Up in the mountains

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Sunday June 25th

I woke up very early on Sunday due to traffic in the road. I took a shower, packed my backpack, checked out and got into a taxi. I had originally planned to stay the day in Manila and take an overnight bus to Banaue at 22:00 but the thought of staying 15 more hours in Manila was too much for me so I was going to take the first bus that I could to the mountain which happened to be one of the hourly bus to Baguio, the summer capital of the Philippines.

The taxi driver was friendly, he used the meter after I asked him to. The trip to the bus station I was going (there are 17 in Manila, you have to know exactly where your bus leave or you are screwed), which was the same distance as the bus trip I took from the other station to the hostel, costed me 100P. So this mean the arranged price we had agreed on the first taxi on my first night in Manila was 2.5x the real price.

I got to the bus station, bought my ticket, water and a donut (breakfast) and we left approximately 30 minutes after. The bus was fairly comfortable and they played some really great music: the first part was 50's hit, the second was philippinos love song and after that they just played bad pop. Philippinos buses are interesting. There is a driver and a ticket guy and the bus can stop at anytime, anywhere to pick up or drop people. You get in the bus, take a seat then the ticket guy comes and ask you where you are going and make you a ticket and ask a certain charge, which you pay him. There are also people who enter the bus to sell stuff like newspaper or food (bird eggs, buko pies, ice cream and other stuff I didn't recognize) and get off a few minutes after.

We drove through perfectly flat terrain for about 5 hours and then we hit the mountains and drove up for about an hour until we reached Baguio, a charming provincial city according to the guidebook. The biggest charm I felt when I left the bus was due to the temperature drop, it is 8 degrees colder than Manila due to altitude. The bus ride wasn't too bad but I was happy to be walking once we got there. I got off the bus and started walking to the center of the city. I was asked by a couple of taxi if I needed a ride but a no thank you made them go away, this is a welcome change after Manila where the concept of a walking westerner appear too improbable to be real to the locals.

It was Sunday and it seemed that the whole city was out in the streets shopping. I walked to the place I had decided I'd stay: Diamond Inn. Once I got there I asked to see the dorm room and the guy (who I must say, was friendly) showed me the room which was quite nice. But then he showed me the bathroom and didn't really look at it but when I looked I saw 2 cockroaches, one on the sink and one on the floor near the toilets. I've sorta learned to live with these things but if I can avoid them I will happily do. I told him I'd visit other places and come back.

Next place I went was Pine Tree Guesthouse (or something like that). The dorm bed was decent but it was more expensive than Diamond Inn so I tried to bargain it down a little bit but she wouldn't have any of it. I'm really new at this bargaining thing, I'm not really good and I hate it, especially when the whole family is watching me doing it. I do it because I know they're trying to overcharge me because I'm a foreigner (the price they asked was higher than the price written in the guidebook, which was published in mid-June 2006) and because I'm on a very tight budget. I told her I'd visit some other places and come back and she said with a sarcastic tone that I'd probably find several other really cheap places.

That whole bargaining thing put me in a bad mood because I knew there were not many other choices. It was about 15:30 and I just had a donut for the whole day so I was hungry and needed some time alone to think about my options (I really didn't want to go back to the mean woman at Pine Tree) so I went to the first restaurant that passed by: McDonald. They are everywhere in the Philippines and even though I don't go often, I don't mind a Big Mac once in a while, plus they have table and stuff so I could read my guidebook.

I got a Big Mac combo and the first thing I noticed is that normal fries and Coke are the equivalent of kids fries and Coke in Canada/US and to get the size you'd normally get in Canada/US you have to order jumbo portion and Canada/US jumbo portions are not even mentioned here (at least I didn't see them). At the end of my meal, I was just as full as I usually am after I eat McDonald (that is, too full).

I decided to try a last place, Harrison Inn which has single rooms for about 60P more than the dorm bed at the other places. I got there and they had a "normal" price and a "discount" price for the rooms. Needless to say I asked for the discount and got it. It was my first time since I left home that I had a room all to myself and it felt good to be able to spread all my stuff on the bed. It was about 16:00 when I checked in and I somehow fell asleep while spreading my stuff on the bed and I woke up only at 20:00. Ooops. I went out and walked around a little bit but didn't see anything really interesting. I really didn't get a chance to see Baguio much but it was still too big of a city for me, I wanted to go in a small little village to just relax a bit. The guidebook had 2 perfect answers for me: Sagada and Kabayan. Sagada is a sleepy little village favored by backpackers and tourists because of it's awesome caves, beautiful rice terraces and its hanging coffins. Kabayan on the other hand is a small village known for its mummies, the only ones in the world to still have organs. I wasn't too sure which one I'd pick for tomorrow but I figured I'd let fate decide.

Monday June 26th

My room had no window and was totally dark so I woke up late on Monday. I took a shower and headed to a bus station. I got to the bus station and there was a bus departing to Bontoc, which is the bus I need to take to go to Sagada. Look like the choice was made for me. I embarked on the bus, and we started on the bumpiest and scariest road I've ever seen for 6 hours.

