Back from our morning trek to Tappiyah Falls. We came home to Mang Ramon’s Homestay, with our lunch of steaming brown rice and crispy porkchop waiting for us. The day’s second agenda: visit Cambulo. A village located north of Batad, reachable by 3-4 hours of trekking on rice paddies and terraces. I didn’t know a thing about Cambulo but Dandy mentioned guiding a group to the village the previous week. So we said, “Sige kami rin!”, gaya-gaya mode ON. He said there’s
Category: Philippines
We had no detailed plans for this trip, except to see the terraces and Tappiyah Falls. We told Dandy, our awesome guide (contact him at: 0910.346.5310), of our bare plan and he told us that if we weren’t in a hurry, we could hike to Cambulo. Thank you Dandy! I have not heard of Cambulo, a neighboring community reachable by 2-3 hours of trek. That was the masterplan. Finally, it was time to walk along the terraces. We went on the
‘Go Local!’ We saw Mang Ramon’s catchy slogan on the trail to Batad. We made no reservations prior to the trip, but luckily, Ramon’s Homestay still had an available traditional Ifugao hut. For P700, we were able to experience living in a ‘no-nail’ house. We were drenched by the rain and the almost 4-hr trek made us hungry for dinner at 4PM. Good thing we didn’t have to walk outside to find decent food because Ramon’s Homestay offered home-cooked meals
Hearing a French man based in Singapore say that Batad is the best place he’s ever visited in Southeast Asia is heartwarming but knowing that you haven’t set foot on the rice terraces yet is just, well, sad. The Rice Terraces in the Cordillera Administrative Region are collectively acknowledged as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Note that the Rice Terraces is tagged as a RED cultural site, meaning that it is included in the list of heritage in danger. The
I’m writing about this because the sun is scorching hot. And this humid weather reminds me of this: The 4-km long, powder-fine, white sand beach of Boracay! When I first visited the island, I did all things the Boracay way — got myself a henna (and almost had my hair braided), did the zorb, ate a lobster, drooled on cakes and shakes, and bought sand art and wood carvings from the lucky peddlers who happened to ask me, the eager