Note: this trip was made at Christmas 1995. In the time since then I'm sure much has changed so it may not be a great idea to treat this as a guide. Treat it as a memoir, which - give or take some editing - is exactly what it is.One of the problems with holidays with a varied itinerary is that there is inevitably a lot of travelling involved. Friday was a travel day with a vengeance - eleven hours on a bus to Banaue. The original plan had been that we should do it by public bus but thankfully Alex had arranged for us to use our own mini-bus which, while a little cramped, was vastly preferable. Once more I split my time between reading and looking out of the window so that my impressions of the journey are a procession of disjointed and random images.
In one town a crimson Mitsubishi sports car was perched precariously on a rickety wooden platform under a sign announcing that it was the first prize in the town's fiesta raffle.
In another was a four foot high sculpture of two hands holding up a womb and foetus all done in tasteful salmon pink fibreglass like the bizarre emblem of some militant pro-life organisation.
At a rest break in the local equivalent of Joe's Cafe a young girl deftly plucked a catfish from a tank and proceeded to batter its brains out with a rock.
In the same restaurant Ramon, a local tour guide, ordered a Balut. This is a boiled fertilised ready-to-hatch egg, a kind of 'boil in the shell' chicken. He peeled it carefully and showed us the already formed beak and claws before biting eagerly into it. No one could bring themselves to try it.
In one town a crimson Mitsubishi sports car was perched precariously on a rickety wooden platform under a sign announcing that it was the first prize in the town's fiesta raffle.
In another was a four foot high sculpture of two hands holding up a womb and foetus all done in tasteful salmon pink fibreglass like the bizarre emblem of some militant pro-life organisation.
At a rest break in the local equivalent of Joe's Cafe a young girl deftly plucked a catfish from a tank and proceeded to batter its brains out with a rock.
In the same restaurant Ramon, a local tour guide, ordered a Balut. This is a boiled fertilised ready-to-hatch egg, a kind of 'boil in the shell' chicken. He peeled it carefully and showed us the already formed beak and claws before biting eagerly into it. No one could bring themselves to try it.
After a while the villages and towns that we drove through and the fields and rice paddies that separated them took on a depressing uniformity. Wet field - wet field - wet field - Jerry built shacks - concrete school - wet field - wet field - wet field - Jerry built shacks - concrete hospital - wet field - wet field.
On it went for mile after mile.
I remember checking my watch and realising that we had been on the road for barely three hours. Eight more to go.
I fell into a light doze and woke an hour late in a large town that consisted of mile after mile of auto repair shops all building and repairing jeepneys with the occasional sideline in agricultural equipment. A sign told me that it was Cabantuan City. Wherever it was it was clearly important. It had two branches of McDonalds.
We ate lunch in San Jose at a self service restaurant that did a passable impersonation of one of the smaller branches of Little Chef. Then it was back into the bus for more hours of bumpy roads.
Through the afternoon we were in mountainous country which give or take a peasant village or two and the occasional unfamiliar tree could just as easily have been Wales. It even had the Welsh thin grey rain pervading everything.
At length, well after nightfall, we reached the Banaue Hotel, which was large, modern, touristy and almost entirely empty. The lobby was large enough to hold two simultaneous five-a-side football matches and decorated with enough wooden cladding to build a fleet of battleships. There was a choice of set menus for dinner. I went for the Lapu-Lapu which seems to be a generic name for any kind of local white fish. It is one of the most popular dishes in the country.
After Dinner there was an Ifugao Indian 'Cultural Entertainment'. This one seemed marginally more authentic than most in that no attempt had been made to moderate the racket made by banging a stick on a tin drum. I stayed about ten minutes, watching one song and one dance before retiring to the bar for a couple of beers and a game of Pool.
On it went for mile after mile.
I remember checking my watch and realising that we had been on the road for barely three hours. Eight more to go.
I fell into a light doze and woke an hour late in a large town that consisted of mile after mile of auto repair shops all building and repairing jeepneys with the occasional sideline in agricultural equipment. A sign told me that it was Cabantuan City. Wherever it was it was clearly important. It had two branches of McDonalds.
We ate lunch in San Jose at a self service restaurant that did a passable impersonation of one of the smaller branches of Little Chef. Then it was back into the bus for more hours of bumpy roads.
Through the afternoon we were in mountainous country which give or take a peasant village or two and the occasional unfamiliar tree could just as easily have been Wales. It even had the Welsh thin grey rain pervading everything.
At length, well after nightfall, we reached the Banaue Hotel, which was large, modern, touristy and almost entirely empty. The lobby was large enough to hold two simultaneous five-a-side football matches and decorated with enough wooden cladding to build a fleet of battleships. There was a choice of set menus for dinner. I went for the Lapu-Lapu which seems to be a generic name for any kind of local white fish. It is one of the most popular dishes in the country.
After Dinner there was an Ifugao Indian 'Cultural Entertainment'. This one seemed marginally more authentic than most in that no attempt had been made to moderate the racket made by banging a stick on a tin drum. I stayed about ten minutes, watching one song and one dance before retiring to the bar for a couple of beers and a game of Pool.
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