Northern Luzon
1 - 10 June 2009
It's been a while since the last blog entry, I know. We've been on the move around the Philippines (that is the correct spelling) flat chat. I'll limit this entry to our travels in the North.
Our first few hours in Clark and Dau bus station were bewildering to say the least. They drive these brightly painted jeepneys everywhere as minibuses. The traffic 
was appalling and it doesn't help that they all use their horns to express their feelings toward the traffic.
was appalling and it doesn't help that they all use their horns to express their feelings toward the traffic.We overnighted in Baguio where our first meal was spaghetti with pesto (very Filipino!) and then snaked our way up into the mountains to Sagada. The weather at the moment is quite wet, being wet season. Spectacular scenery, check out the piccies!
Here's a photo of me shitting 
my pants climbing through a slippery limestone cave, coated with a film of bat poo at times. Joking aside, it was the best day trip ever! You could never do a trip like this in Australia without signing a mountain of disclaimers first. Some of it was genuinely dangerous. The guide did the whole 3-4 hour caving walk/slide/crawl/wade/rappel/climb with one arm holding the rope or rock and the other hand 
holding a big-ass lantern on his 
shoulder, and all the while he was telling us like a Twister spinner to put our left foot here, our right hand here and even at times acting as a stepladder for our clumsy selves.
my pants climbing through a slippery limestone cave, coated with a film of bat poo at times. Joking aside, it was the best day trip ever! You could never do a trip like this in Australia without signing a mountain of disclaimers first. Some of it was genuinely dangerous. The guide did the whole 3-4 hour caving walk/slide/crawl/wade/rappel/climb with one arm holding the rope or rock and the other hand 
holding a big-ass lantern on his 
shoulder, and all the while he was telling us like a Twister spinner to put our left foot here, our right hand here and even at times acting as a stepladder for our clumsy selves.We went to the town of Banaue (pronounced banner-way), where the blue-ribbon scenery began. 
These rice terraces are 2000 years ol
d i
n some cases. The real stunners were a few hours hike away in Batad (pronounced 
bat-ad). This little village has no road, only a foot trail to get any supplies in. You could really appreciate the isolation. Our 
hotel room only cost a few dollars and it was the best view of any so far. We walked in with some friends we met in Banaue, Michael and Gisele, and together we walked down a very steep set of steps and through some rice terraces to an amazing waterfall where we swam for a while. All the recent rain made it a real gusher. Then we climbed back up and had pizza and beer for dinner. I wonder what the peasants are doing, eh Dad?!
These rice terraces are 2000 years ol
d i
n some cases. The real stunners were a few hours hike away in Batad (pronounced 
bat-ad). This little village has no road, only a foot trail to get any supplies in. You could really appreciate the isolation. Our 
hotel room only cost a few dollars and it was the best view of any so far. We walked in with some friends we met in Banaue, Michael and Gisele, and together we walked down a very steep set of steps and through some rice terraces to an amazing waterfall where we swam for a while. All the recent rain made it a real gusher. Then we climbed back up and had pizza and beer for dinner. I wonder what the peasants are doing, eh Dad?!A couple of days later we headed down to the megopolis of Manila. You couldn't have imagined a bigger contrast between Batad and Manila. The first, with no cars, not even a road, and a population of only 1 or 2 thousand depending on who you asked. The second, one of the world's biggest traffic jams, plenty of roads, even 3 train lines, and over 10 million people. 
We hardly slept on the overnight bus on the way, mainly thanks to the bus breaking down at 3am and having to change onto different ones, but we soldiered on without crashing on our hotel beds and saw some of the sights Manila offered. There is the old Spanish-styled suburb of Intramuros with a big stone wall and some old churches and buildings surrounded in a beautifully manicured golf course. We ate handsomely for very little (they have a lot of pork here, a contrast from the mainly Muslim Malaysian Borneo). We sipped a martini
from the 28th floor of a fancy hotel at sunset. It was nice enough, but I missed the mountains a little.
We hardly slept on the overnight bus on the way, mainly thanks to the bus breaking down at 3am and having to change onto different ones, but we soldiered on without crashing on our hotel beds and saw some of the sights Manila offered. There is the old Spanish-styled suburb of Intramuros with a big stone wall and some old churches and buildings surrounded in a beautifully manicured golf course. We ate handsomely for very little (they have a lot of pork here, a contrast from the mainly Muslim Malaysian Borneo). We sipped a martini
from the 28th floor of a fancy hotel at sunset. It was nice enough, but I missed the mountains a little.The next day we headed to Cebu in the south of the Fyllipeens for some beach time...
Hey Taren, good to see the Filipinos like to pimp up their trucks in a similar way to the Pakistanis - nice bit of truck love. The caves look pretty cool too. Was there any natural light in there or did you have to rely on the lanterns?
ReplyDeleteHi guys, it's interesting to read about the Philippines as I know pretty much nothing about it. I have this idea in my head though that it is very religious (catholic?). I know, I could look it up on Wikipedia but it would be way more fun to hear about it from you intrepid travellers...
ReplyDeletekeep the posts coming, i'm enjoying travelling with you!
steph xx
Hey Tony, no natural light at all - entirely reliant on the lantern, it was pretty exciting stuff. The guide (Raymond) said he had had one day training!!
ReplyDeleteHey Steph, the religion is strange actually Catholic but combined with all the indigenous religions as well. It didn't seem as overtly Catholic as Latin America but there were certainly a lot of churches.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the issues politically with The Philippines is that due to all the different languages, cultures and islands the various regions in The Philippines have little in common.
For example, people that live in Mindanao in the south speak a completely different dialect to those in The Visays just to the North therefore to communicate with each other they either battle with Tagalog or speak English (instead of Cebuano or erm it's a type of Spanish in Mindanao) :)
And don't forget the 5% who are Muslim...keeping Mindanao an interesting place ;)
ReplyDelete