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Week 45- Y3(Jan 13th to Jan 19th) |
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Sunday:
Another day of pouring rain. I thought this was
supposed to be dry season! Since it was pouring, we
couldn't really do any serious hiking (or rather we
weren't willing to). The other big thing to do in
Sagada is caving. Sagada is built on a bee hive of
caves. Normally you're supposed to take a guide with
you, as the caves can be quite dangerous if you don't
know what you're doing. We weren't really planning on
doing the whole thing, so we didn't bother getting a
guide. We walked about half an hour to Sumaging Cave,
which is also known as the Big Cave. This cave takes
about 3 hours to fully explore, but we just went into
the front of the cave to check it out. Next we went
to Lumiang Cave. We had to go down a steep and
difficult to find trail to get there. Right in the
front of the cave, there are stacks of old coffins--
apparently the native tribes of Sagada used to bury
their dead in the caves. They also have hanging
coffins that are suspended from the cliffs of
mountains-- you can actually see them from the roads!
After that, we drove out to this amazing little
village called Aguid, which is basically perched on
the side of a huge cliff. There's only one road going
in, and it stops before the actual village, so all the
villagers have to walk and climb to get to their
houses.
By this point, it had really started raining, so we
spent the rest of the day souvenir shopping. I saw
some beautiful woven stuff, and we also picked up some
homemade fruit wine.
For dinner, we had made reservations at a place called
Log Cabin. Sagada is kind of funny for food-- most
places require you to order your food several hours in
advance, as the ingredients are freshly bought
specifically for each dish. So we had ordered our
meals yesterday. When we got our food, I was amazed!
I had ordered baked eggplant with tomato sauce, and it
came out in a big casserole dish that could have
served 5 people. It was absolutely delicious, and
there was still tons left over for tomorrow's lunch!
When we were almost done dinner, something crazy
happened-- there was an earthquake!!! At first, I
couldn't figure out what was going on, and then
everyone started diving under the tables, so I
followed suite. Never having experienced an
earthquake before, I had no idea what was happening,
but apparently it was a 6, which is pretty strong.
Fortunately, there was no significant damage in
Sagada; just some broken dishes and wine bottles at
the restaurants. However, the epicentre was in Abra
Province just north of Sagada. Abra Province happens
to be the poorest province in the Philippines, and I'm
quite concerned about the amount of damage it did
there. I'm also pretty worried about the roads--
they're bad enough as it is, and they are most
definitely prone to landslides . . .
Ironically enough, the earthquake was good bonding
material for everyone in the restaurant! The group
sitting next to us in the restaurant were all working
on a story for the magazine that they work for in
Manila. We also finally met Dave-- starting from
Banaue, Bryant and I had seen this guy pretty much
everywhere we went. He was in the bar we went to in
Banaue. Then when we got to Sagada, we saw him in a
guest house that we were checking out. Then he was at
the Bamboo restaurant last night. Then we ended up
seeing him on the way to the caves today. And finally
tonight, he was also at Log Cabin for dinner! I
figured it was about time we introduced ourselves!
Dave is a British guy about my age who lived in
Australia for a year, and is now backpacking before he
heads back home to England. I'm excited to finally be
meeting some people. That's half the fun of
travelling for me, and I was starting to get worried
that we weren't going to meet anyone at all! It seems
that there aren't very many backpackers up north; way
less than I expected to find anyway. Tonight we used
the earthquake as an excuse to miss curfew and hang
out at the Log Cabin for a little bit. It turns out
that the "curfew" might be a myth . . .
