in the mountains.

once we came back from southern luzon, it was time to head up north. we got off a bus in manila, settled down at a hostel and soon learned that the buses to banaue left at 10PM. we quickly bundled up our stuff again and boarded another bus for a 10 hour ride to banaue. sick and tired, the bumpy bus ride was not extremely pleasant, but when we disembarked early in the morning to the view of the mountains through the morning fog, it was quite worth it.

the next day, we did the long hike to batad, a small town with magnificent rice terraces housed in the valley of the mountains and only accessable by hiking. it was a hard hot hike for me, but we made it and it was definitely worth it.



we left for sagada (another mountain town) a day or so later to see the hanging coffins of the ifugao tribe and the caves. we arrived in the midst of the town's annual fiesta and were treated to a parade of the different zones of sagada, complete with traditional music and costume. one night, we even got to see the town's beauty pageant (which was, if nothing else, extremely long -- starting at 9PM and lasting 'til past midnight).

we went caving one day and it was one of the highlights of my trip so far (minus the complete submersion in cold cave water while wearing blue jeans). it was so much fun squeezing into tiny crevices, holding on to the sides of dropoffs and, sometimes, being plunged into complete darkness when our guide's lantern would go ahead a little too far. :) we got to see a bunch of fun formations, including a dinousaur's footprint!! hehe


another day, we took a short hike to echo valley and saw some hanging coffins up close. we met some funny tourists there that thought the chairs hung along with the coffins were for people to meditate on.



from there, we headed back to manila to plan our trip to the island of palawan!