Back in Blog

I will begin this blog post by mimicking politicians in the form of making weak apologies and then blaming any shortcomings either on my opponents or factors beyond my control.  To wit:  I regret not being able to keep up with this blog.  It is unfortunate.  However, traveling can be so exhausting and the locals in this region simply have not been giving me the material required for a witty and engaging blog.  Furthermore, I have been ill with the a cold/the flu/traveler's diah...diore...diare...the shits.  Also, leaving the Philippines and moving through Thailand to Laos has given me little time to write entries.  Due to the these factors, it is not at all my fault that I have not kept up with my blog and if I am elected president, by the end of my second term we will have permanent blogs being written from the moon.

In all seriousness, though, my motivation for posting on this blog went through a period of waning.  Here we go with a new entry!

In my last post I ended with a cliff-hanger about climbing stairs.  Here's the story.  Around Batad are the most striking rice terraces in the world.  They form a sort of huge amphitheater, making a person imagine a crowd of giants filing in to see a rock concert or something.  In order to travel up and down the rice terraces concrete staircases have been put in place.  However, the staircases do not meet any sort of building code, standard regulation, and certainly are not ADA compliant.  The size of the "surface" of each step (the part where you step onto) varies from a generous 12 inches to a hazardous three inches.  The "rise" of each step varies from a comfortable six inches to a terrifying two feet!  The challenge of the stairs wouldn't be nearly as bad if there were not thousands of them.  Seriously.  Thousands.  The mountainside that the terraces were carved into is steep and gargantuan.  In short, climbing the stairs around Batad finds a person muttering curse words under their breath about how the damn waterfall better be amazing or how the view better be f***ing awesome.  Batad and the surrounding valley truly were amazing, though.  I wish I could have stayed longer, but I was traveling with two Israelis at the time and, unfortunately, one of them came down with an awful illness.  This required us to abandon plans for subsequent hikes and beat a retreat back to Banaue. 

Two anecdotes about transportation in the Philippines:  First, the ride from Batad back to Banaue was in typical Filipino style.  Dotan, Noa, and I were piled into/onto a tricycle while the driver shifted and throttled the little engine while wrestling the handlebars of the motorcycle like a cowboy breaking a mustang.  Imagine a tiny two-stroke motorcycle putting, sputtering, and spewing with me and three other average-sized people weighing it down.  Add to that a landslide (which are common) at which we had to halt while an excavator with only one working track dug away the mountain-side that had slid down and blocked our way.  It was interesting to say the least.  The second story is more tragic, and involves a 9-hour over-night bus ride on a very cramped bus, with an overweight inebriated local man for a seat mate who kept talking to me in slurred Tagolog and antagonizing the driver by shouting at him whenever the bus got stuck in traffic (this produced angry looks towards the chubby drunk from other passengers), and finally a back-window malfunction that caused the rain to cascade into the back of the bus, thereby providing passengers who were seated in that section with a refreshing cold-water shower.  I sure hope the bus company didn't charge them for the shower.  Anyway, I can confidently say that it was the most unenjoyable bus ride of my life.  But, as they say in Mexico, que sera, sera.  Or is it c'est la vie?  Wait, that last one's French.  Never mind. 

Christmas was fun.  We spent it in Baguio with a local family eating local Filipino food, the main course of which was a sacrificed pig.  I got to see the actual sacrifice, which involved a wooden steak through the heart (no joke) and once again made me realize where the phrase "squeal like a pig" came from.  Jema was ill during this time so we didn't do anything really exciting except for movies and eating.  After Baguio we bussed to Manila and took a flight to Cebu City in the heart of the Visayas, the island-dotted center of the country.  After engaging in a night of karaoke in a college town we took a ferry to Siquijor, a small island said to be inhabited by mystical spirits.  Let me pause here and say (yet again) something I thought I'd never say:  thank goodness for second-hand smoke.  You see, as frequently happens on vessels that move in jerky motions and undulate with erratic waves, some passengers experienced sickness de motion.  And, in simple terms, their lunch came up.  The offensive smell of regurgitated lunch was, thankfully, masked by the stench of a Frenchman chain smoking nearby. 

When Jema and I arrived on the island of Siquijor we boarded a jeepney to take us to our hotel destination.  When we arrived at the place, upon disembarking the jeepney, Jema had an accident and suffered a serious sprain of the ankle.  So, our remaining time in the Philippines was spent relaxing at the hotel, me taking solo walks around town, Jema resting, and taking her to the local hospital where an x-ray tech took pictures of her injury and may or may not have given us both radiation poisoning. 