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Monday:
Finally! No rain! And looking around this morning,
it really seems like nothing happened at all last
night. There's no evidence of earthquake damage
whatsoever. We started our day by meeting Dave for
breakfast at Yoghurt House, where I had the most
amazing natural yoghurt EVER (Sagada has consistently
amazing food). Since everything looked okay, today
became our hiking day. We got a guide at the tourist
office. Our guide, Marco, has lived in Sagada his
entire life, and he knows all the trails inside and
out. It was pretty funny, because he's obviously
really fit from hiking everywhere, but he's also a
terrible chain smoker, and even as we were hiking, he
was smoking the whole time! I also laughed a little
when I saw that he was wearing flip flops for the
hike. First we walked uphill to Kiltepan Lookout
Point. From here (ie the top of the mountain) you
can see panoramic views of rice terraces carved into
the side of a very very steep mountain. It's
beautiful. At least what we could see of it . . . we
had actually gone up here yesterday, but it was so
foggy that we couldn't see a damn thing. It was
pretty foggy today too, but my luck suddenly changed,
and it turned into the most beautiful, clear day ever!
Gorgeous! From Kiltepan, Marco led us back down into
the valley, and down a very steep and muddy trail to
Bokkong Waterfalls. This is a pretty little waterfall
with a deep swimming hole that's really popular with
the students around Sagada. In fact, we saw several
high schoolers who were evidently skipping school to
go swimming instead! After we refreshed ourselves a
little, we climbed back up the steep path, and walked
through the church graveyard to get to Echo Valley.
Echo Valley has tons of intersecting paths surrounded
by sharp limestone cliffs. It's beautiful, and can be
dangerous without a guide! Marco led us to a spot
where we could see a bunch of hanging coffins
suspended from the side of the cliffs. Having a guide
ended up being really useful from a historical point
of view-- we learned that the coffins were suspended
so that the spirits of the bodies could be free and
enjoy lots of light and openness. Cave burial is
usually used for those who have met an untimely or
unnatural death, so that their souls can't wander and
cause trouble for others.
Sagadans (or Igorots, as their tribe is called) have
an unusual mixture of Christianity and traditional
religious beliefs and rituals. In fact, Marco told us
that the first Igorots moved to this area in order to
excape being Christianized by the Spanish. They
evaded the Spanish, but they didn't evade the
Americans. However, the Americans brought medicine
and building materials, so the Igorots accepted the
American missionaries, as they needed the help.
Ironically enough, during World War 2, the Americans
bombed the town church that they had built themselves,
because they thought that it was occupied by Japanese.
It wasn't. The Sagadans were having their annual
town festival.
All in all, our hike took about 3 hours, and was
actually pretty easy! No broken bones this time . . .
I still had a lot of energy, and the weather was
absolutely beautiful, so Bryant and I walked back over
to the church to take some pictures and explore a
little bit more. The church was rebuilt after the
war, and every last part of it was made by man labour,
no machines at all. Even the bricks were chiselled by
hand. It's such a different way of life up here!
Behind the church, we found another pathway that took
us by the high school and down a little hill, and
coincidentally back to our guesthouse; where we spent
the rest of the afternoon chilling out on the top
floor deck reading. I must the only person in the
world who can get a sunburn in the mountains . . . and
yet, I'm extremely pink, even having put on loads of
sunscreen several times today.
For dinner, we went back to Bamboo Cafe. I'm a little
disappointed to find that there are not very many
young tourists up here. In fact, it's mostly old
white men, who I suspect are only here for the
Filipina women. I know it's not fair to make
assumptions, but these stereotypes exist for a reason
. . . once again, I was the only female in the bar,
and none too happy with the attention from creepy old
lonely men.
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Tuesday:
Off to Vigan today! Once again, we got up extremely
early, as we weren't sure what to expect with the road
conditions, and I didn't want to be doing any of the
drive during the dark. At least today was beautiful
and sunny, so we didn't have any real weather
concerns. As we were driving down the giant mountain
that Sagada is perched on top of, I saw the strangest
and most incredible thing-- we were higher than the
clouds! It was almost like what you see from an
airplane window, but with the mountains peaking out
from over top, and so close you feel like you can
touch them. It was almost surreal.
The fun stopped there though-- this time it was 5
straight hours of awful awful roads all the way to the
coast, with nowhere to stop at all. Again, narrow
dirt roads on the side of really steep mountains--
beautiful scenery, but I was sure hoping that Bryant
wasn't checking any of it out while we were driving!
