I nearly died in Batad!

nah...almost! It was such a foolish idea for me and my roomie to have an expedition to Batad. I don't know what we were thinking!

Saturday 9pm, we went to Autobus station in Sampaloc (the bus departs at around 10pm) and we headed to Banawe. We slept in the bus and woke up with the mountains welcoming us.

Arriving in Banawe at 8am, we had breakfast at People's Lodge and had a nice glimpse of the Banawe terraces.

At 10, we proceeded to Batad Junction. On the way to Batad Juction, we passed along a cute souveinir shop where 2 girls were pounding (bayo) rice.

After an hour, we were at Batad Junction and negotiated with a tour guide. Bad idea. We paid 700 pesos for the ride to the saddle and for the guide going to Batad Village and Tappiah Falls. We could have paid a porter for 100 that could carry my bag and at the same time guide us to the village! Si Manong Joe talaga! And to think he only paid 50 pesos to his nephew who accompanied us to a 2-hour trek to Tappiah Falls! ARghr! Bad move.

Anyway, it was really a tiring 6-hour walk (Batad Junction-Batad Village-Tappiah Falls-Batad Village). I was already crawling just to climb the trails leading to the falls and almost gave up when some part of the trail looks like death to me.

The falls..hmm...not so majestic, but it was really fun walking in Batad's stone walled terraces. Beautiful!

I also enjoyed the house (ba-leh). It's an Igorot native house with cute wooden sculptures. And we only paid 200 pesos each for the night. I would definitely recommend Mang Ramon's Place. Although it is another 10 minute walk going down and my blisters are really really sore.


In the morning, we borrowed Mang Ramon's Igorot costume and made crazy poses. We'll send our pics to Mang Ramon! haha

We have to leave early, (I wanted to stay longer in Batad after knowing that Mang Ramon does tour guiding and story telling infront of the bonfire about the legends of Batad) to catch the jeepney that will take us back to 'civilization' - Banawe, I mean.

Lucky us! We were able to talked a guy into letting us leave our bags at his place while we spend the rest of the day touring Banawe. We went to Otley Beyer's Museum and learned a lot of stuff about their culture.

We were so tired and hungry. And I love the food I ordered in one of the restaus, just in front Las Vegas. hehe

Anyway, it's going to be another 8 hour drive back to Manila. And I am happy to be back here! hehe