tricky. I took a shot of Irene going down one of them to give you an idea.
We were trying to make our way to the village
Up the mountain
Last picture. Taken at the end close to the top. but it was really hard to find the way because you walk on the top of the stone walls, but there is only 1 terrace going to the villages, all the others end up in dead end. So there was a lot of walk, find no way down then walk back try to find another way but this way doesnt go accross the small water channel so walk back and try again. In the middle of it all it started showering. Before the rain I thought it was funny but the rain sorta made me wish we'd find a way.
After a long time lost in the terraces we finally made our way close to the village but we couldn't go in because there was a little water channel before the village and we didn't find any way to cross it. A friendly villager saw that we were in trouble so he came to show us the way. It is very simply, you just have to jump across the channel (about 1.5m wide I'd say) to the opposite wall on 2 small protruding rocks which you then climb to reach the top of the other wall (of course if you miss and fall it's about a 3m fall and full of pointy rocks down there).
We did it and got to the village in the middle of the rice terraces. There the villagers told us how to go to the path to the top accross the rice terraces and it was an easy way back. I still can't believe that no one fell as we went through some pretty slippery places. The path up was pretty hard as the steps of the path in the village are very steep and the sun was hitting hard so I was totally drenched in sweat after 20 minutes of walking up.
At some point I noticed a shy little girl, maybe 10 years old, at the top of the step. I was waiting for Irene and Joseph and she was not moving so I thought she was scared of me or something but then she came down the steps really fast and stayed close to me. I was wondering what she was doing because she was just waiting there. Then she said: ·"Give me Pesos" in a very mean tone (though I'm aware that she doesn't speak english so the mean tone was probably not done on purpose) to which I said I had none and then she said "Give me candies" to which I said the same thing and then started walking up as she started talking in her language (probably cursing me). About 30 steps up her friend asked the same thing and got the same answers. I'm totally against giving stuff to kids because it only teaches them to beg and was put off by the experience.
We arrived at the tourist office and finally got something to drink. It felt great as I had been sweating like crazy for 2 hours and had been extremely thirsty for even longer. We sat there for about 15 minutes and Irene gave me a little snack to eat as her bag was full of food. It felt good to eat a little something and we started walking again. Going up from Batad is definately harder than going up from Banaue. About a third of the way through, we heard thunder. We knew we'd get another shower so we tried to walk faster to find a shelter (they have a few accross the path with a roof and benches). We managed to get to one after only 2 minutes of showering. We stayed there about 30 minutes, eating some more snacks. After the rain we kept on walking to the top.
We met a few locals on the trail, going back to the village with a few goods on their back (they have to transport everything to the village as there are no roads). Near the top we met the westerner I saw at the junction in the morning. He is an american from Florida who had been living in Batad for 3 weeks. He was very friendly but when he informed us it was 15:45 I realized I was getting way late for my ride. We arrived at the top at 16:00 and I had to say goodbye to Irene and Joseph because I wanted to walk alone, since I walk faster, so that I'd reach the junction not too late. I was really happy to have met them, the day was clearly much more fun than if I had been alone.
I walked down as soon as possible for an hour and found that my tricycle was still there (the guy must've waited 7 hours for me, but I guess he's used to it because he didn't seem pissed or anything). We rided back to Banaue for an hour which allowed me to dry down a little. At the hostel I changed and took a shower and then went upstairs to eat a sandwhich and french fries. I read my book and fell asleep very early.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Hello Ta tante Gisèle suit assez fidèlement ton voyage. Luc est très fier de toi. Ciao Gisèle