When we got to the little town of Cervantes, we
actually had to cross a river with the truck! The
bridge isn't finished yet, so the construction worker
guided us through the shallow part of the river to get
to the other side. It's so shocking to me how remote
and untouched most of the Philippines is. It's hard
to believe that I'm still on the same planet as
Manila, much less the same island! It's quite amazing
how absolutely pristine everything is though. I hope
that it stays this remote, and I hope that Sagada
remains difficult to get to, so that tourists don't
start pouring in and ruining it's natural beauty.
In any case, once we got to the coast, it was smooth
sailing on a paved (and flat road). There was a
church I had read about in a town called Santa Maria,
so I asked Bryant if we could make a stopover on our
way to Vigan. Santa Maria is a gorgeous little town
with mountains on one side, and the ocean on the
other. All the houses are pastel and cheerful, and
you can really see a Spanish influence still. Santa
Maria Church is this huge Baroque church that was
actually used as a fortress during the Philippine
Revolution. It's beautiful. And what made it even
nicer was the fact that we were the only ones in the
church. Definitely worth the stopover.
After that, it was an hour into Vigan, which shocked
us with it's tricycle traffic! Vigan was a Spanish
colonial town that has preserved all of its old
architecture, so it's a very beautiful and interesting
town to explore. Here, people still get around on
kalesas (horse-drawn carriages). Or so we thought . .
. there really were a lot of tricycles (motorcycles
with sidecars), and the streets are confusing zig
zags. It took us awhile, but we finally found the
tourist centre, and we left the car there while we
hunted for a hostel (it's MUCH easier to get around
Vigan on foot, trust me!). We ended up staying at a
place called the Vigan Hotel. I guess we were kind of
spoiled by Sagada (paying the equivalent of $4 a night
for a nice clean place), because the cheapest we could
get was about $6 a night for a shared bathroom and an
ugly room. Ah well. Compared to the places we stayed
in Thailand last year, this is heavenly!
By this point, I was raring to go, trying to chase the
sunlight so that I could get as many good shots while
I still had good light. But of course, I have to
factor in Filipino time . . . in any case, it took
awhile, but I finally got Bryant up and about. Vigan
is really pretty! We visited the two town plazas,
which were bustling with activity, and the old
cathedral, which was filled with people praying, and
then we just wandered around the streets for a couple
of hours. The houses (mostly private homes) are an
interesting mixture of Filipino, Chinese and Spanish
architecture. There's some interesting detailing, for
example most of the windows are made from capiz
shells, because they're less likely to break during
typhoons. Many of these old buildings have been left
in kind of a crumbling state, which adds even more to
their charm. I like seeing things that are a little
dilapidated as opposed to freshly restored to "look"
like the old style. When we lost the light, we
stopped for dinner at this great little restaurant
called Cafe Leona. They set up tables right on the
cobblestone at night, and from here, you're not only
surrounded by beautiful old houses, but you can even
see the town plaza and the church. I had tanguigui
fish, which is a Filipino specialty. It's a very
meaty white fish, almost like eating chicken. I'm
absolutely loving all the fresh fish and seafood here!
After dinner, we got some ice cream, and just enjoyed
walking around Vigan in the lamplight.
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Wednesday:
Once again, we were up early and ready to go, but as
it turns out, this time we were too early! Nothing
was open yet . . . So we waited around a little bit,
and finally at 9am, the Crisologo Museum opened. The
Crisologos are a very prominent and powerful family of
politicians in the Philippines, and this was their
family home. It's run by the widowed wife of one of
the Crisologos, and the upstairs rooms have been
preserved as they were-- you can even look through the
old clothes in the closets! In these houses, the main
floor was only for storage, parking, etc, whereas the
upper floor contains the dining room, the living rooms
and all the bedrooms. It was interesting to check
out, and since we were the only people there, the
woman kind of gave us a personal tour. After that we
went up to the town plaza again--in the plaza there
are some street stalls that are renowned for their
empanadas, and their okoy (kind of a deep-fried shrimp
omelette). Sounds like a good breakfast and lunch to
me . . . however, a little greasy.