We traveled back to Cebu city (once again being grateful for cigarette smoke) and celebrated Jema's bday with massages and sushi.  Then we boarded a plane and landed in Bangkok, Thailand


That's it for this time.  Once again I apologize for the hiatus I took between posts.  I hope everyone is doing well in other parts of the world.

Pat

Batad, Episode I

Back in November, when I first arrived in Manila, I purchased a guidebook and took some time flipping through it to get an idea about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see.  One section that specifically caught my attention was a couple paragraphs about a small village called Batad.  Batad sounded like a serene wonder, a place with wondrous views, far enough off the beaten path to escape from the crowds and tourist trail while not so far off the beaten path as to require loads of cash and time to get there.  So, I made a mental note, or rather more of a mental promise, to make it to Batad.  I didn't have a concrete plan or any idea really as to how I was going to get there (the guidebook was vague with its directions and every tourist office I visited didn't seem to know where the place was), but I knew that I'd be passing near there eventually.  So imagine my delight when Noa and Dotan mentioned that they'd heard about Batad and were interested in going there.  Aside from the fact that they seemed like interesting people, this is the reason I made sure we became a traveling trio. 

 So the day after we saw the Banaue rice terraces, the three of us waved goodbye to the two Norwegians (who had to head back to Manila) and started cookin' up a game plan for the day.  We knew that a public jeepney departed for Batad around 3pm, costing P150 per head.  We also knew that many tourists tried to group together and hire a private jeepney (with guide/driver) in order to get to Batad earlier in the day.  We had become acquainted with one particular guide/driver, named Randee, and he said he was taking a bunch of people up to Batad in the morning for P200.  Noa politely declined for us, telling him that we plan on taking the public jeepney later on for P50 less.  Randee then came back several minutes later with a counter offer:  he would take us up with this group and charge the three of us, and only the three of us, P150, as long as we didn't tell the others that we were getting a better deal.  Let me take a minute here to mention something I might not have mentioned as of yet:  Israelis love a deal.  More often than not they refuse to accept the stated price and will haggle, bargain, and argue on anything.  Often times they do in fact get a reduced price on everything from hostel rooms to taxi rides to meals.  The point is, it was very advantageous for me to travel with Dotan and Noa, simply because they brokered the deals and I benefited.  We each prepared smaller three-day bags and stored our big long-term-travel bags in the hostel storage, and the three of us joined the others and boarded Randee's jeepney (riding up top, of course).  After dealing with road construction, slick muddy roads, and several broken down vehicles blocking our way, we finally made it to the Batad Saddle, a collection of craft shops near the start of the hiking trail down to the village.

At this point Randee ceased to be our guide, as he suddenly became busy wrangling other tourists, who had hiked out from Batad that morning, to ride in his jeepney back to Banaue.  Dotan, Noa, and I found the start of the trail and descended down into the valley.  Let me pause here and tell you want the guidebook says about the area:  "The Batad rice terraces are widely believed to be the world's most striking".  As we descended into the valley, however, pesky pillows of precipitation partially partitioned the panorama (sorry, I got carried away).  We found our hostel (recommended to us by other travelers), and settled in for a day of eating, card-playing, and intermittent view-enjoying.  The next day, when the clouds did vacate, the terraces presented themselves in awe-inspiring vistas.  What you must realize is Batad is located in a bowl-shaped valley.  The valley walls, from floor to ridge, have been carved into steps, and the whole place looks like a stadium for some mythical population of giants.  Also, even if the terraces didn't exist, the surrounding mountains are gorgeous in their own right.  In short, Batad is cool.  I often found myself meandering out to the balcony of the hostel and just staring at the sight before me.  It was hard to fathom just how much work it took for the natives of the area to create this awesome expanse of terraces.  Not only did they have to dig out the terraces, beforehand they had to clear all the vegetation from the slopes.  And after the terraces were formed (or perhaps during) they created elaborate irrigation and drainage systems using nothing but rocks and bamboo.  All this was done in a place where, nowadays in these modern times, it takes an uncomfortable 4WD ride plus a one hour hike to get there.  Truly impressive.

We made friends with another Israeli couple and one of our days was spent hiking through the mountains to Bangaan, another spectacular site of terraces, similar to Batad but striking in their own way.  After lunch at the only restaurant around Bangaan, the five of us caught a jeepney to the Batad Junction, just down the highway.  We hiked along the dirt road to the saddle, then down the main trail back into Batad.  That night we nursed sore leg muscles with beer and card playing.  We stuffed ourselves on fried rice, Dotan played some songs on the guitar, and eventually we all crashed early.

Join in next time for the follow up story, where you can learn how I learned to loathe stairs!

That's all for now.  I hope everyone is doing well in other parts of the world.  Take care!

Pat