Sagada, a nice place

I will be candid here.  Of my trip to the north of Luzon island in the Philippines, during which I visited Baguio, Sagada, and Banaue, by far I enjoyed Sagada the best.  It is a beautiful little town that sits in a valley atop a mountain at the end of a narrow, snaking road.  The people are friendly and helpful.  You can find good food in all sorts of places (as long as the the restaurant you are frequenting has the ingredients, a challenge at times), and nice scenery.  It looks prosperous, yet the living is cheap.  Where everywhere else in the Philippines I have been finding rooms at 900 to 1500 pesos (22 to 38 dollars) a night, with the first night here being a ridiculous 80 dollars (due to my own mistake of ignoring my own advice and trusting a cabbie), I was surprised to be told my nice room in Sagada's George Guesthouse was 300 pesos a night (about 8 dollars).  I think I actually did a double take.  If anyone has the opportunity to come to the Philippines, I highly recommend going to Sagada.

My first night in town, I took a walk to Echo Valley.  I tried to go by myself, but one of the ways the people of the valley bring money in is through the tourist trade and by providing guide services, even when the tourist might be looking for a quiet walk by himself.  I was able to initially make that point to the boy who tried to attach himself to me.  But then I took a wrong turn and ended up walking up to the local priest's house.  When I came back down, realizing my mistake, the boy reappeared and wasn't going to be sent away this time.  I think children sense weakness, and I think they are also ruthless in attacking it.  I resisted for a long time as the boy told me things about the local cemetery, a couple of graves, the view of the town, the echo properties of the valley.  But then I slipped and asked a question.  Damn!!  Then I knew I was going to have to pay him.  So I resigned myself to it and asked him how much he thought he was going to be worth.  As he was just a (remarkably well-informed and entertaining) fledgling guide, he wasn't worth what a regular guide would be worth (400 pesos).  He was only worth 100 pesos.  As that is about 2.50, I didn't mind.  I asked him more questions and let him tell me lots about the valley and hanging coffins to be found there.

The coffins are put up on the sides of cliffs or at the entrance of caves in order to give the spirits the chance to continue to roam and experience freedom.  Many of the local people are now Christian and bury their dead in the cemetery, but the old ones still follow the old traditions and bury their dead in coffins on the sides of hills.  My young guide told me that the most recent burial had been in December.

In the end, I learned a lot and did manage to experience the peace of the little valley of echoes, at least to a point.

The road to Sagada

The road to Sagada is amazing.  I wish I had been on some kind of private-ish transport so that I could have stopped at times to take some photos of the breathtaking route.  Alas, I was stuck with taking photos out the windows.  This highway passes along at the tops of the mountains of the Northern Cordilleras.  Along the way you pass the highest point of the Philippine National Highway System, at 7400 feet, or roughly 2250 meters.  I suppose makes the it truly a highway.

The road was narrow and precarious, and I wouldn't recommend this trip for the faint of heart of those who have questions like, "What happens if the road washes out?", or "What if we get to close to the edge?", or at times, "What happens if we meet a car coming the other way and one of us has to give way?"  It is a bit nerve-wracking, but the views are truly amazing.

And here is a view out the front window of the bus as we started the long assent towards Sagada.

 And a shot out the window once my seat companion left and I was able to get my hand out the window.

Baguio

I went to Baguio en route to Banaue on the recommendation of a friend.  I was disappointed.  It's really not a very interesting town, although there are some interesting sites to see there.  There is just not enough.  Perhaps it was just that as I arrived in town, I stepped off a curb and turned my ankle.

Baguio is nestled at the top of a mountain among some high valleys.  This is what greets the visitor to the Pines View Lookout.  It is a nice setting, I have to admit.

A short walk away, you can celebrate the view.  How?  What better way is there to do that than by taking your photo with the Incredible Hulk?  (For a small fee of course.)

Another short walk away (although I was told by the desk staff at the hotel that it was a long way and I would be best taking a cab to get there.  Why is that people in all these Asian countries have such an aversion to a tourist taking a long-ish walk?  Maybe it's just that if a tourist walks, there is no cab fare.), was the Philippine version of the White House.  It's called The Mansion.  It looks nice from the road.

