What we covered after that...

Mindoro Island...we celebrated New year 2009 there! The island was beautiful, as everything Philippines naturally is,...to get there, we had to take a ferry from Batanggas.

The view from our little cottage =)

Virile Vigan

I arrived in Vigan after the most exhausting non-stop bus ride,...6-7 hours from Banaue to Bagio, then another 4-5 hours from Bagiu to Vigan. Yes,...after the hike, no-shower, smelly sticky me!! We arrived around 12 pm, it was beautiful and sunny. To me Vigan was a very HOT DRY place,...with a little Spanish sense in some streets.

We found 'that' 2 rows of cobbled streets and old beautifully preserved shops selling all the touristy souveniers you can think of! Horses with carriages roaming the streets,...I honestly felt back-in time when women wore long dresses and gloves and the men wore those long tail hats...ahh those were the era I would have loved to revisit again!

It was along these streets we enjoyed fresh strawberries, walked among antiques and even managed to leave our "lonelyplanet" bible while trying on those stylish "jason mraz" styled hats! Thank god, it was still on the display table when we were retracing our steps.

Of course, we couldn't resist doing the thing people do when in Vigan...get a carriage ride (okay, now im beginning to sound cheesy..)

It was a Sunday, so we made a little church stop in Vigan...of course, I couldnt understand anything, it was in Tagalog...but hey, I tried =)

Beautiful Batad

26th December 2008-On our way back from Tinglayan to Bontoc, the jeepney broke down. I'm sure you can probrably guess the reason. It looks like the engine couldn't carry this amount of overload... We had to take another jeepney to Banaue, just don't sit on it because the trip takes you through several mountains and it was freezing cold and raining! This time, just sit inside the jeepney, even the locals do!

It took 3 hours, and another hour in this small tricyle to get to Batad. Can you imagine me, Jeff and Frank inside this small vehicle?

The guy dropped us at the main road into Batad, and from there it was another 2 hours to get inside by foot!

Batad definitely was a world of its own. The whole mountain was constructed into rice terraces. It was like looking at the stairway to heaven...

27th December 2008- On our way out, we decided to try another route, which took us through more mountains and between some padi fields. We learnt to walk like the locals do!

It took approximately 3 and a half hours of amazing stunning views of the Jewel of Phillipines to get back to the main road and another jeepney ride back to Banaue.

Tiring Tinglayan

24th December - We found a bus that heads to rugged Tinglayan of Kalinga Province. It takes 2 hours to get there as the ONE lane national road was as narrow as you can see. We sat ON the bus (it became a norm already...sitting inside just wasn't an option with the situation of the uncomfortable windy bumpy road!). As usual, the views we got were amazing...

Around Tinglayan across the river were a couple of villages in between padi fields. We ventured into the villages and found that people were amazingly friendly and welcoming. Every time we passed a house, we were always invited for coffee! What I loved most was that with the very little that everyone had to live on and how simple life was there, they were the happiest, most satisfied people I have met!

25th December 2008 - At 8 am we started our trekking plans. Not 10 minutes away from Tinglayan, we were invited for christmas breakfast with this family! I had my taste of sweet sticky rice (yummy!) and some macaroni with fruit and mayo salad. The guys had wedding proposals from the head of the family! =)

An hour and a half into our walk, we came upon another christmas celebration...this time it was "merrier"! Vodka shots anyone?

Two and a half hours into the walk, we started climbing hills...

4 hours later, came upon our first village in the mountains

The kids would cheerfully ask for sweets and the older ladies would wonder if we had matches as they needed it to light their pipe! (If you happen to be there, bring loads of it....unfortunate for us, we loss 12 boxes while on the bumpy bus ride...see, it was so bumpy things fall off the bus!) The men of the village would be making knives and machetes and the women would be tending to the babies or the laundry.

In between every village the rice padi fields acts as a boundary. Yes, you have to walk through the field...I slipped a couple of times into the pool of mud!

This was 7 hours into our walk and we finally spotted our third village high up in the clouds, on the next bloody mountain! I was starving, muddy-ied and ready to collapse! Luckily for us, due to the lack of signboards (there really wasn't any) we managed to get lost while trying to follow the electric power poles and had to ask a lone villager we luckily spotted working his rice field for direction! She must've seen how dead I was and offered some sticky rice to eat! Until today, I don't think I would have survived the last leg of the hike if it wasn't for the rice! May God bless her good heart...

We were finally on the main road back to Tinglayan by 5pm, but had another hour and a half before we reached town...in the dark as there were no street lights and it didn't help that the roads were pot holed every few meters...but guess what? I survived!!!(and was in bed by 9pm that night =) )

Total hours of walking - 11 hours

Total distance - 33 km (approx)

Total experience - priceless, gorgeous and was the best christmas ever! (no, I am Not being sarcastic here!)

Bontoc

23rd Dec 2008 - We arrived in Bontoc around 2pm after a 2 hours plus bumpy jeepney ride from Sagada...I miss it already! Bontoc is busier and bigger than Sagada but it lacks personality. All i see are rows of shops and lines of buses / jeepneys. This town reminds me of a big bus station.

We decided to check out some stone walled rice terraces of Maligcong. Looking for the jeepney to Maligcong was a pain as there are no signboards. You just "have to know". It seems all the jeepneys/buses in Bontoc are situated either north/south/east/west point from the main street. Like I said, one big big bus station.

We found our jeepney, and had to wait a half hour until the jeepney was full before the driver arrived. When i say full, i mean literally overflowing to the point there were up to 6 passengers on the jeepney roof, 8 of us inside, 3 in front, 2 standing at the back!

The ride took a whole hour, and in all the 'bumpiness' of the ride, one of the passenger fell off from the roof! The driver wasn't aware till we kinda yelled for him to stop!! He then reversed the jeepney and we panicked for fear of him driving over the poor guy!

The poor man who fell off was still laying on the ground when we got to him. He sustained a bit of a scalp wound and some lacerations on his arm, but other than that he refused to get to the hospital! We were just happy that he was still walking and breathing...

We finally reached Maligcong...the rice terraces were quite a sight...even if they were already harvested and appeared to look like multilayered swimming pools...

When in Sagada

1. Hike up to Kiltepan tower for this amazing view of Sagada

2. Explore echo valley, and wade through a forest of sunflowers and mud...

3. Accidently find Latang cave and wade through a stream to come out the other end of it!

4. Take a jeepney to next destination - Bontoc!