Sagada

At 10 am Neil and I boarded an overnight bus headed to northern Luzon to a city called Banaue. Known as the ‘8th Wonder of the World’ for its ancient rice terraces, Banaue is one of the main tourist attractions of the Philippines. Fortunately, for once, we came well prepared for the 9 hour bus trip – with earplugs and sleeping pills. So that while I doubt anyone could say that a 9 hour overnight bus trip is enjoyable, we arrived at about 7.30 in the morning with sore butts and necks, but not too tired or overwhelmed by the trip.

As soon as we got off the bus there we heaps of touts, however our experience so far in the Philippines has been that people have generally been very helpful and willing to please. Like Denwil – we were keen to head straight of to another town called Sagada about 3 hours from Banaue and he was immensely helpful in providing information on how to get there. He took us in his tricycle down to the main town centre and then up to the Banaue view point for a great view of the surrounding rice terraces. It was beautiful and pretty overwhelming landscape to see these rice terraces carved into the mountainside.

Neil at the lookout point at the Banaue Rice Terraces

After a few photos, Neil spotted a jeepney coming up the hill which we flagged down to see if it could take us to a town called Bontoc where we could to take a jeepney or bus to Sagada. Fortunately it was taking a group of Filipinos from Manila straight to Sagada and was happy to take us along too for a decent price. So we stopped for some breakfast at the Banaue viewpoint before starting a really bumpy ride to Sagada over unpaved roads, but through beautiful mountain terrain.

Em and one of our Pilipino travel companions from Banaue to Sagada

We arrived in Sagada at about 1pm and booked into the Sagada Guesthouse in the middle of town. After a nice warm shower and a change of shirts we headed out for some lunch and a wonder around town. Sagada is not at all like your typical Pilipino town – there is little traffic, no rubbish or pollution, the houses are quite large with gardens that are well taken care of and are in more of a Spanish or European style. Plus it was chilly - for the first time since our arrival we wore jackets and long pants! After lunch it started drizzling, but manned with umbrellas we took a nice walk through the town, over to the large church and then through the cemetery to ‘Echo Valley’ to see the ‘hanging coffins’. It was pretty eyrie walking through a cemetery and then a wooded forest while it was overcast and rainy – it was almost like something out of a horror movie looking for ancient burial coffins in a limestone cliff face. The hanging coffins weren’t exactly what we were expecting, but it was pretty amazing that these ancient people were able to put these coffins so high up the cliff face.

Emily at St. Joseph's

Saturday morning we went to grab some breakfast at the Yogurt house. We’d been told that Sagada is well known for its yoghurt and carrot cake. So for breakfast I ordered a banana and yogurt pancake. It was pretty good. We then walked through the Saturday morning market where I bought a banana cake (carrots must not have been in season) for about 50c AU before heading to the Municipal Hall to register for some caving. It cost about $AUD10 to hire a guide which we thought would be a pretty good idea. The guide was Ariel and he told us to be prepared to get wet up to our waists. He lived and worked in Sagada and with his family he owned a couple of rice terraces, a small store and drove a jeepney between Sagada, Bagio and Manila. He was quite soft spoken, but was very friendly. It was an amazing walk through the small town on the way to the ‘Sumaging’ cave. There were more hanging coffins and rice terraces and the views out to the surrounding countryside and mountains was very picturesque.

I was a little freaked out as we started descending into the cave. It was pretty big, but it was really dark and we only really had a single gas lantern to light our way. I trusted our guide as he couldn’t even count the number of times he had been down the cave, but it was still a little scary all the same. After descending for about 10 minutes we heard and smelt the bats. After about another 15 – 20 minutes we came to the underground water. Here we took off our shoes as surprisingly we were able to grip the rock a lot better. And it was beautiful. The cave was cleaner obviously because of the water, the rocks were well warn into smooth artistic like shapes and the lamp reflected pinky earth tones. We descended further into the cave, crawling through small holes and eventually having to jump into a waist deep pool which of course Neil and I fell into. We waded through the chilly but refreshing water before coming tothe bottom of the cave. It was exhilerating and almost disappointing to be right at the bottom. All in all the climb through Sumaging Cave took about 2 hours.

Neil at Kings Curtain in Sumaging Cave


Emily, wet, at the bottom of Sumaging Cave

Soaking wet we walked back up to Sagada for a warm shower and some lunch. We then splurged with a Swedish massage from some local women we hadet at St. Josephs the night before. It was great, although Neil's hairy legs and chest didn't take too well to it. After the massage we went fora great walk through the small paths of the village which tookus past local houses and cottage gardens.- it was amazing to see how locals really live. Here they all really take care of their property and of the town a lot more than in other places we've seen - it's clean and very picturesque.

For dinner we went to a restaurant up the road called the Log Cabin for a buffet dinner. Not just ny old buffet dinner, but one prepared by a French chef. We ate mushroom soup, roast chicken, suteed zucchini and mushrooms, freshly baked bread, watercress and flourless chocolate cake for dessert. And of course a couple of bottles of red wine. We ate with an interesting couple- a man from the UK who had spent many years teaching in Peru, Colombia and now Singapore and his wife from Peru.

Neil at St. Joseph's

After a great time in Sagada, the next day we hopped back on the jeepney for the ride back to Banaue to see the rice terraces.

posted by batik billy @ 1:32 pm