I got out of the bus in Banaue at 5am. A smiling tricycle driver named Denard took me to a restaurant. He wanted to drive me to the Rice Fields, which were 12km away. I declined because I knew from my guide book that there was a jeep leaving soon. I had a couple of cups of coffee and decided I did not want to wait for the jeep as it would be another 2 hours. Plus, I was tired of my bags getting in everyone’s way and I knew the jeep might be crowded, so I got a ride on the tricycle as soon as it got light enough to travel. A tricycle is basically a little side car attached to a motorcycle. It is funny how each country had some sort of rudimentary designed taxi. In Thailand it was the tuk-tuk and in Vietnam they had these self-propelled tricycles, especially in Saigon. Here in the Philippines they had jeepneys, which were elongated truck like buses and the one person side cars that they called tricycles.
I arrived at Batad junction at around 7:30 after a beautiful ride through the mountains. There were rice fields all over the place. Batad is a little village of about 1,000 people and is supposed to have the most beautiful rice fields in the area. The tricycle can take you to Batad Junction, but the only way to Batad from there is on foot and it takes two hours.
I said good bye to Denard and then got my back pack on with my awkward mat from Thailand still sticking straight out of it. The first part of the sojourn was straight up. It took about 45 minutes to get to the top of this ridge and by the time I arrived at the top I was covered in sweat and out of breath. The view was beautiful as the sun was rising over the mountains and you could see the rice terraces below. There was a bunch of locals on top selling Gatorade and other drinks and offered to guide me the rest of the way to Batad. There was one guy up there that offered to have me stay at his house for 100 pesos. This was twice as much as the guidebook stated, so I declined. I had a Gatorade, which I drank in one guzzle and started to walk down. The guy who offered for me to stay at his place had a brother that was going down, so I followed him.
Everyone says that they backpack SE Asia, but to describe the activity as backpacking is really a misnomer. No one really backpacks Southeast Asia, they just have all their crap in a backpack. People go from bus to taxi to tuk-tuk to motobike, but rarely do they actually walk any length with their backpack. I am included in this description. For this couple of hours and the hour back I actually am backpacking in Southeast Asia, and I am hot as shit wishing a taxi was around.
I got to the town of Batad and the view was absolutely breathtaking. There were several guesthouses in town, but I approached the first one I saw to the annoyance of the guy I had been following. It had a little café looking over the village of Batad and the amazing rice terraces below. Batad is in a little valley that reminds me of Telluride, Colorado except that the mountains were not as steep or high. The mountains here are pretty high, but they are more like the Appalachians as they are completely tree covered. I asked how much and a cute little Filipino said 100 pesos. I looked at the room and it was sufficient. No electricity in the room, but for 2$, no big deal. The Filipino girl named Jarmaine and an Aussie girl were eating breakfast and she invited me to join them. I had some rice covered with some egg and tomatoes.
I took the room and headed off to bed. I wanted to take an hour nap and start exploring, but I was pretty bushed. My one hour nap turned out to be about four as I was more tired than I thought. I woke up around 2:30pm and finally left at 3pm. Everyone in this village wanted to be my guide, but I just wanted to walk around the village and go to a waterfall that was 45 minutes away. I figured I could find this myself.
The guesthouse was on the ridge overlooking the town and the trail was a steep descent down these steep steps. Once down in the valley you had to cross the rice fields. The Ilfigau rice terraces are these terraces that are built right into the mountain and descend like giant steps down the mountain. Each terrace is covered in bright green rice paddies. It is like a giant amphitheater of green. It is breathtakingly beautiful.
The walk to the waterfall was really interesting. There was really no set trail. I was walking down from the building through the people’s houses down into the rice terraces themselves. Walking through the rice terraces was really cool, but kind of tricky as the stones that divided each field was narrow and there were stone steps that descended up to each level. The steps were not the widest steps, so it could be tricky and one had to be sure to keep your balance. After walking through the terraces the trail then went up a ridge again through more houses. Once on top of the ridge the trail descended down towards a mountain river. The trail now was made out of concrete and was easy to follow and had steps going down to the river. I descended down the steps going back and forth down the ridge as the trail kept switching back directions. I then came around the corner and there was the waterfall. Since I got a late start I could not stay too long. The waterfall was beautiful as the river dropped about 200 feet from a gorge and there was a nice volume of water going down into the pool. There were a bunch of Filipino people getting ready to leave. One girl smiled at me and said she was happy I was there and then she and her group left. I then went swimming for a bit in the pool and it felt incredible. I was extremely hot from the walk and the temperature of the water was cool, but felt perfect after the walk in the hot weather. I definitely felt revived. I knew I had to go back and the incline up to the ridge and back to the guesthouse were not easy and it made me wish there was another pool to swim in after I got back.