I was ready to get to Baguio by this point (once
again, I didn't want to arrive in the dark and not be
able to sightsee), but Bryant insisted on getting the
truck washed first, which ended up taking an hour and
a half! Aggh, Filipino time is making me crazy!
Anyway, at least the road to Baguio is paved . . . and
so we left the coast to head back up into the
mountains one last time. Once we got in Baguio, we
were bombarded with insane traffic and crazy roads
that don't seem to make any sense at all. In fact,
Baguio to me looks like Manila, except with a mountain
backdrop. (Apparently 10 years ago, Baguio was like
Sagada-- remote, peaceful, clean. And then they paved
a road.) It took a long time to find a guesthouse--
the first few places we checked were incredibly
sketchy. We finally ended up at the Red Lion Inn,
which, again, was more expensive and less clean than
Sagada. Red Lion Inn is built down the side of a
hill, so from the front it appears to be one storey,
but it actually goes down 4 levels. The top level is
a pub that is apparently very very popular with old
white guys. From what I gather, many of them have
retired here? In any case, a little scuzzy.
By this point, it was dark, so there wasn't much we
could really do. I settled for a walk around Burnham
Park, which has a little boating lagoon in the middle
of the city. Then we walked along Session Road, which
is the main street, in search of a decent meal. We
ended up at a Korean restaurant. There are loads of
Koreans in the Philippines, and there's Korean signage
everywhere! After that, we walked back to the Red
Lion and had a few drinks at the pub, then went to
bed. Or tried to, at least-- the pub was going ALL
NIGHT! And since it's the top floor of the building,
we could basically hear everything. So far, Baguio
isn't winning any charm points with me |
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Thursday (Jan 17):
Boo to videoke! There were people singing all night
long at Red Lion, so needless to say, there wasn't a
whole lot of sleep last night. At least there's free
breakfast to make up for it . . . the typical Filipino
breakfast consists of a fried egg, rice and either
sausage, corned beef, ham or bangus fish-- sounds kind
of like lunch, right? It's good though!
After breakfast, we proceeded on foot to walk to
Baguio Cathedral. I'm not sure how old it is, but
it's quite the landmark in Baguio. What I find
interesting about it is that it's pink! I've never
seen a pink cathedral before . . . as I've mentioned
before, Filipinos are deeply religious, and even on a
Thursday morning, the church was quite full, so I
didn't feel comfortable going inside to take pictures.
After visiting the Baguio Cathedral, Bryant and I were
looking for the Buddhist Temple, but we couldn't find
it-- Baguio is an absolute maze, and I imagine that
finding anything here is difficult! So we ended up
doing a loop around the downtown core and walking back
to the Red Lion. Baguio is such an (unwelcome) change
from Sagada-- it's dirty, loud, busy. It's like
Manila, but lacking in character. I find it hard to
believe that Manilans want to come up HERE to escape
the city grind.
Having checked out, we did a little bit of a driving
tour of Baguio. The first stop was Camp John Hay,
which used to be an American military base, and is now
basically a giant golf course and country club. It's
pretty, but not particularly interesting. (Its one
redeeming quality is that there is a Starbucks here,
and I've grown very tired of instant coffee over the
past week!) Next we drove just north of Baguio to the
Bell Church, which is heavily Chinese influenced, with
lots of pagoda buildings and dragons. The Bell Church
was originally a Taoist shrine, then it became
Christianized, and now it actually practises a fusion
of Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism!
There is a very strong Chinese influence still evident
in Filipino culture, as China was one of the
Philippines' 1st trading partners, even before Spain
arrived to take over. In fact, usually the Chinese
descendants were the upper, wealthier class.
Next, we searched for and finally found the Tam-Awan,
quite-aways out of town. Tam-Awan Village is an
artists' village made up of many different traditional
Ifugao huts (you can even sleep in them!) There are
artists in residence to demonstrations, amazing mixed
media from local artists, and a cool gift shop with
all original art work! Very cool! Across from
Tam-Awan, there's a little gallery that Bryant and I
kind of wandered into. It ended up being amazing! It
was filled with beautiful wood and bronze sculptures.
