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November 13 Banaue, Ifugao, PhilippinesThe rice terraces of Banaue are an engineering marvel in which have awed many who have had the privilege of seeing it. These "steps" built into the mountains are breathtaking and beautiful, but they serve a purpose. The indigenous people of the mountains who call themselves IFUGAO (ee foo gow) constructed these terraces with nothing but basic tools and bare hands. They are the only way in which these people can cultivate the land and produce the much needed rice to feed themselves. It was an ingenious way of solving a nearly impossible problem: "How do you grow rice in a mountainous area with no flood plain?" The naturally descending water from the mountain uses gravity to feed one terrace into the next and so forth. Fill these terraces with rich soil and you have a perfect place to plant rice!
It took us 8 hours to travel from Manila to Banaue. The last hour and a half through mountainous roads that made West Virginia roads look like a Sunday drive through suburbia. Although it was paved the whole way, there were several places along the road that there wasn't much to keep you from going over a cliff, and there were also locations in which you could see that mud and landslides had been cleared. We were four-wheeling in our SUV at one point to get over a landslide that hadn't been cleared yet. Now add this to the fact that Olivia kept telling our driver she had to pee. So he kept driving faster...I almost wanted to tell her to pee in her pants, because I'm getting ready to do so anyways with the way we're speeding around these curves.
I arrived in Banaue shaken but intact, Olivia got to pee and we checked in to our room at the Banaue Hotel. An establishment subsidized by the Philippine Tourism Authority. The rooms were clean albeit no TV or air conditioning, not such a big problem because in the mountains it doesn't get very hot and I can live without television on a trip like this. That night, they had a cultural show put on by some indigenous Ifugaos in which they dressed in their traditional clothing, danced native dances and sang Ifugao songs from long ago. At the end they asked the guests to join them in their dancing and yes...I obliged...to Olivia's amusement.
Pictures from Banaue (click pictures for larger images): Batad, Banaue, Ifugao, PhilippinesThe best view of the rice terraces are in a little village East of Banaue called Batad. The only way to get to this little village is on foot. You can pay to have a jeepney take you all the way to the crest of the mountain to a place called "the saddle" where all you have to do is walk downhill on the foot trail. The other option is you can go the cheap route and have them take to you "the junction" by either jeepney or tricycle. This cheaper version however, means you have to hike the entire 3 miles up to "the saddle" and then another 3 miles down the foot trail. Unfortunately, we chose the cheaper option.
Our other mistake is that we started our hike too late in the day. It was 10:30am and the sun was already up and relentless in its ability to generate heat. The hike up the MOUNTAIN was a torturous, long, exhausting ordeal but we somehow accomplished it and began our trek into the village down the foot trail. You have to be very sure of your footing on this trail because it's full of rocks and slippery places. Some locations could put you down a very fatal fall down a cliff.
As we neared the village, there were several resting stations where Ifugaos were selling drinks and hand-crafted souvenirs. We met up with on Ifugao gentleman named Vicente who offered to be our guide in Batad. I bought a souvenir from his cousin and agreed to let him be our guide in the village. He walked us into Batad and we finally arrived at a point overlooking the terraces. The view was breathtaking. Pictures simply do not do it justice.
After resting a couple of hours, we met up with Vicente and he took us into the center of the village by climbing down countless stairs. These aren't stairs like we know them...they are rocks jutting out from the terraces in strategic locations and you really have to be careful and the whole thing was very stressfull because you didn't want to fall. We met his mother halfway down -- a 100 year old Ifugao woman with a stoop and native tatoos on her arms. We couldn't believe that she has been climbing these terraces for almost 100 years!
When we were at the bottom and into the village proper, we witnessed something I have never even heard of in my 34 years on this planet. They were conducting a funeral/wake for a dead village woman and she was propped in the sitting position on a chair in the middle of a Ifugao hut. There were mourners and fellow villagers singing Ifugao religious chants and waving their arms to the sky. It was like something out of National Geographic.
Vicente took us up and down the terraces in an arduous tour of up and down steps in the heat of day. He offered to take us around to the waterfalls but we were admittedly beat. So instead, we headed back to the Hillside Inn where we had secured a room to stay overnight. Yeah, room that's about it. We're talking about a plywood-wall rectangular room with a bed equipped with one foam mattress. Luckily, electricity had been discovered in Batad last year and at least we had one overhead light.
