Our Visit to Baguio (Part 1)

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February 15th 2010

Published: February 16th 2010

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Our Bus

When it was decided last week that we needed to take a day-long trip to the City of Baguio, and people started hearing about it, it turned out that everyone wanted to come too. So Warlito (aka Wally), the husband of Juliet (Ben Sr’s daughter) talked to his friend who owns a bus and learned that we could charter it for a day.

As usual, I’ll digress to talk about the local transportation system. All of the vehicles that provide transportation to the public are privately owned and come in four basic sizes. The tricyle is the most localized and takes a few people at a time - to the bus stop or shopping from home is a very common use for them. There are taxis that are just like taxis at home. Then there are the jeepneys, which I’m sure you’ve all seen from TV shows about the Philippines. They tend to have established routes within cities. Finally, there are the buses, that handle the bulk of the intercity travel. The owner of the bus finds a niche in the transportation market and just starts driving that route. For instance, the bus we rented goes between Candon in Ilocos

Jeepney

A common form of mass transit. Small buses are everywhere. Catching the bus is called commuting

Sur, Baguio in Benguet Province, and San Fernando, the capitol of La Union Province.

But on Sunday, thanks to Wally, the bus was just for us! It pulled into the street outside of Sheila’s store and Ben Sr’s house around 6:50 a.m. Of course the women in our house were up at 4:00 a.m. to finish getting all of the food ready. There was plenty of cooking being done on Saturday in preparation for our tour . . . Filipinos rarely travel without food and I think that Mangaoangs are even more concerned than most with avoiding possible starvation on the road.

So we loaded all of the food and ourselves (and lots of fresh water for drinking) and started off on the trip to Baguio. So perhaps we should have a history lesson. Baguio has several names. It’s called the City of Pines and also the Summer Capitol of the Philippines, because located in the city is the summer mansion of the Philippine President. There also are many many colleges - every province has a college situated in Baguio.

We were able to obtain a history of the city from Uncle Junior. Baguio is not a

Houses in Baguio

“natural” city - during the U.S. occupation of the Philippines, Baguio was designed and built by U.S. engineers to be a center of tourism and relaxation for U.S. citizens. The city celebrated its centennial last year, but one hundred years (1909-2009) have produced quite a different result than the one contemplated by the original designers. Rather than the 30,000 people for which the city was planned, which was to include the American tourists and the Filipino support staff that would have been required to see to their creature comforts, more than 300,000 people now call Baguio “home.” A very large percentage of these are temporary visitors - students attending one of the many universities or tourists. Because of its location in the mountains, the summer temperatures in Baguio are lower than in most other areas, so it's become a major tourist destination for Filipinos.

The construction of the city is quite amazing. It was built on the hillsides, which are very steep. The system of roads and retaining walls weaves back and forth. Undoubtedly lovely and charming when first constructed, but now the overpopulation has created two immediately-visible scourges of urban life: slums and traffic jams. And within the

Bauang Junction

Where the main road in the city of Bauang meets the road we took to Baguio

last ten years, many squatters have started building on the hillsides surrounding the original city. The population growth also has created a huge problem with water and sanitation. But while residents of the city have to deal with these problems, as day trippers, we could mostly choose to overlook them and enjoy what is still a very interesting and beautiful city.

So now back to our trip. The loaded bus departed a few minutes after 7:00. After taking his time getting through the neighborhood streets (and numerous speed bumps which they call “humps” here), our driver got to a main highway. That’s when his experience as a professional driver really showed (to the consternation of several other drivers). Basically, he was flying down the road and his judgment of how much room he needed to pass a tricycle or other slower vehicle while avoiding oncoming vehicles was sometimes measured in meters (in other words, he didn’t leave much room for error). I decided to sit in the very back row (just like I do in the buses at home), so the ride was pretty much like an amusement park - really bouncy with a lot of lateral swaying every

View

time he changed lanes. I had a ball and was anticipating an exciting ride up the twisty mountain roads (but then no one has ever accused me of being overly sane).

