"Banaue Side Trip" Banaue by darylrose

Main destination: Sagada for a long weekend with Ryan and Ken.
Side trip: Banaue for the famed Banaue Rice Terraces
Itinerary: (not followed because of the weather & financial constraints hehe)
7am: ETA Banaue; go to Tourist office; have breakfast
8am: go to Banaue Museum/Tam-an Village then Bangaan Village & Guihob
Natural Pool
1pm : check -in at hotel & have lunch
2pm: Uhaj Village & Hapao Rice Terraces

Hotel: The Uhaj Native Village Inn to experience sleeping in a native hut without sacrificing Western Amenities and Services.
Getting There: Florida Bus. I tried to reserve 3 seats for Feb. 20 early, but you can only make reservations 2 days before your trip. We were told that to keep our reserved tickets, we have to claim & pay for them at least an hour before the departure time of 10:45pm.

Day of trip: We met at Ken's unit after class, since it was a few meters walk from our school and it was nearer to España. We left Taft Ave. a few minutes before 9pm & the 1st cab we got rejected us because he said traffic was gridlock in Espana. We got scared because we might lose our reserved tickets if it was traffic! The 2nd cab said he would only take Makati-bound passengers, and with the 3rd cab, I told the driver Lacson Ave. (instead of traffic-ridden Espana) and he took us in. To our relief, the driver knows where Florida Bus station is and there was no traffic! When we got to the station on Earnshaw cor. Extremadora St., there were two or three Florida Bus Stations across each other on the street! The station we got off at was for the sleeper bus (beds instead of seats!) to Aparri! I told the barker where going to Banaue, and he said we're suppose to be on the other side, so we walked along and crossed the street.

The waiting area wasn't near comfortable at all. It had old chairs with ripped out cushions and worn out wooden benches with an old tin roof serving as the waiting shed. Beside you and across the street were vendors of fruits and whatnot. And the buses were parked around you blowing their smoke. We waited for an hour for our bus. I was getting fidgety because of the bus fumes but when the bus got there it made up for the crappy waiting area. The seats were spacious and comfortable. I had lots of leg room, the overhead bin was more spacious than those of other buses I've been on, and there was a comfort room at the back of the bus, all these for the price of P450.

The bus was supposed to leave the station at 10:45pm but this is the Philippines, so we left around 11:00pm. I fell asleep the moment the bus started moving, but I kept on waking up because of the rain and the few stops we had to make. The bus stopped at its Solano Station around 4-5am and it was really, really cold! A few people went down to stretch and/or to go to the comfort room, including Ryan and Ken. According to them, the (male) comfort room at the station wasn't so clean and it was damp, but they said the whole station smelled like freshly baked bread, which made them really hungry. After Solano, I woke up around 6:30am to the shout of the conductor, "BANAUE." And outside my window was a closed store, a few tricycle drivers and tour guides waiting for another "victim."

Breakfast at Sanafe Lodge

The moment we got off the bus, I felt harassed by the men asking questions & offering tours & rides. One man went up to us & kept on insisting that we go to Batad for the better terraces, but we told him we had no time. I tried to ignore them so I just stood under a shed & tried to listen to a lady passenger giving directions to the tourist info to a foreign passenger. Ryan asked one of the men there where it was, & he said it was 500m down the road. While walking down the hill, a tricycle driver offered us a free ride to the Poblacion (town center), which we took but he kept on pressing us to go to this hotel or to be taken around.

BREAKFAST: At the tourist info I saw Sanafe Lodge & went there to eat (People's Restaurant was at my left but I heard breakfast there was bad). Sanafe’s café was rustic & nice, & it had a cute garden-balcony with a view of the terraces. The service though was not so good. We were being ignored by the only waiter serving a foreign group. I had to go to the kitchen & ask if we could order, there I was given menus. I also had to approach the waiter to give our order- 3 Filipino Breakfasts (beef tapa, fried rice, 1 fried egg with coffee or tea). After some time we got our meal, which was not bad, but the tapa was only 3 small pieces! Breakfast cost= P80

TOURIST INFO: After eating, we went to the Tourist Info, where we paid P10 (Student rate) for environmental preservation. But around town, it didn't look like anything was being preserved (Marikina is much cleaner). The rates for tourist guides & vehicle hires for different destinations in Banaue were posted there, & were expensive for short distances! We were being offered to go to Batad but the vehicle hire was too much for the 3 of us & we had to get a tourist guide which would cost us even more. We said we had no time for Batad but they kept on telling us that's where the most beautiful terraces are, & with the fog, we won't be able to see anything in View Point unlike Batad which was lower in elevation. I told them no & Ken just bought a map for P15 & said we just wanted to see the terraces printed on the P1000 bill in Banaue View Point. They then offered us to go to Bangaan or Hapao, & checking the guide & vehicle rates, we said no. Before we left, the lady at the info asked us where we will be checking-in & said they could take us there. We asked how much it would cost us to go to the Ethnic Village Inn, & they said P700 by jeep! I said we’ll walk around town. The lady from the Inn said it would only be P80 by tricycle.