We spent the night and somehow I was able to get at least some sleep, although I wouldn't exactly call it a peaceful rest. One of our neighbors in the adjoining room freaked-out in the middle of the night because on the way to the rest room our flashlight seeped through into his room and he saw light shadows. He screamed, "GHOST! ARGHHH! WHO IS THIS? GET OUT OF HERE!!!" Hahahaha we didn't know whether to laugh or feel sorry for the guy.
The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn and started the long hike up the foot trail back to the junction. This trip wasn't so bad because it was early morning and the sun wasn't strong. During my time in Batad I couldn't wait to get out of there, but I can say that I will never forget the experience, and I am glad that I have experienced what few people on the Earth have seen.
Pictures From Batad (Click pictures to see larger images): Lingayen, Pangasinan, PhilippinesLingayen is the capital of the province of Pangasinan...although you wouldn't guess it from its size and character. There are two larger cities within the province; Dagupan and San Carlos. However, Lingayen has a rich history which has links to the United States. During the American colonial period, in which the United States had acquired the Philippine Islands from Spain after the Spanish-American War, Lingayen Beach was the site of American landings by General Lloyd Wheaton on the 7 of November 1898 to cut-off and pursue the rebel Filipino General Emilio Aguinaldo. But more widely known of course is the World War II battle of Lingayen Gulf and the subsequent landings by General Douglas MacArthur in his final push to eliminate and destroy the Japanese invaders in his famous return to the Philippines.
Olivia grew up in a small barangay (neighborhood) within Lingayen called Libsong and her parents and many of her family still live in the same neighborhood. Being so close to the sea, Lingayen's largest product is seafood and many families own fish ponds. Olivia's family still owns several of these fish ponds and they use them both for food and to sell to others. Usually it's rather breezy in this part of the country because of the proximity to the ocean...but for some reason it stayed hot and humid while we were there. Go figure.
Here are some pictures from Lingayen (click the pictures to view larger images): Philippines 2005This was my second trip to the Philippines. Although my first trip's purpose was mostly to meet my then fiance's family for the first time, I also spent a lot of time touring the country. I visited the Spanish Intramuros, Corregidor Island, Taal Volcano, Baguio City, Bohol Island, and Lingayen. The only place I thought I wanted to see that I didn't get to see was the world's famous Rice Terraces of Banaue. Unfortunately it's a time consuming process to do anything in the Philippines and Banaue is one of those things that takes longer than even the normal headache. So I ran out of time during the first trip and made sure I got to do it this time around.
Olivia and I spent the first week mostly in her home town of Lingayen which is on the north-western tip of the main island of Luzon in the province of Pangasinan. Life in the provinces is a much slower pace than in the capital, Manila. Manila is a traffic-choked, polluted, dirty, littered city with some of the poorest neighborhoods you could ever imagine. You can smell the pollution when you get off the plane...it's so thick it usually gives foreigners a sore throat for the first week or so. On the other hand, there are parts of the city that cater to foreigners and bussinesses such as the Makati and Ortigas districts. These sections are much cleaner and the malls and hotels are comparable to some of the best in the world. But you can never get around the traffic and congestion. One thing to know is that doing routine things we take for granted here like going out for a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread will take you nearly half the day in Manila. If you are an American, this is something that is hard to adjust to.
Enough about the big city... now on to Lingayen. It's a 5 hour drive from the capital to Lingayen...a portion of that drive is on what could be comparable here to a highway. But there's only one true highway in the Philippines and it's not complete. So the rest of the drive is on what we would call a state road: one lane each direction. This causes delays in itself because of Jeepneys, Tricycles, Buses and farm vehicles.
Jeepneys are mass transit vehicles built based on American World War II Jeeps. The Filipinos started extending the length of the jeeps to carry more passengers to its current size which can carry like up to 15 people in the back, with two people standing on the rails in the back. They perform loop services to provincial towns with the name of the destinations painted on the side. A passenger only needs to board the vehicle from the rear and pay the driver by passing his money up to the driver. Each Jeepney is a reflection of its owner...they like to paint them in bright colors and designs and each one is unique. It's a staple of Filipino culture and a tourist attraction all to themselves.
Tricycles are mopeds and motorcycles with a side-car. These are designed for transport to smaller distances such as from one neighborhood (barangay) to the next within a town. Or from a main road into a barangay to the front door of your house. It's amazing how many Filipinos can fit inside these things when they need to. Plus they have luggage racks on top of and behind the sidecar for baggage!
Here are some pictures of Jeepneys, Tricycles and typical roads within the provinces away from Manila (click on the photos to see larger images): |
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