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This last week has pretty much been a brief, round trip of North Luzon, with the eventual destination of the famous Batad Rice Terraces. However, the adventure on this trip has definitely been in the journey as much as the final destination. Some of the individual jaunts have been epic to say the least, making Batad feel that slightly bit more special.
In search of rice.
Simon Wadsworth2006-09-04 17:03:29
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went through our minds as people went on to the roof, or dangled themselves from the backdoors.
Jaunt 4: The craziest jaunt of all was the second jeepney to Banaue, which I actually have war-wounds from. The jeepney wasn't full this time, which meant we got bumped and bashed about like the letters in a game of Boggle - against the windows and backdoors, and dents on the ceiling from interactions with my skull. An experience, that's for sure. The road was worse than terrible, with the cliff straight up on one side, and straight down on the other, and a track precariously balanced between the two. More than once I would look out the back window and see a rockslide, formed by our vibrations, land on the road - big daddy rocks too! And should I mention how some of the road-side fences were visible 100 metres down the cliff-face, or would that be worrying my Mum too much? But like the rest of the jaunts, the views had been awesome, seeing the 'road' wiggle its way along mountainside jungle, the beginnings of the rice terraces, and small villages everywhere.
Jaunt 5: The penultimate leg was a 40-minute motorised tricycle ride I took with two awesome Americans, John and Karina, that I've been travelling with all week, them in the side car and me on the back of the bike. This time, even the word 'track' would be a compliment; I would describe it more as a Glastonbury mud field from last year's festival, and on the back of a tricycle, waving hello or playing shoot-em-up with the passing kids, that was actually great fun! Although, it has probably accelerated my getting arthritis by 10 years. So, to the hardcore soundtrack of AC/DC, we rode on into Batad...well, nearly. One final step to go.
Jaunt 6: The final 90-minute walk to Batad consisted of the word 'guide' being mentioned countless times. An understandable question in a region that now sees most of its income through tourism, but can get
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See photographs from:
Philippines Gallery