Another short walk takes the tourist to the Baguio Botanical Garden.  I'm sure it looks better during a season with more rain, but this day, it seemed a bit forlorn.  One interesting part of the garden was the set of caves from the Japanese occupation during the war.    There are no lights inside, so if you didn't bring your own flashlight, you would be a bit out of luck.  Or, the friendly policemen in the shed next to the caves might take pity on you and offer the use of his flashlight to investigate.  Of course that would be for a price.  Sigh!  Even the police...  But if after the rental price is quoted, you hand the flashlight back and say that it's not that important to view the caves, he may well just say that you can borrow it for free.  :)  It pays to know what you will pay for and what you won't.

Inside the caves there were a bunch of alcoves, presumably for storage of stuff, or maybe people.  I'm not sure.  It's not explained.

Onwards on the walk, you pass this restaurant that seemed to be ridiculously proud of having "over 10 dishes to choose from."

But I suppose my favourite part of my time in Baguio was at the beginning of my walk, when I sat in a park and played with my camera, a flower, and a bee.  It turned out rather well, I thought.

Philippine Highways

If I didn't know better, I would have thought I was on the Trans Canada Highway somewhere in the prairies.

Coron

Coron, and Palawan really, are anomalies.  In Puerto Princesa I saw the kind of tourism industry that I recognize from all the tourism countries that I have visited.  You sign up for a tour with someone who is filling up a boat or a bus or a van.  Then a whole bunch of you get in that vehicle and head off for a fabulous adventure (sometimes it's not exactly the case), after which you are deposited at your accommodation with a bunch of great memories.  I have seen it dozens of times in dozens of places.  And then I got to El Nido.  There they had people setting up tours.  But if there weren't enough to fill the boat, well, that was okay.  We went anyway.  In the same boat as originally planned.  With the same amount of food as originally planned.  That was refreshing.

And then I arrived in Coron.  I had trouble even getting on a tour of the nearby sights initially.  The place I was staying suggested that a local tour company might be running a tour the next day, but maybe not.  Huh?  That doesn't sound like a tourist area.  If there were interested people, wouldn't they jump at the chance?  Apparently not.  I went to check in another place, the main place in the area, the dive shop.  The woman there told me she could arrange a boat.  I could tell him where to take me.  And it would be better to get some more people because we could share the boat cost and it would be cheaper for me.  Hmmm... How would I find the others to share?  I wondered.  Oh, no problem, I could just ask around, I was told.  I was new in the area, I didn't know anyone, and I didn't even really know what there was that I would want to see as I had decided on the spur of the moment to go there, and I was being given the means to make a do-it-yourself tour.  I didn't really go for it. 

So I walked out onto the street and a guy in a booth called me over and asked if I wanted to see the sights the next day.  Aha!!!  Here was the tourism I was used to.  I agreed and signed up.  It sounded good and was to include 8 stops.  Their brochure said that there was a minimum of 5 for the tour to proceed, but I figured there was no problem.  The guy said it was all set.

I duly showed up the next morning and then one other guy showed up.  And off we went.  The guy from the tour stand took us to the wharf, looked about, found a boat, called the pilot over and asked him to take us around.  He handed the boatman our lunch stuff and then left us to do our thing.  Hmmm...  It was seeming a lot like El Nido again.  Which was nice.  But it was loads different than I was used in the tourist experiences I have had up to now.

The boatman took us across to his home village (I presume), to pick up the boat captain.  I guess the captain sent his son (I presume it was the son) to troll for a fare for the day, and then to come back and get him when he was successful.  It's really an interesting system here!!

And how was it?  It was amazing.  Coron, the town is not much.  It's just a dirty little place, really, and centered around the main reason it seems to exist on the tourist circuit.  That is diving.  So the Sea Dive Resort on the waterfront is the main operator, it seems.  And then there are the usual sorts of places that go with the main tourist outfits, the travel offices and little snack shops and restaurants.  And then there are the people that go with it.

But once you get out on one of the sightseeing deals to Coron Island, across the strait, it's a different ballgame.  There are coral reefs and lagoons.  There are strange island lakes and brackish waters, thermoclines and tiny beaches.  It's quite a neat place to explore, and all so close it's easy to do in one day.  We set off to a snorkeling place over a coral reef.  I can't show the reef as I don't have an underwater camera (something I am thinking about remedying), but here is a shot of all the boats with people who were snorkeling in the area.