Even better, the gallery was actually the artists'
home-- we walked in as they were finishing up lunch.
The artist, BenHur Villaneuva, and his son were
extremely friendly, and engaged us in interesting
conversation for about an hour. It was especially
good for Bryant, who as an amateur filmmaker, got a
lot of info from the Villaneuvas, who have also worked
on set production. In general, I find Filipinos
incredibly open and genuine and unpretentious. It
seems to be a genuinely happy country, despite some of
the incredible hardship Filipinos have endured. I'm
so impressed with how different it feels to talk to
locals here, as opposed to Thailand and Vietnam.
By this point, it was already 2pm, so we got in the
car and started the long drive back to Manila. On the
way, I couldn't help but giggling at some of the giant
billboard advertisements that tower along every
highway and street. My favourite one today: "We need
to talk"- God.
Back at Bryant's house, we had a simple family dinner
of fried chicken, shrimp, rice and veggies. I laughed
a little when Bryant's mom told us about how Mila,
their helper had quit while we were gone for the
week-- apparently Bryant's 2 little rambunctious
nephews were driving Mila absolutely crazy and she
couldn't take it anymore! Since it's almost unheard
of to have a maid where I come from, I found it
slightly amusing that the family was up in arms about
what to do without until a replacement came along. In
any case, I'm touched at how welcoming Bryant's family
has been, in particular his mother, who is absolutely
the sweetest woman in the world!
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Friday:
This morning, Bryant's dad drove us to the domestic
airport. We left so late, I was worrie we were going
to miss our boarding call, but as it turns out, our
flight was cancelled anyway, and so we got bumped to
an earlier flight. It's that whole laidback Filipino
time thing again . . . so at 10:30am, we boarded this
tiny little plane for Caticlan on Panay Island. The
plane was so little and old, I was like damn, is thing
even going to be able to take off? 45 minutes later,
we were in the tiniest airport I've ever seen,
basically just a room about the size of my living room
in Seoul. From there, we took a tricycle to the ferry
port, where we met Bong, a Boracay local who wanted to
show us around. I was immediately suspicious, having
been through this before in Cambodia and Vietnam--
they take you to places that give them a commision,
but you're not necessarily getting the good end of the
deal. However, Bryant took him with us anyway, much
to my dismay. From the port we took a ferry (and when
I say ferry, I mean a relatively flimsy boat that can
hold about 15 people) to tiny Boracay Island, also
known as PARADISE!!!!! (More about that later) With
Bong, we hopped on a tricycle, and Bong proceeded to
show us around various guesthouses along White Beach
(ie one of the most famous beaches in the world). I
was shocked, because Bong actually turned out to be
amazingly honest and genuine, and he really did get us
a good deal! We ended up booking our own little
cottage/nipa hut at St Vincents, for the cheapest
price on the island (I had done my research , so I
knew how much to expect). Our little hut is perfect!
Even after we had booked our room, Bong took us
around, and showed us the best places to change money,
the cheapest places to eat, and so on. I was
pleasantly surprised.
Now the whole time that Bong was taking us around, I
was having a hard time actually paying attention to
him, because . . . the beach was so stunningly
beautiful that I was having a hard time looking
anywhere else. White Beach is on the west side of
tiny Boracay Island, and stretches pretty much the
entire length of the island, which is about 9
kilometres of pure white sugar-spun sand, and clear
shimmiering turquoise waters, fringed with palm trees.
There's no giant hotels here, everything is under 3
stories, so there's nothing getting in the way of the
view. There's also the "Sand Path" which is a
pedestrian pathway that separates the restaurants and
hotels from the beach. Sigh. I'm in heaven. After
dumping our luggage, the first thing we did was hit
the beach. We camped out at Nigi Nigi, which is a
resort, but if you order a drink there, they'll let
you use their beach chairs, and they'll even give you
service on the beach. So with a mai tai in hand, I
lay on the beach in hopes of getting rid of my
glow-in-the-dark white legs! Then it was swimming,
swimming, swimming. I've never had so much fun
swimming in the ocean before! It's crystal clear,
shallow and the waves are incredibly gentle. It's
perfect.
