Philippine Island Hopping

Read Previous Siquijor, Moalboal

15 February - 3 March 2008

We had reserved the last ten days of our trip to explore the mountains of Northern Luzon, north of Manila. Our first stop was to be Baguio City to discover why, whenever we gave our name anywhere in the Philippines, everyone knew how to spell Burnham and mentioned Baguio City. At the beginning of the 20th century Daniel Burnham, an American Architect and Urban Planner who planned the rebuilding of Chicago after the famous fire of 1871, was invited to the Philippines. He created a plan for Manila that remained incomplete except for Roxas Blvd, a wide boulevard and promenade bordering  Manilla Bay. More successful was Baguio City, high in the hills north of Manila. Baguio is called the "Summer Capitol" of the Philippines because of its temperate climate. Burnham's specialty was designing cities with road systems to minimize traffic and to include lots of parks and green spaces. We visited our daughter Erica several years ago when she was working in Chicago and discovered in a biography that Daniel Burnham had the same antecedents, four brothers who came to America in the 17th century, as Ray's family in New Brunswick.

We flew from Cebu to Clark Airbase, about 1 1/2 hours north of Manila and took a bus north through the mountains to Baguio City. Baguio sprawls over several mountainsides resulting in steep climbs no matter where you go in the city. Baguio is the university center for Northern Luzon and appears to be quite prosperous. The main shopping area, the restaurants and the markets were crowded all day and into the evening with customers.

We stayed at the Burnham Hotel, an old traditional hotel that is showing its age. With its walls of dark native wood and displays of indigenous crafts, it still retains some charm and our welcome was warm. Of course we went to the very popular Burnham Park, still the centerpiece of the city. People strolled or rode rented bicycles on the broad avenues, rented paddle boats on the central lake, bought food and souvenirs from the concessions and admired the flowers that change with the seasons.

We still had time to visit Tam-Awan, an artist's colony and reconstructed indigenous village on top of Quezon Hill. The originator bought Ifugao hill tribe huts from their owners and rebuilt then on a lovely site with views over Baguio. Staying in a hut overnight is very popular and all the huts were reserved during our visit. Native crafts persons are invited to hold seminars and preserve the disappearing crafts. Each October a delegation of Canadian Indigenous people, sponsored by the Canadian Embassey, visit Tam-Awan for a conference on native arts and crafts. The center also showcases local contemporary artists with revolving installations and exhibits.

Kabayan, a small village in a remote section of the hills boasted a collection of mummies. We had crossed the town off our list as being too difficult to get too until we met David and Fiona at the Burnham Hotel. The couple from Britain had recently finished 18 months in Kathmandu with Volunteer Service Overseas and was now traveling on their own. They had arranged to be taken to see the mummies in a jeep with a local guide and were willing to let us join them.

The next morning we took a taxi to the bus station intending to take the five hour bus ride to Kabayan. David started talking to another taxi driver at the bus station who offered to drive us to Kabayan. Of course it was more expensive, but with four people sharing the cost and the likelihood of a much shorter trip, we agreed on his offer. The first half of the three hour trip was over paved roads but after that it was a bumpy, unpaved road all the way. We were happy we had taken this option especially after passengers on the bus arrived nearly three hours after we did. They reported that the driver had to make several attempts getting up the hills, including one spot where all the passengers had to get out and walk up an especially bad section.

The only accommodation in town is the Coop Lodge, run by the village Cooperative. The local Coop manager, who had served 15 years as the village mayor, told Ray that most of the Coop profits come from extending small loans to locals. They have managed to be very successful with P 25,000,000 under their management. One of the non-money makers is the Coop Lodge. It costs P200 each to stay there but that doesn’t cover all their costs but no one else has offered alternative accommodation.

There was only one room left so we, along with three Israeli boys, were relegated to two dorms usually reserved for visiting Government workers in the Municipal Building. All accommodation was clean but very simple with shared toilets. Our meals, simple and well prepared, were provided by the storekeeper next to the lodge.

We arrived in Kabayan in time to visit the small but excellent museum. There were photos of the mummies found in the area and explanations of the preservation methods. These mummies are the only ones in the world to be preserved with their internal organs intact. As the dying person breathed their last breath, they were fed a solution of water and salt to preserve their internal organs and then tied in a seating position on a chair over a glowing fire and tobacco smoke was blown into the body to drive out any worms or parasites. For the first week, the body was left with the family so that relatives could pay their last respects and make special requests of the dead as it was believed the dead could hear them. The body was wrapped in leaves and herbs. The whole process could take up to six months, after which the body was placed in a fetal position in a wooden coffin and placed in a cave high in the mountains. This burial method was practiced for at least one thousand years until the Spanish put an end to it several hundred years ago.

