Travel to Philippines: Rice Terraces
It looks that there is some delay… this is the last but one entry about Philippines that one of 2008 December.
This time, The Rice Terraces was the place where I spent my 26th birthday. The Banaue Rice Terraces are 2000-year old terraces that were carved into the mountains of Ifugao in the Philippines. The Rice Terraces are commonly referred to by Filipinos as the “Eighth Wonder of the World“. The terraces are located approximately 1500 meters (5000 ft) above sea level and cover 10,360 square kilometers (about 4000 square miles) of mountainside.
This trip was madness. It started the night of the 27th of December trying to locate a transportation method to get to the terraces which are relatively close to the capital. I say relatively because they are 200 Km far from Manila and it gets one entire night to get there by car. Firstly we tried to buy tickets for the bus from Manila, but there was only left the tickets for the collapsible seats… doesn’t sound good? 8 ours of bus trip in a collapsible seat without backrest. As this was not a choice, we decided to find a rent-a-car to rent a van at midnight. By chance we met a guy whose cousin had a van that could get us there. This is how things work in Philippines! There we went with two unknown people by taxi to the cousin’s house who offered to give us a ride for 15.000 pesos (more or less 220€).
The same night we departed to the rice terraces, equipped with all the necessary stuff to survive in the hostile jungle: Doritos, Pringles, chips, chocolate and beers. It was an interesting night trip. We get to our destination by the morning:
On the top of the hill we found some weird shops:
With weird products:
And pay restrooms:
And of course… McDonalds!
Its a pity we didn’t realized before that there were luxury cottages for rent with excelent views:
What to say about the transportation methods…
As it was early in the morning, we headed to the first dump we saw and ate something that looked like rice with some sort of meat stew:
Everything under the gawp of a mini-native:
After having breakfast we tried to access the more remote areas of the terraces for which it was needed a more rudimentary transportation method, Jeepney!
What constructions we came across…
and this is what it could be seen from that house:
There was a point where not even a Jeepney could go through so trekking was our last chance. Right through the jungle even with rain and I ended up like this:
A couple of hours walk later… it was worth the effort:
Inside the village we could see how people lived there. As a curiosity, this is the toilet of a private house (check the poster on the wall)
Once at the village, we didn’t stop there so we continue walking among terraces…
… until we reached the waterfall:
Up to there did we got on my 26th birthday and now I can say: Conquered!