We decided to have dinner at Nigi Nigi as well, and I
certainly took advantage of Happy Hour drink
specials-- where else can you get a cocktail for about
$1?! Most of the restaurants along the beach actually
set up their tables ON the beach just before sunset,
so you can actually eat your meal ON the beach while
watching a stunning sunset. Amazing! Afterwards, we
found a cool bar called Juice along the beach, with
happening music, and a later happy hour. There, we
met Fred and Bryan, 2 of the awesome and super
friendly bartenders who work at Juice. They were so
sweet, and they liked me so much that they ended up
giving us several free drinks. Unfortunately, I
realized too late that Bryant is not a good drinker!
He ended up getting drunk too fast (and I ended up
having to finish his drinks!). Since there was going
to be some pukage involved, I guided us back to our
hut, where he could at least barf in privacy. And
that was my first night in Boracay!
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Saturday:
I could definitely get used to this . . . my day
started around 8am, when I got up to walk along the
beach for an hour or so. It was peaceful and quiet.
After waking Bryant up, and eating a breakfast of
fresh mango and pineapple, we headed to D'Mall for a
little bit of shopping. D'Mall is kind of an open-air
shopping mall (Boracay has a big tourist population,
and as such, it's actually one of the more developed
islands, despite its tiny size). There's a lot of
tacky tourist junk, but there are also some good deals
to be had, and I got a nice sarong, and a pair of
little shorts.
We decided to rent a motorbike for the afternoon to
explore the island a little bit. Since Bryant's
driven a scooter before, I figured it would be okay,
but he didn't really know much about actual
motorbikes, which made me a little nervous! (Also
kind of funny-- there was only one helmet, and
apparently as long as 1 person is wearing a helmet on
the bike, you won't get a fine! Ha!) There's only
one real main road on the island, and we didn't really
know where we were going, so we found ourselves first
at Bulabog Beach on the east side. Bulabog Beach is
famous for windsurfing and kitesurfing, as it gets
extremely high winds on that side. Unfortunately
today the wind was not so good, so we just saw a lot
of sad wanna-be surfers sitting around pouting. Next
we found ourselves driving through some little
villages (man were they surprised to see a foreigner
there!) and ended up at Puka Beach, on the north tip
of the island. Puka Beach is a little wilder and a
little more remote, and used to be covered in shells.
It's been picked over to make jewelry now, but I can
imagine what it used to look like. It seems that this
is where the local highschoolers go to have fun, and I
can see why-- the waves are a little stronger, the
water a little deeper, and there's virtually nobody
here! It almost feels like you're the first person to
ever see this beach . . . with exception to the little
row of souvenir stands where the road leads to the
beach . . . at least the souvenirs were high quality!
My plan for the afternoon was to do some more swimming
and tanning, but sadly, the weather was not
cooperating, and we got hit with some rain--boo! Oh
well, time for a cocktail (I keep on thinking of that
really cheesy 80's movie "Cocktail", you know the one
with Tom Cruise? All of this kind of reminds me of
those beach scenes!) Anyway, when it stopped raining,
I started swimming.
For dinner, we ate at an all you can eat buffet for
about $4. There are a lot of buffets on this strip,
some expensive, some not, some fresh, some not. Lucky
for us, this one was fresh and cheap! There were lots
of clams and oysters to be had, as well as delicious
shrimp fritters. Mmm, I am absolutely loving all this
fresh seafood. A welcome break from Korean food!
After dinner we walked along the Beach Path to check
things out, and we ended up staying at this cozy place
with great ambience set up on the beach, with a
singer/guitarist playing-- nice! This island would be
an excellent place for a honeymoon, and I can see why
a lot of couples come here. Speaking of couples, I'm
getting kind of tired of everyone assuming that Bryant
and I are a oouple-- you don't meet as many people
when you're assumed to be a couple, because most
people think you want privacy. This is kind of
unfortunate, as Bryant is kind of getting on my
nerves. He doesn't really do anything alone, and I
would love, love, love a night on my own right now |
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