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.To no-one's great surprise the morning was wet and foggy. After breakfast and the tricky business of negotiating the legendary Filipino check-out efficiency we set off one hour late by Jeepney.
We made a stop in Banaue to buy water but were there too briefly to form more than a rudimentary impression. It was made mostly of the kind of wooden hut that wouldn't tax the huffing and puffing of the worlds most asthmatic big bad wolf. After our few minutes break there we started in earnest.
The track, muddy and deeply rutted, wound up the side of a hill that was not quite big enough to count as a mountain. Days of heavy rain had reduced the traction to nil although our completely bald tyres could probably have accomplished that unaided. In places the road had eroded to the point where the driving surface was narrower than the jeepney's wheel base leaving parts of the tyre right up against the edge. Once we were mired so deeply in the mud that we had to get out and push. All our efforts accomplished nothing more than getting us dirty. Eventually, after a dozen or more near suicidal runs at it the driver managed to bounce the jeepney round the edge of the worst of it and we could climb back in and continue.
We left the jeepney to continue on foot at a concrete hut on the hillside that looked for all the world like a bus shelter although no bus could ever have ascended such a road. Descending down a path we joined the edge of a series of rice paddies which eventually became a muddy jungle track that wound up and down, sometimes quite steeply, through closely packed trees.
We passed through several villages of thatched huts to the total indifference of the indigenous population before arriving at Batad, our overnight stop. Batad was the reason for the trip. Here the mountains rise around the village in the form of a huge natural amphitheatre and are completely covered in the stepped contours of thousands of rice paddies which are one of the many wonders alluded to as the 'Eighth Wonder of the World". In this case perhaps there is more than the usual self-aggrandising to the claim. The village itself was small. A couple of dozen buildings spread across both sides of the valley were supplemented by a few more substantial wooden ones, some of which were providing our accommodation which was Spartan but comfortable enough - though we were billeted four to a room on hard wooden beds. There were even two churches, the Catholic one being an all tin structure with a red painted roof.
We made a stop in Banaue to buy water but were there too briefly to form more than a rudimentary impression. It was made mostly of the kind of wooden hut that wouldn't tax the huffing and puffing of the worlds most asthmatic big bad wolf. After our few minutes break there we started in earnest.
The track, muddy and deeply rutted, wound up the side of a hill that was not quite big enough to count as a mountain. Days of heavy rain had reduced the traction to nil although our completely bald tyres could probably have accomplished that unaided. In places the road had eroded to the point where the driving surface was narrower than the jeepney's wheel base leaving parts of the tyre right up against the edge. Once we were mired so deeply in the mud that we had to get out and push. All our efforts accomplished nothing more than getting us dirty. Eventually, after a dozen or more near suicidal runs at it the driver managed to bounce the jeepney round the edge of the worst of it and we could climb back in and continue.
We left the jeepney to continue on foot at a concrete hut on the hillside that looked for all the world like a bus shelter although no bus could ever have ascended such a road. Descending down a path we joined the edge of a series of rice paddies which eventually became a muddy jungle track that wound up and down, sometimes quite steeply, through closely packed trees.
We passed through several villages of thatched huts to the total indifference of the indigenous population before arriving at Batad, our overnight stop. Batad was the reason for the trip. Here the mountains rise around the village in the form of a huge natural amphitheatre and are completely covered in the stepped contours of thousands of rice paddies which are one of the many wonders alluded to as the 'Eighth Wonder of the World". In this case perhaps there is more than the usual self-aggrandising to the claim. The village itself was small. A couple of dozen buildings spread across both sides of the valley were supplemented by a few more substantial wooden ones, some of which were providing our accommodation which was Spartan but comfortable enough - though we were billeted four to a room on hard wooden beds. There were even two churches, the Catholic one being an all tin structure with a red painted roof.
It had been raining lightly but steadily all morning but no sooner had we arrived than it was back to the downpour that had plagued the trip so far. It meant that when we had all changed into dry clothes there was nothing to do but sit around on our balcony reading, writing, playing cards or just watching the village life that was going on in spite of the weather. This went on until dinner.
After dinner our local guide answered questions on the traditions of the Ifugao people. Fluent and garrulous he spoke quietly but quite entertainingly struggling to be heard over the sound of the now torrential rain hammering on the roof. I found his description of the convoluted burial rituals fascinating.
There are, he told us, four separate heavens for four separate types of the deceased. There is one for people dying in old age, one for children dead in infancy, one for people who have died of disease or accident and one for those killed in battle. The degree of festivity, the location and orientation of the grave and the time of day of the burial all depend on which of the four you are destined for. For example when an old person dies there is much festivity to celebrate their life. They are buried facing the sunset because they will never see another sunrise. By comparison children are buried without festivity, with only mourning. They are symbolically buried before noon and always away from the home so that their jealous spirit will not harm any other children of the family.
Eventually he ran out of breath at about the same time that we ran out of questions and soon afterwards we all went off to our beds. Outside the rain went on getting fiercer.
After dinner our local guide answered questions on the traditions of the Ifugao people. Fluent and garrulous he spoke quietly but quite entertainingly struggling to be heard over the sound of the now torrential rain hammering on the roof. I found his description of the convoluted burial rituals fascinating.
There are, he told us, four separate heavens for four separate types of the deceased. There is one for people dying in old age, one for children dead in infancy, one for people who have died of disease or accident and one for those killed in battle. The degree of festivity, the location and orientation of the grave and the time of day of the burial all depend on which of the four you are destined for. For example when an old person dies there is much festivity to celebrate their life. They are buried facing the sunset because they will never see another sunrise. By comparison children are buried without festivity, with only mourning. They are symbolically buried before noon and always away from the home so that their jealous spirit will not harm any other children of the family.
Eventually he ran out of breath at about the same time that we ran out of questions and soon afterwards we all went off to our beds. Outside the rain went on getting fiercer.
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