After snorkeling for a while, it was off to the twin lagoons.  There are two lagoons side by side, but separated by a small rock ridge.  We went into one lagoon with the boat, to the entrance for the other lagoon, where we swam and experienced the thermoclines.  People could either swim through, or climb over on the ladder.  On the other side, while swimming you could see the different layers of water.  The different layers of water make it really blurry to see.  Initially I thought it was my mask, but then I saw a relatively undisturbed patch and clearly saw the layers.  It was quite fascinating.  Equally fascinating was the changing water temperature.  The lagoon has seawater on the bottom, the is cool.  On top, coming from the island (that I think is geothermal, possibly even a volcano), is warm water, that gets hot at times.  That is fresh water.  The different types of water and temperatures makes for a strange swimming experience, as the layers stir together, and you go from hot/warm water to cold and back again.

After that it was off to one of two lakes that exist on the island.  It is hard to even tell they are there when you arrive at them.  This was the entrance to Barracuda Lake.  One account of the lake, that was related to me by my boatmate, is that the top layer of the lake is fresh water.  As you descend, you encounter a layer of hot, almost scalding water that is swirling.  Underneath that is seawater that has some entrance way down under the surface.  I don't know about any of that.  I only know that we had the lake to ourselves for the hour we were there, and it was quite beautiful.

Next it was off to lunch.  We were shown one area by the boatmen, but there were lots of people.  We must have wrinkled our noses, for they didn't even bat an eye before heading to another, deserted beach, where the younger guy told us, "This is good, noone there."  We heartily agreed.  And I think it was an even more picturesque spot.  And did we eat heartily.  Grilled fish, boiled crab, rice, rice, and rice, and mango and banana for desert.  It was wonderful.  We spent an hour or more there as well.  My tourmate and I discussed travel experiences.  He told me the best times to visit his home country of India.  I told him about some places he will visit in the near future.  It was really pleasant.

Next we went to another inland lake, Kayangan Lake.  The lake itself was much like Barracuda Lake, but it wasn't deserted.  There were lots of giggling, chattering visitors shattering the tranquillity.  We didn't stay for long.  And we climbed up to the ridge where we were afforded the sight of the day, the bay entrance to the Lake.  I would have considered the day successful if this is the only thing I had been able to see.  It is an amazing sight.  And lest you think that I simply went to some website and took this photo to put here, I am including a rare shot of me in a photo with something picturesque.  (I generally think my ugly mug ruins the ambience, but there are times when you just have to have a shot yourself at a place.  This is one of them)

Yet this still wasn't the end of the day.  We had a visit to a final snorkeling spot, which was badly damaged in some dynamiting insanity to get fish (or so I imagine), but is recovering.  And then we visited a small beach before heading back to the town of Coron.  I think the little beach is probably quite nice, but by the time we got there, the day was getting old and the wind was up.  We spent only a few moments before getting on back to town.  But it was long enough to get a snap of our boatmen, who waited patiently for us all day, and chaperoned up about.  It was a lovely day.

El Nido continued

El Nido is a rather charming little place.  I'm sure it won't last though.  In the area of the town, out on some of the surrounding islands, there are a number of pricey resorts (at 3 and 400 dollars a night), and they don't seem like much.  I guess they would be good for relaxation, but really, I don't see them being worth that kind of money.  I would want to stay in a place, not buy it.  Anyhow.

In town, there are tons of spots being built and it will soon become a bustling resort area that is a must visit by people seeking out of the way places.  Except that by then, it won't be out of the way any longer.  Another idyllic place to go will go by the wayside.  Here are some shots from the island tours I went on the past couple of days.

 This is the entrance to the small lagoon.  It's actually a fair size.

This is the view from the top of snake island.

El Nido

Just a short note today because not much needs to be said.  It was a travel day today up to El Nido from Puerto Princesa.  The island is beautiful, and El Nido quite picturesque.  As we drove in it was like coming to land in some sort of paradise.  The town is bustling and it probably won't last long before it becomes a major resort destination for those seeking this kind of idyllic scenery.  And by then, of course, the charm of it will have disappeared under the commercialism of tourism.  At least they seem to be going about it responsibly by having an eco-tourism fee for anyone who comes here and wants to engage in any tours or activities.  I talked to a guy this evening who is a dive instructor in the area.  He was quite fascinating actually because he has gone on dives all over the world.  He helped map out the dive sites in Palau.  He did some diving with a scientific expedition that was tracking the effect of global warming on the seas and oceans.  And now he is here in this quiet little town, teaching tourists how to dive in the waters around here.

Here is where I am...








And I love sunsets, so I think this area will do nicely for a couple of days.


Tomorrow, it's off for a day of more island hopping.  That should be fun.  I wonder if any Filipina nurses will show up...