After about twenty minutes I left myself. The water felt great, but it was too cold to stay too long, especially since the sun was going down. I caught up with the group that was at the pool climbing up the steep hill. The girl that smiled at me was named Antoinette and she was teaching religion in Banaue for a year. I followed this group the rest of the way back to the guesthouse. Antoinette said that later they were having a party with a bonfire and drinking rice wine and she said she would come to my guesthouse and get me. I thanked her and returned to my guesthouse for dinner and to wash up.
Back at the guesthouse I had a beer and a vegetarian pizza. There was a Scottish guy that had checked in and he was outside talking to the Aussie girl that I was talking to before. After dinner Antoinette came back and got both me and the Scot named Craig and took us to a local’s little hut. The huts owner was named Romeo and he looked like a Filipino Albert Einstein. He had long brown crazy hair with a mustache. He was the owner of my guesthouse and also the local rice wine brewer.
The Filipino rice wine was much better than the crap I drank in Vietnam and in Thailand. It was brown colored compared to the clear color in other countries and ten times smoother yet still contained a bite. It was sweeter too than the stuff in Thailand. This gave it a pleasant taste compared to the flavor of the Thai rice whiskey, which tasted like nothing I have ever had before, but its disgusting taste could only be compared to something like formaldehyde. Romeo informed me that they also make wine out of coconuts too. I am struck by the ingenuity of mankind because the whole world over and all through history whenever we want to get fucked up, we always find a way to do it.
An interesting conversation ensued while the Aussie girl named Rachel, Romeo, and this other Aussie girl named Danielle talk about some of the customs involved in growing the rice. Rachel is studying rats and that is why she is there. Apparently in the rice fields rats are a problem. Rachel says that she has found in her research that many of the old tribal customs in the village were very effective in keeping rats out of the fields, but many people now that are growing rice do not follow some of these customs and they are having more of a problem with rats. I guess that the old tribal customs appear out of date and superstitious to many of the present rice growers, but actually there was a rhyme and reason to these practices. Despite Romeo’s appearance, he was very eloquent, and he discussed the growing of the rice wine and also techniques for growing rice, which was very interesting.
We then leave the hut after a couple of drinks and head down to the bonfire. At the bonfire, Antoinette and her friends are there along with two brothers named Orland and Romel. Orland is playing a guitar. He is really good and has a great voice. His brother Romel also has a great voice. I had told Craig earlier that I played guitar myself and he mentions that to Orland and Orland passes me the guitar. I play “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and a short sing a long occurs. I am a little out of practice as I had not played much in the past couple of months, but I am able to get through a few songs.
The rest of the night each of us takes turn playing a couple of songs and then hands over the guitar to the next person. I have always been hampered by two things when playing guitar in front of people in campfire like settings. First, I am usually really drunk, and secondly, I do not have many sing-a-long type songs in my repertoire. I always intend to rectify this each time I bomb out at a campfire by learning songs I know everyone knows, but I soon get bored of learning those and want to play what interests me. I did pull out a few that got good reactions like “Take me Home Country Roads” and “Into your arms,” by the Lemonheads. Other than that and a couple of others, I think I bored the hell out of them when I played, but they were very respectful and gave me a little ovation after each song.
I was really impressed with both the guitar and vocal abilities of the two Filipino brothers. The song selection they played was also very interesting. They were really into Reggae and played several Bob Marley tunes, but they would then pull out a big surprise and play “Handy Man” by James Taylor or “Wish You Were Here,” by Pink Floyd. Those are definitely two songs that I would not expect to hear a Filipino to sing in the middle of nowhere in Northern Luzon. Antoinette kept asking me if I was happy and having a good time. Yes, I definitely was. Drinking rice wine, playing and listening to guitar around a campfire, and talking with great interesting people is about as good as it gets in my humble opinion.
Tags: Angeles City, Asia, Banaue, Batad, Hiking, Philippines, Rice Terraces, Southeast Asia, travel, Waterfall