The museum manager suggested we visit a burial cave in the village of Kabayan. We were directed to the home of an elderly lady who unlocked a gate leading to a cave in her backyard. Her late husband had discovered the cave in 1971. It contained hundreds of disassembled skeletons, found to be between 500 and 1000 years old. The bones were neatly arranged with skulls lined up in one area and other bones separated according to bone type. We paid our respects to her husband who reposed in the family crypt next to the cave and thanked our hostess.

We started out early the next morning in the back of a jeep with a driver and a local Ibaloi guide, Albert. The presence of a local guide is required to actually see the mummies. If none is available, you are just permitted to see wooden coffins inside a small cave opening. It was a rough ride for more than two hours up the hill. It was hard going for the jeep as well as it stalled several times and we had to stop to feed more water to the radiator to cool it down. We stopped once to visit a huge granite rock where locals had hand carved caves high above the ground to store coffins inside. I suspect only the village chiefs would be eligible for such a difficult burial place.

The two mummy caves we visited were at about 2300 M altitude, just below the top of the mountain. We climbed down a steep set of concrete caves to the first cave which Albert opened and uncovered three coffins for us to see. We recognized a man, a woman and a five year old child from photos in the museum. They were very well preserved and you could see tattoo markings on the arms of the adults. The second cave was just a short distance away. Albert uncovered just one coffin containing a woman who died before giving birth to a child. We all found it a fascinating glimpse into the ancient practices of these people and were not disturbed by the bodies

Our visit concluded, we climbed back into the jeep to be driven another half hour to the Halsema highway, the main road between Baguio and points north. We caught a bus heading for Sagada while David and Fiona returned to Baguio for the weekend flower festival.

Sagada is a small peaceful mountain town with plenty of opportunities for walks. That was our intention and we were lucky to get as many walks in as we did given the rains that continued to haunt us. Our first short walk led us by the large Episcopal Church and Diocesan offices. Reverend John Staunton, an American Episcopal Missionary, came to Sagada with his wife in 1904 after assignments in Manila and Baguio. Together they established an Episcopal center in the mountains which survives to this day. His wife Maria started the first medical dispensary on the site of the present hospital and a school in Sagada. Staunton used his training as an engineer to start a saw mill, import a printing press and to design a road link between Sagada and the newly developed Halsema Highway.

One of the best restaurants in Sagada is Masferré. The walls of the restaurant display many of the photographs of Edward Masferré, the son of a Spanish soldier turned farmer and a Filipina woman. Masferré taught himself photography when he purchased a Kodak Graphex camera in 1933. He recorded the daily life of the indigenous mountain people and the famous rice terraces from the 1930s to the 1980s. His work gained international recognition in the 1980s with several international exhibitions. His works were bought by the Smithsonian Institute in 1990.

The rain stopped long enough for us to walk to an excellent viewpoint overlooking the Sagada rice terraces. The terraces cover the steep mountain sides all over the region. In this region the farmers get just one crop per year, providing only enough rice for their own family, with little extra for trade. The rice is all organically grown with no additions of artificial fertilizers or pesticides. They are very impressive.

Our second day in Sagada was the only sunny day we experienced in the mountains. We took advantage of the good weather to visit a few of the caves in the area. At the south end of town are the hanging coffins. A huge rock outcrop can be seen from the road from which are suspended several wooden coffins. A skull and a thigh bone were propped against one coffin lending an air of authenticity. Further along the road and down into a valley is the Lumiang Burial Cave. Inside a wide opening we saw multitudes of small wooden coffins stacked next to the cave walls. One of the coffins had a hole opened on the side from which a skull peeped out, just to insure we knew what resided in those boxes. It is possible to explore farther into the cave if you have a guide, ropes and kerosene lamps. We passed two British men who were starting out on a three hour walk between Lumiang and Sumiang Cave, further on. We met one of the men later who was quite thrilled with his experience despite having to squeeze through impossibly tight spaces and rappel down ropes. We contented ourselves with the openings of both caves.

The market town of Bontoc is a jeepney terminal on the route between Sagada and Banaue, our next destination. We arrived in Bontoc to discover the next jeepney for Banaue didn’t leave for two hours. A visit to the excellent Bontoc Museum was suggested. The museum had a large collection of photographs, artifacts and displays of traditional clothing of the local mountain tribes. One interesting display highlighted the headhunters of the area who conducted raids on neighbouring tribes, sometimes just to alieve boredom, as recently as the early 1900s. Outside was a reconstructed native village to visit.