FRIEND IN BANAUE HOTEL: We went to Banaue Hotel since Ken's mom's best friend-Ms. Zenaida, is the GM. We walked up to the hotel, & realized that it was just behind where our bus was parked! Ms. Zenaida toured us around the hotel & her staff told us we could go to Batad but we need to spend one night there since it takes a whole day to get there & see the terraces or we could go to Bangaan or Hapao Rice terraces. I then asked them what we could see in Tam-an Village (behind their hotel) & they said "Nothing.”

We were offered a free room because Ms. Zenaida found out that we were going to stay at the Ethnic Village Inn- 4km from town & a really cold place! I told her we were supposed to stay at the Uhaj Native Village Inn but they don't have rooms for today. So I sent an SMS to the owner of the Native Village Inn to double check & found out there’s a vacant cottage for the night. Ms. Zenaida told us that if we were staying in Uhaj, we could go to Hapao Rice Terraces since it would be nearer or if we want, we could stay at their hotel where it would be easier for us to get on a jeep to Bontoc the next day. She told us to think about it, but first we could go to the Banaue View Point & then walk back down to the Museum & the Hotel for our free lunch.

Kuya Sherwin, a tricycle driver stationed at the hotel, was asked to bring us to the View Point for P100 but we told Ms. Zenaida, we were told it was only P80 to get to Ethnic Village Inn & it was much farther than the View Point. Price= P80

Authentic Ifugao home by one of the view points

BANAUE VIEW POINTS
There's more than one View Point apparently. Each with different angles & views of the terraces, but in the map there’s only one. Sherwin took us to the top most View Point first where he was suppose to leave us but seeing how far we were, we told him to wait for us. After that view point he took us to the Diannara View Point where he said the P1000 bill view was. The store at the Diannara View Point sells native goods & souvenirs at a lower price than those in the Poblacion. The goods are much better & more varied! Too bad I didn't get to buy from there. From Diannara, we went to a lower view point where a native hut was standing at the side & it had different animal skulls hanging around the hut. There was also a rice terrace that you could go down to, walk along the side of the paddy & have your picture taken at the edge.

BANAUE CULTURAL MUSEUM
There are 2 museums in Banaue- the Banaue Sculpture Museum beside Spring Village Inn, & the Banaue Cultural Museum beside Banaue View Inn. We went to the 2nd one but it was closed when we got there. However, it seemed that Sherwin knew the people there & they opened the museum for us. We signed in the guest book & paid P50 (no student rate). There were plenty of pictures of Ifugaos from the early 1900s, native attires, news articles of Yamashita & his treasure, spheres, baskets, dolls, coffins & even a skull from the old head-hunting days!!!
Some info: 1) Ifugao man can only get a certain tatoo design if he has done something related to that tattoo, ex: taken the head of an enemy = only time he can put on tatoo for head hunting. 2) The body of the murdered was treated differently from those who died of natural causes so the soul would seek revenge.
I asked Sherwin if they still did the native burial rites where relatives dance around the rice paddies but he said no. They just bury the person now, which is kind of sad because it's a tradition & culture lost =(
We paid Sherwin P200 for the whole trip. We also asked him to come back for us at 2pm to take us to Uhaj.

OUR LUNCH @ BANAUE HOTEL
We ate lunch at the Banaue Hotel & were seated near the window for a view of the Poitan Village & terraces. We were served spaghetti with toast & breaded chicken with Tinawon (organic Ifugao Native Rice). For dessert we had carrot cakes & tea/coffee. The food was so good & the serving was very generous! After we ate, we were introduced to Canadian Ambassador Mr. Robert Desjardins & had a picture taken with him.

UHAJ NATIVE VILLAGE INN:
Uhaj is 9km (30min.) away from the Poblacion by jeep. There is a jeep from town to Hapao at 1pm that passes by Uhaj & it costs only P15. Unfortunately, we didn't catch the jeep so we took Sherwin's little tricycle that could. I think our bags were too heavy for the tricycle so it was clanking all the way. It took us an hour to get to the Inn from Banaue Hotel because the road was made for 4x4 vehicles. To Uhaj, we stopped by a natural spring on the side of the road.

The Native Village Inn, is on top of a hill that has a good view of rice terraces on both sides. At the back of the hotel, beside the cottages there is a deck where you could see & marvel at the wonderful terraces to Hapao. The view is incomparable to what is seen at the Banaue View Points, especially with the morning mist coming up from the mountains! There are also hardly any tin roofs & GI Sheets to ruin your view of the terraces.

We checked-in at 3pm & were greeted by two adorable dogs at the gate & a cute small monkey (in a cage) by the entrance of the restaurant. Sherwin said it might take us 2 hours to get to Hapao & its Hot Spring on his tricycle, so we decided to just stay at the Inn. We just chilled in our native Ifugao Hut, took a hot shower in the CR, viewed the terraces, ate a good hefty dinner & drank strawberry wine from Benguet.

The next day we woke up really early, ordered coffee & scrumptious homemade toast, & waited for the jeep from Hapao to Banaue (we could see it coming up the mountain going towards the hotel from the window at the café).

• Pros:Beautiful Rice Terraces, interesting culture, good roads to Banaue, serenity in Uhaj, friendly people of Uhaj
• Cons:cluttered town center, GI sheets, expensive vehicle hire rates, harrassing tour guides/drivers greeting you upon arrival
• In a nutshell:Not just for a Side Trip