North Luzon, Philippines

So we took a local bus (ie. 5 people to a row, Dave's legs had to go in the aisle.. but we had a lot of space relative to the people in the 3 bench kitty corner to us, that had 6 (SIX) people in a space meant for 3!) for 13 h to Manila, and then an overnighter up to Banaue (Ba-na-we) to visit the rice terraces. These were carved into the mountain many years ago (the local information is quite varied) by hand, and are still farmed today.

We went over to a town called Batad, which they say is in the amphitheatre, with the town at centre stage and the rice terraces all around. We had to walk 2 h up and over a mountain to get there, and then walked down to a beautiful waterfall to go swimming. Needless to say, our legs were aching that night. The town of Batad still doesn't have electricity, so the pace was very relaxing. ahh...

Now we're in Sagada, and we got to go for a 4h walk through this cave with only one of those camping lanterns showing the way. It was awesome, tiny holes, vertical drops, climbing over crevasses! One of the guides fell 20ft, luckily with water below. They are not so big on conservation, as they used the caves to hide during WWII, so you could climb all over the stalactites (or maybe stalagmites? the bottom ones) and other formations.. there's only one untouched formation remaining in the portion we did.

Getting ready to go chase after the whale shark



At the waterfall in Batad



View of the rice terraces by Banaue



Dave and Roy, behind the fiesta feast prepared by his girlfriend's family