Banaue, which was raining and cold almost the whole three days we were there, lived up to its reputation as the coldest place in the Philippines, although its mountain setting and famous rice terraces were beautiful. We had to take advantage of the little glimpses of sun whenever it appeared. The rice terraces are best viewed from several viewpoints above the town.

Accompanied by a guide, Rachel, we took a tricycle to the highest point, about 3 km up a steep road. Mud walled terraces, built up to 2000 years ago, cover the mountains around Banaue, in some areas reaching 1500 M up the side of the mountains. They say if all the terraces in Banaue were stretched end to end they would reach half way around the world. Farmers still plant and harvest by hand using ancient methods and use no artificial fertilizers or pesticides to grow their one crop a year of rice. It was the beginning of the planting season. All the fields had been plowed and the new rice seedlings were in the process of being transplanted. The walls of the terraces, some of which were two or three M high, were being cleared of the weeds and plants that had gained a stronghold since the harvest last June. Several elderly men and women dressed in their traditional clothing sat chewing Betel nut at the viewpoint. Rachel said the betel nut protected them from the cold temperature and suggested we could photgraph them in exchange for a small amount of money as they were too old to work in the rice fields. They posed for us quite fetchingly.

After the photography session we followed Rachel down 300 concrete steps to a river at the bottom of the valley and up about 200 more stairs on the opposite side. The tops of the irrigation canals bordering the rice terraces were concreted providing a path through the rice fields. Rachel led us on a three hour walk, ending back in the village. Our walking poles came in useful navigating the often very narrow pathway. We had good views until the clouds descended over the hills and the rains began again. We seldom wore Gortex rain jackets during our three months in the Philippines, but they were essential in Banaue. The bottom half of our walk was “mountains in the mist”. Towards the bottom we passed several traditional one room wooden homes built on stilts. Most now sported a galvanized steel roof but a few still had a peaked thatched roof. Unlike our nuclear family lifestyle the traditional life emphasizes a communal life. The temperature never falls below 5 C so most of the activities occur outdoors. The traditional houses were built close together to foster the community feeling. People live, eat and sleep together and would be suspicious of anyone demanding time or space for themselves. Rachel asked two women digging sweet potatoes in a field if we could have a few to sample. They happily gave us a few of the white and yellow variety which the restaurant cooked for our supper.

The next morning the clouds were low obscuring most of the rice terraces. We hurried out to walk the roads through the villages in the valley. Wood carvers worked in shops along the road making wood carvings to be sold in souvenir shops all over the Philippines. Of course the rains started on our walk and we put on our rain jackets. Men cleaning the rice terrace walls covered their backs with a large plastic sheet and continued working. Several women wore small headdress umbrellas as well as the plastic sheets while they planted rice seedlings. We walked along increasing muddy roads until we came to the end of the valley rice terraces before turning back. 

Reports of less rain in towns a short distance from Banaue with equally interesting rice terraces prompted us to arrange a trip to Hapao. We hired Vincent to drive us in his SUV for the day. A vehicle with 4WD is essential as very little of the roads to Hapao are paved and the rains have left deep ruts and mud puddles. It took 1 ½ hours to follow the contours of the mountains to the village of Hapao. Vincent let us off at the edge of the rice terraces and instructed us to follow the irrigation channel through the rice terraces. Unlike Banaue, Hapao terrace walls have stone walls. It is thought they have been in operation since 650 AD. Hapao is a little lower elevation than Banaue so the fields had been planted two weeks ago and were lush and green. The sun was out for a change and we had a pleasant walk through the fields, pausing to stop to a local grandfather entertaining a small grandson. He told us this was a rest time for his family as they had finished planting their rice and were not ready to plant their sweet potatoes higher in the mountians.

We made it back to the road where Vincent was waiting to drive us 5 km farther along the road to Hungdoan. We never did get to see the famous spider web arrangement of their rice terraces as the pattern is only visible from a helicopter, but we did pass by spectacular mountainside rice terraces along the way. Plus, we managed to enjoy most of the day before the rains started.

That was our last day in the mountains. It was time to return to Manila for our flight to Paris. It was a shock to our systems to travel from the cold and misty mountains back to the hot, steamy lowlands. We had a good seafood meal at a harbour front restaurant in Manila as our farewell dinner. Our visit to the Philippines was an unqualified success. After three months we were sad to leave the Philippines but we were looking forward to visiting our daughter and grandchildren in Paris and getting back to our friends and family in Canada.