The second time we arrived to the Singapore airport we were prepared. We did not have a visa, but we had two flights: one cheap one to Taipei within 21 days of arrival, which we would not use, and one in 57 days. We would get a 21 days stamp upon arrival to the Philippines, but we could extend our stay later on in an immigration office, which are plenty around the country. Problem was that this could take a week or so, and we would have to do that within 2 weeks in order to avoid overstaying and being fined. But we would worry about that later. We checked in to the flight succesfully. And yes, already at the airport they did check that we had a flight out. If we didn't, we would have had to buy a ticket on the spot. Glad to have taken care of this stuff succesfully, we boarded the plane and stepped out in Clark a few hours later.
We got out of the plane and while getting organised we met an English guy, Paul, who was among the very few westerners on the flight. He had no specific plan, he just knew that, like us, he would go around North Luzon while trying to avoid Manila. With him we jumped on a jeepney, a Filipino version of the Thai songthaew, which took us to Angeles city. First we thought about staying in Angeles overnight, but it really wasn't that attractive. It was crowded, there was a big girly bar scene with old expats hanging around drinking beer all day, and it just didn't seem special in any way. So changing the plan and circling around the city in jeepneys and tricycles we finally made it to the bus station and hopped on a bus towards Baguio.
We arrived some time after dark. It was cold, also in the bus, because Baguio is in the mountains, in the altitude of about 1500metres. After looking around and haggling with the semi-aggressive touts, we made up our mind and took a cab to a hotel mentioned in our guidebooks. They were so expensive that the three of us squeezed ourselves into a twin room with tiny beds. Didn't matter, we were tired from the journey. We had a quick look around the city and decided to keep moving the next morning.
Our next destination was Vigan, which was an old and beautiful Spanish colonial town. We were hunting for a cheap place to sleep for a while, and since all the hotels were either crazy expensive or fully booked, we found a random homestay kind of place for a good price. Great! Vigan seemed like a nice place to hang out for a day or two. Also, what was surprising, Philippines reminded us of South America. A lot. There were empanadas, jeepneys that looked like a miniature version of Bolivian buses. And the language, Tagalog, is mixed with English and Spanish. Also people jumped into the buses to sell whatever snacks they had made. With the colonial history and some altitude here and there, we felt a bit like being back in South America. We had a fun day walking around the old town, sightseeing and enjoying a couple (and a couple more) beers in the evening. It was fun to actually to hang out with other traveller after spending a lot of time between the two of us. We couldn't really plan anything, the Lonely Planet Philippines had been so expensive in Singapore that we hadn't bought it. Paul had one, so we were also happy to borrow his book. In Vigan we found a bookshop that sold the Rough Guide, a book we'd never used before, but that would have to do it now. It was the only one they had.
Next day, unlike we had planned, we got kicked out of the hostel because they had a booking for our room. Why not let us know that any earlier? So we quickly packed our bags and we had to decide what to do next. It all happened kind of fast. Briefly consulting the new guidebook we decided that we could do a little loop around the north. On the maps there was a big road from Laoag towards Sagada, where we wanted to see some rice terraces. So we jumped on a bus to Laoag. Not the smartest decision we had made. It was an okay place, but not much for a tourist. After a night there, we found out that to go to Sagada we would have to go all the way back to Baguio! It wasn't possible to go straight from there, even though a road was clearly marked on our map. None of the locals seemed to know of its existence. Sagada is only famous for tourists because of the landscape and rice terraces. Nothing to interest most locals we guessed. It would be at least seven hours on these mountain roads again! We wouldn't make it to Sagada in one day, because from Baguio that would be another 7 hours and the buses only left in the morning. For a second we thought about hitting the northern beaches first, but with no decent accommodation mentioned and the catholic Holy week (the biggest and busiest holiday of the year) coming closer, we wanted to be sure we can find a place to sleep. Paul had already made up his mind, he would go to Sagada. So we followed him, thinking that it would be smartest thing to do.
On the way we slept in Baguio again, Paul sharing the room with us. The next day we hopped on an old, kind of uncomfortable bus that took us more or less safely to our destination. We were finally in Sagada! Now it was time to rest! And plan. We had been moving every day since we arrived to the Philippines, spending most of our time in buses. We really had to figure out what we wanted to do in this country.
We enjoyed our time in Sagada. We spent a few days just resting, planning and enjoying local scenery. We found ourselves in a mountain town with pine tree forests around us. At times it almost looked like home. We wondered what else this country was going to offer. It had been absolutely different to anything in Asia so far. We hiked up the up the hills to get a view over the numerous rice terraces in the surrounding region. We also hiked to a small waterfall nearby.
One day we dedicated to do a tour, exploring the famous hanging coffins and caves. Old burial coffins had been hung on the sides of the hills and inside the nearby caves. Before the tour we were told that sufficient gear for this sort of activity would be shorts and flipflops. It wasn't. The caves were wet and the flipflops got very slippery as they got wet, and climbing down the rocks in the dark of the caves was so scary that we skipped the last part and instead waited sitting in the dark listening to the bats. The guide and Paul, who was actually wearing shoes, went deeper into the cave. In the end it still was worth the few euros that we paid, but next time we'll take proper shoes no matter what people tell us.
After a few days we kept going to Banaue, where the biggest rice terraces are located. The next morning we took a tour. A jeepney took us to the beginning point of the hike. And what a ride that was! We got to travel on the rooftop of the jeepney, not because it was full, but because we always wanted to try that! We got an amazing view and cheers from the locals, who probably don't see too many white people travelling like that. Or maybe they just thought we looked silly flying up an down on the bouncing jeepney, who knows. Dodging the occasional power lines we made it without any bruises. With numb bums we started the hike down the stairs on the mountain slope.
The rice terraces were breathtaking. We went to the Dragon's backbone rice terraces in China. They were bigger, but we were there just after harvesting and on a foggy day with fires burning everywhere. This time we got a beautiful clear view over the terraces, which were full with water and green rice growing everywhere! Just as we had hoped. We also hiked to a waterfall, where we went for a quick swim in the cold water. Perfect on a hot day! Back to town we travelled on the rooftop again. Because we could.
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