The road is mostly on the top portion of the mountains (the road is 2250m in altitude at some point) so you can see the valley floors filled with rice terrace and small villages. There is generally nothing to prevent the bus from falling in those beautiful valley but occasionally there is a house or a cement block. In several places there is only enough space for 1 vehicle to pass through and often there is a sharp turn nearby so a car could be coming from the other direction any time. The bus driver didn't seem to mind and he would often pass other vehicles just before a sharp turn. A few time we had to stop to let other vehicle pass us. It does look scary at first but at some point you realize that the bus driver is about 50 years old so he must've been doing this for a long time without killing himself so you just do like the locals and sleep a little bit. It's impressive how fast you get used to this kind of situation.

The scenery we saw on the road was truly superb. Mountains are about the size of Canadian Rockies' mountain I'd say but they're all green and full of life. The valley and some of the mountain sides are filled with rice terraces of various colors (from light yellow to deep green) and every now and then you see a small agglomeration of houses. In fact the scenery reminded me a little bit of my hometown in Quebec in the summer except that the mountains were oversized and the rice fields replaced the milk farms. I can honestly say that I spent the whole time just watching in awe.

After about 6 hours, the road goes in the valley and we arrive in Bontoc, a village of around 3000 people. I didn't intend to stop in Bontoc for the night as Sagada was just an hour away so I went to look for the jeepney to Sagada. Unfortunately I had woken up too late in the morning and the last jeepney to Sagada was gone by the time I got there (around 17:30). So that meant I'd have to spend the night in Bontoc. I picked the cheapest place in town, Chrurya-a Hotel and Restaurant and got a 2 bed dorm room all to myself. The price listed for the room was 200 and I tried to bargain my bed down to 150 but the guy at check-in didn't speak really good english so he just said "pay 100". The price listed was for both beds and I was being an idiot who was trying to bargain for a higher price.

I walked on the street a little bit until I found an Internet place. On the way there the children said "Hello Americana" and at some point I heard a "Where are you from?" from behind and I turned around and said Canada, the little boy said "cool" and then ran away. That put a smile on my face, it was good to have something positive happen to me after 2 days of boring transit. At the internet cafe I finished my previous blog and published it and then I walked back to the hotel. On the way back I met an old woman with her arms fully tattooed up to the fingers. This region only recently departed from their traditional ways and old people used to live in huts in the traditional ways of their ancestors. That old woman must've seen her people go from a traditional tribal agricultural society to a "modern" society with electricity, plumbing, cars, computers but also dictators, pollution and world war. I wonder what she thought of it all. I also thought that it was funny that in Bontoc old people are tattooed but younger ones see it as something so passe while in our society it's the reverse.

I went to the restaurant's section of my hotel and ordered a beef curry which was delicious. I liked that hotel, everyone is really friendly. I went to my room and read a bit in my guidebook. It's a very small town and everything becomes really quiet after dark so there is no nightlife. My last 2 days were very inefficient and were enough to convinced me that I need to plan things better. At some point during planning I fell asleep.

Tuesday June 27th

At sunrise, some rooster decided it was a good time to crow. He was quickly followed by his friends and it didn't take long before I took notice and woke up. This is the first time in my life I've been awaken by a rooster and it was not a good experience. And it's not like if it was just one of them giving a bad name to the whole species, they're just all participating in this evil and noisy behavior. I went down to the bathroom/shower to find out there was no water that day... It bothered me a bit but not too much considering I'd be checking in at a hostel in Sagada in a few hours and could take a shower there.

I ate Pinoy Breakfast which is rice, an egg and some chunk of fried meat, which I hoped was rooster. It's a bit too fat heavy for me in the morning. I packed my stuff and went to the place where jeepney departs to Sagada. I had to wait an hour before it left and I talked with a few locals but communication was difficult with my 3 words of tagalog and their limited english.

Jeepneys are interesting, they are sort of highly colored long jeep and they are the cheapest (and sometime the only) way of getting around. The one to Sagada costed me 35P (70 cents CDN) for an hour ride. The jeepney has fixed schedule but if it's full before departure time it will leave. In my experience they rarely get full when they leave but they pick-up people as they go through the village and after about 10 minutes of riding they are full. And by full I don't mean North American version of full but really full, as in people on top or hanging at the end of the jeepney. Since I got there early I didn't have the "chance" to experience riding a jeepney on top but I'm sure my time will come. Also people will bring anything on a jeepney: bags of rice, live chicken, bottle of propane.

I asked the driver to drop me at St-Joseph's Resthouse which he did so I paid my fare and left the jeepney but not before banging my head on the top. On the way to the check-in I met Jackie, a friendly fellow Canadian from Calgary, who told me what there was to see in Sagada as she was just about to leave. I checked in at the place and I managed my first succesful bargaining ever, got the price down to 175 from 200. In a room next to mine I met a nice Kiwi whose name I can't remember who also gave me some tips on things to do while he was packing his bag before leaving for Bontoc.

