awed in banaue

(an avid reader asked me very, very kindly to repost my recent trips to banaue, sagada and baguio in time for the long, hot summer ahead. so here it is.)

"seeing the beauty that is banaue up close convinced me that there is a benevolent, merciful god after all. the god of all things beautiful; of small, tiny creations." -- chinezza del bianco vda de duboise, channeling the first lady of the good and the beautiful, the one with a thousand pair of expensive shoes while her people, whom she confessed to love and take care, were  suffering, dying from hunger, tortured and killed. the one whose name should never be mentioned at all.

wanting to unshackle myself from the madness, paranoia and chaos that has become my life for the past few weeks, i hopped on a bus going to banaue, hoping for some peace and quiet.

i have been wanting to see this nth wonder of the world - the rice terraces - made a hundred years ago with bare hands, sans technology or modern science. if china has its great wall, the philippines has its rice terraces. chos!

the trip was a breeze - the bus left at ten in the evening in manille and arrived in banaue at seven in the morning. it was like waking up to paradise. i love.

for my first night, i stayed at the government-run, dilapidated and quite expensive banaue hotel, where a single room costs about two thousand six hundred plus a night (with free breakfast). it's a pity that the hotel, the biggest in the area, has been neglected. upon entering my room, an overpowering foul smell from body odour greeted me. i wanted to run away right away. but since i was on vacation, i focused on the positives instead of the negatives. the breakfast of longganisa, eggs (sunny side up) and fried rice was heaven. i missed this food.

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outside, it was glorious.

for one there's the scenery. straight out of national geographic. postcard perfect.

everywhere i looked, the lush mountains of greens greeted me, sometimes covered in mist like a shy young bride on her honeymoon night, and sometimes in a tight embrace with the blues of the skies. perfect, just perfect for a relaxing stroll and for a bit of meditation while walking.

even the hotel's swimming pool has an awesome view of the rice terraces and the mountains. depending on the weather, the hotel offers barbecue dinners at the pool area.

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aside from the (cliche alert) breathtaking view, the people are nice too. especially him (one of the local folks who made posing for tourists their day jobs), who agreed to be photographed without a huge talent fee and a retinue of pr and road managers. take that, hollywood celebrities. hahaha.

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getting around banaue is not a problem. i hired a tricycle for a few hours and the driver served as my tourist guide as well for only six hundred pesos. he showed me around the usual touristy places such as the ethnic village where you can rent a hut to sleep on for four hundred pesos a night, as well as a few secret ones (if i tell you, i will have to kill you).

my shy tourist guide - sixteen year old armand, is a senior high school student at a local school. he drives the tricyle to pay for his tuition. luvly!

armand is somewhere there in the hut, hiding from the camera. he looks lyk the young bong revilla - brown, a bit tall, well built (from farm work), chinito eyes, perfect white teeth and macho pero malambing voice. perfuct for those lonely, cold nights in the mountains. double chos. but he is only sixteen - barely legal. so. just. be. contented. with. nature's. warm. embrace. and. some. luv.

ok, just kidding. here he is. from afar. in a military jacket, adding to his machismo.

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if you are expecting a quaint, old fashioned banaue (lyk the one you see on old, black and white photographs) where the men wear g-strings (bahag) and the women are topless, and the locals live on native huts made of cogon grass, wood and bamboo, you are so totally wrong. (well, some of them still do).

banaue is now a modern village with concrete houses, internet cafes and wifi connections. they even have a bar called friends, where a band (three young guys) plays country and folk.

to preserve the serenity of the place, the band plays only up to nine in the evening and the bar closes at ten. beer, usually red horse and san miguel pale pilsen, costs fifty pesos a bottle. so late nyt owls lyk me ended up drinking more san miguels at the hotel.

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if the banaue hotel is not your thing (frankly it's too pricey), there are smaller and well-maintained inns such as sanafe lodge and uyami's that offer a small room with its own toilet and bath, hot shower and wifi for eight hundred to nine hundred pesos a night.  if you find that a bit expensive, these inns have dorm rooms for three hundred to four hundred pesos a night, but you have to share it with other weary travelers and you have to use the common bathroom and toilet (not my thing).

the restaurant at sanafe lodge, by the way, has a perfect view of the mountains and the rice terraces. but food is not cheap. one meal costs around one hundred fifty pesos. brewed coffee forty pesos. bottled water (small one) is twenty five pesos.

but as i said, the view from their terrace cafe is luvly.

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communicating is not a problem. most locals are fluent in filipino and english (especially the older folks. don't ask me why, please. use google). they are also very friendly, even the drunk ones that i met at the friends bar. they luv to sing along with the band and dance to the beat.

if you are worried about getting lost, there is a tourism office at the market place that will give you some advice on where to go and what to do. they will tell you to also visit batad (a thirty minute ride from banaue) where the mountainous vistas and rice terraces are even better than banaue. it is advised to always hire a tourist guide in going to batad. it's not that expensive (around six hundred pesos).

as for the famed cold weather - it's only at night. during day time, it's as hot as manille in the summer. but at around four in the afternoon, the air turns chilly. locals say it gets really cold in january. in fact, there are no electric fans and aircons in the hotel rooms or inns.

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after two nights in baanue, i headed to sagada via bontoc via a jeepney. but the jeepneys are very few and  you have to wait until there are at least ten passengers before it leaves. it took us three hours before we were able to leave banaue. in fact, the waiting is the only thing that spoiled the otherwise awesome journey. the jeepney ride costs around two hundred twenty pesos and it's about three hours from banaue. from  bontoc, i took another half an hour jeepney ride to sagada where the fare is about forty five pesos.

with me inside the jeep to bontoc were a couple from france and their two year old daughter, two good looking yuppies from new york and a cute business management exchange student in korea who is from germany seated at the front with the driver. they were all hopping around asia - thailand, indonesia, combodia, india, vietnam.
there were two other passengers, both filipinas, who chose to ride on top of the jeepney with the cargoes so they could take better pictures of the mountains. how brave!

the luvly fiona, who was playing with me all the way to bontoc (until she met some new friends). her mother said fiona started backpacking with her parents when she was only ten months old. fiona has probably been to more places around the world than i am at her age - she has been to indonesia, malaysia, cambodia, thailand, laos, india. after sagada, the family is going to palawan for the beach experience and god knows where else.

along the way, as the jeepney picked up more passengers, fiona found new friends and totally ignored me. now i know how it feels to be rejected by a girl in exchange for a younger, better looking boy.

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ohayami bus travels to banaue from manila every night at ten ( the station is at corner fajardo street and lacson avenue in sampaloc). pls bring thick blankets and jackets because the ten-hour bus ride is freezing. even tourists from europe who are used to the wintry weather have complained about the air con. that just goes to show you how cool the people from banaue are.

(for the first part of the sagada trip, pls click here; for the second part, click here; finally, for the baguio adventure, pls click here.)