After only 30 minutes, we arrived in the town of Bauang, where Wally’s family has a barbeque and market goods establishment. We picked up a few more provisions for the road (can’t take any chances in the food department) and backtracked to the main highway up into the mountains. The plan was to take the Naguilian Road into the city and return to La Union via the Marcos Highway. We made one stop at a roadside store to visit the Comfort Room or CR (the Filipino euphemism for a public toilet) and of course pick up a few snacks and arrived in Baguio just after 10:00 am. Our first stop was one of the sites of the annual Flower Festival (Panagbenga). Panagbenga culminates with a huge parade down Session Road (the main shopping thoroughfare). Burnham Park is a large park surrounding a lake in the city center. This is named for one of the U.S. engineers who designed the city. When it rains hard, the lake overflows and

Some of the Children

back row: Walyssa, Shekina, Kim, Jahjah, Aaron (with his face hidden); in front: Denver, Lyca, Beden

floods part of the city. Coreen thinks it is ironic that people who live in the mountains have flooding -- why doesn't the water just run down the hills? We were early so while there were a lot of people, it wasn’t as crowded as it would later become (so much thanks to our “tour guides,” Wally, Holly Lou and Tessa Joy (Uncle Toti’s daughter, who’s working in Baguio right now) for mostly getting us to all the things we wanted to see).

The first item of business was the important one of replenishing our diminishing energy stores . . . that is, we ate. Then we split up: our group wanted to wander around; some people stayed close to guard the precious foodstores; and others took the kids to the bike riding area. When asked about the bicycles, Darwin (son of Junior and Lourdes) shook his head and smiled and said everyone was crashing into each other.

(With us were Wally and Juliet’s two children - little Warly (aka Jahjah) and Walyssa; Corazon’s granddaughter Lyca; and Sheila and Kiko’s daughter Shekina. Annie Rose and Ernan’s kids - Kimverly, Beden and Denver all came, along with two of

Stalls at Park for Panagbenga

Dennick and Melba’s boys (Aaron, the oldest, and Dennick Jr. - “DJ”). We also had several couples with us for Valentine’s Day: Annie Rose and Ernan; Wally and Juliet; Segunda and Jonji and everyone’s favorites (aka “the Adorable Couple”), Steven and his wife Melody.)

The plan was for us to enter the pavilion that housed the vendor stalls and then come back in 30 minutes so we could see the parade of flower-decorated boats (real “floats”). Lourdes wanted to take a look at the various plants for sale (which she did but didn’t buy anything because every conceivable area at home that could house a plant is already occupied) and then she joined our shopping expedition. Tessa Joy also arrived while we were browsing.

There were the usual stalls of souvenirs. Baguio is famous for textiles and woodcarving. There were lots of places selling various items of clothing and purses and jewelry. We found a shop with some really interesting flipflops (“slippers” here in the Philippines) and Rosario got the whole story from the vendor. She makes these wonderful and interesting sandals and we liked them so much I bought three pairs (180 pesos per pair - about

Shawarma

With cheese and spices added. In USA we would buy at a gyro shop.

$3.25 each). Coreen got some, too.

Another interesting item was the shawarma stalls. There is something here called “Chubby Shawarma” that looks really spicy and greasy and has cheese included in the hanging skewer of meat. It looked really yummy but we were too full from the constant snacking. There also are a lot of local specialties, including products made from fresh strawberries (jam, wine, candy and cookies). One stall we visited featured lots of carved wood, including a specialty of Baguio - an ashtray from which sprouts a relatively large penis (the scrotum forms the receptacle for the ashes)! So far no one (even Uncle Junior) has been able to explain this - it’s just something that people have been carving and selling in Baguio for decades.

We wound up strolling for an hour. When we finally got back to the tables to rejoin the rest of the clan, the girls had gotten glitter facepaintings and Juliet got a henna tattoo of a dragon on her shoulder. The artist looked like a cross between a goth girl and an anime character - I don’t know enough about anime, but if there’s a character that’s goth, then that

Traffic in Baguio

would be our artist. Just after we arrived, she came over and asked if she could take a picture with me because she liked my tattoos and my hair.

So after tossing down a few quick bites, we packed up the remains of our snacks and headed for the bus. I managed to avoid almost all of the silver vendors along the sidewalk, but finally succumbed and bought a bracelet in a style I’ve never seen at home. Tessa did the bargaining and it was less than $4 (and made in Italy).

My admiration for our driver’s skill only increased as he drove us around the city. There is no such thing as a straight street in all of the hills and the very narrow streets wind back and forth and are full of traffic. The one good thing is that you hardly see any single-occupant vehicles. Most of the public vehicles are full of people and any private cars that we did see were packed, too. The driver had a notion of the clearances needed for our bus that was apparently calibrated in inches. We started to say he had nerves of steel, but decided that he