I took a shower and did some laundry and then went out, decided on doing the cave adventure. I went to the municipal hall to the tourism office and booked a guide for the cave. My guide's name was Julius and he was nice. We walked accross town, got a gas lantern and walked some more up until we reached the cave. I've never really done any caving before so I didn't know how I'd react in there. In any case we walked down and Julius turned on the lantern. While he was taking care of that we were joined by a group of Austrian and their guide who looked really scared (the austrians, not the guide) but didn't look very nice, only one of them bothered to respond to my friendly hello. Me and Julius left before them and I was not to see them again in Sagada. The first part of the cave is nothing to write home about. It's a slippery cave that goes down for about 15 minutes with bats making tons of noise. The rock are very squishy and Julius nicely reminded me that it was all bat shit. That was information I could've done without, since I was not as skilled as him and had to put my hands on the rocks a few times.

After a while you stop hearing the bats, the river starts and the rock changes to smooth calcium/limestone formation. At this point you need to remove your shoe/sandals and do the rest with your bare feet. It's surprising how good of a grip feet have. We walked down for a while, stopping every now and then to take a picture. At some point we went through some very small sections where I could barely squeeze through. This was the only point where I felt really uncomfortable. I'm not claustrophobic but at this point I was really wondering whether it would've been better if I was so I wouldn't have gotten into the cave in the first place. We finished the small section and at the end you can swin in a pool of clear water which was refreshing. There were also some awesome limestone formation which you can see in the pictures. On the way down we met a group of 4 Korean girls and a group of fillipinos and westerners but we didn't stop to talk except to say hi.

The walk back up was relatively easy as by then I was getting the hang of it. Unfortunately, I wasn't good enough so that I could avoid putting my hand in bat shit. I still got some on my hands in the last section and I couldn't wash them before I got to the village. On the way back to the village Julius explained me the tradition of hanging coffins as they do in Sagada. He said that when people die they don't want to be buried 6 feet under because they want their spirit to be free so they hang their coffins on cliff. He told me how to go in a valley and where to find the hidden key to a padlock so I could go see the coffins closer. They had to put a lock because unrespectful tourists would open the graves and take bones.

We got back to the villages and paid for the lanterns, then back to the municipal office to pay the rest for the guide. The price was really good (400P for everything) and was well worth it. I like to do things on my own but there are some things, such as caving, that you really can't do on your own.

After everything was paid, I went back to my room to change as I was wet. I ate a sandwhich at the cafe while reading my guidebook and then decided to go to Echo Valley to see the famous Hanging Coffins of Sagada. The guidebook recommends a guide but I figured I could do it by myself especially since there was a map in the guidebook.

It is a bit tricky to find the right trail because there are several interesections and at some point you get to a cemetary with a sign that says "Area reserved for graves" so of course I thought it was the other way which is where I went. Shortly after I saw a trail that went in the general direction of the map so I thought I was doing good. But at some point the clear cut trail sorta disapeared and I was left still not in the valley itself with no clear trail. Then I thought I saw a trail but it was really small so I wasn't sure but I continued up until I was all the way down in the valley floor. By that time I had several scratch from thorny plants.

I was getting more and more skeptical about this trail and my skepticism was confirmed when I saw a big mean looking cow in front of me who didn't seem happy to see me. I had just been following a stupid cow trail. Approximately at this point it started raining, slowly at first then hard (I'm getting used to that raining pattern by now). I walked back up for like 20 minutes as it was really hard to walk up because there were no good grips. Once I managed to get to the top I was bleeding from a few places on the legs. Note to self: don't wear shorts when walking in the forest. By that point I decided to take some pictures of the valley since it was quite a cool sight even if I couldn't see the coffins from where I was. I realized at this point that my camera was not working. I could open the camera but as soon as I tried taking a picture it closed.

I was really pissed off at this point as I had just lost a lot of time, it was still raining and my camera had a problem so I just headed back to the Resthouse and took it easy for the rest of the day. I read the guidebook and planned the rest of my trip in the Philippines, now I'm pretty sure what I'll do after Sagada: Banaue, Batad, Kabayan, Lake Taal, Mt Mayon, a bit more of Manila and El Nido (Palawan). I also realized that I should've gone in the cemetary to go to Echo Valley and I planned to go there as soon as the roosters (I saw the evil animals around the village) woke me up the day after. I also planned to hike up to the viewpoint where you can see all of Sagada and its rice terrace if it's not too cloudy.

I figured the batteries were off for my camera so I went in the village and bought new ones for 25P. I went to the Resthouse's cafe and got some spaghetti which was fairly good. I really have a problem with going with the local food when good western food is available at the same and often lower price and I really get sick of rice if I eat it more than once a day.

I spent the rest of the evening reading the guidebook and went to bed early as Sagada is not the best place for wild nightlife, the streets are dead by 19:00 and there is basically a curfew at 21:00. I really like Sagada, it's my favorite place in the Philippines so far: laid back, charming, quiet and perfect temperature (around 23C).

Next is Banaue and Batad with their world-famous rice terrace, then Kabayan and mummies.

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Photos

Bontoc
From the bridge

Bontoc 2
From the bridge

Entrance of the cave
Scary

Cave 2
I know, it is a lame pose but I didn't know where to put my bag and the guide took the picture too fast.