At the end of the last post we had just left the famous Banaue, the home of the rice terraces. We could not see anything accept rain clouds since there was a large system moving through the area so we boarded a jeepney (public transport) to Bagabag.
Once we descended in elevation then we found the scenery quit nice. We boarded another jeepney to Santiago and I could see that it was a fairly large city, too large for our liking. I figured we could make our way to the east of the city and look for lodging; the first place wanted 320 pesos for 12 hours and 25 pesos for every additional hour, it was only 3:30 pm. The next place wanted 350 for 12 hours and then 40 pesos for every additional hour. After about one km. of walking on the busy highway in the rain we checked out a place that wanted 480 pesos and 100 for additional hours, I wondered who would come to a hotel at 4pm just to have to leave at 4am or face additional charges?
I talked my wife into boarding a jeepney to go to Echague, where we had planned to go the next day. Talk about not being wanted !; there was no place to stay in town and if looks could kill then I would have been dead 10 times over. We hopped back on a jeepney- where there were young guys saying derogatory comments in their language (my wife speaks the language) and headed back to Santiago. My experience so far in this Asian country was that it was hot and cold with the locals, they either smiled a lot and were friendly or they give very disapproving looks. After 12 hours of travel and inconvenience we ended up getting one of the first hotels that we looked at.
The next day we traveled for 7 hours and made it to the city of Tuguegarao, which is a big city with a lot of tricylce's. We passed many large rivers with mountains off in the distance to the west, many of the farmers were growing corn. The people seemed very friendly in Tuguegarao which makes a huge difference for a tourist. The next day, after being woken up so early by barking dogs screaming, and honking horns we headed to San Vicente which is a small fishing village on the top east of Luzon. What we were doing for this trip was stopping and getting off the bus wherever we felt we had hit a place that was worthy of a photo. At Iguig there was the Stations of the Cross to Calvary which has about 50 life size cement figures that depict Jesus and his stages before being nailed to the cross, the Philippines is a predominantly Catholic country.
The next bus followed the Caguyan River north for many hours , this was a large body of water, the scenery was nice.
At Dugo we got off the bus and caught a jeepney for the last 80 kms to the isolated village of San Vicente. From this village a person can cross the Babuyan Channel to reach either Palaui Island or the Babuyan Islands. After a walk on the pier we strolled down the small main street and found the locals friendly, some looked a bit shocked. My wife struck up a conversation with a shop owner who told her we could stay in the house behind for the night. We ate a fresh crab and some fish stew before walking on our first beach; that was short and sweet since the rain was coming down fairly heavy.
Our sleep that night was very poor for several reasons; the bed was bare wood only, many mosquito's were getting into the net, heavy monsoon rain was hitting the metal roof as the wind howled, dogs were chasing chickens under the bamboo floor beneath us. Needless to say we did not make the trip out to see the nice beaches on Palaui Island, we left on the 6am jeepney for the 2.5 hour trip to Aparri.
The jeepney driver was turning on every small road honking the horn to catch the attention of possible passengers; I guess other people did not need to sleep. One sight that was memorable was an old lady who came outside in her pajama's talking on a cellphone, her one room bamboo hut was leaning to one side and it appeared that she was very poor BUT she had a cellphone. By the time we made it to Aparri we could see how much damage the storm had caused; many power lines were down and laying in water. Speaking of power, there are so many nipa huts that have an extension cord tied into the main power line; this cord is held up by pieces of bamboo.
After 10 hours on the bus we made it to Laoag, Ilocos; it was a pretty long day. There was a rock slide that came down during the storm and the debris covered most of the road; the bus just had enough room to squeeze by on the shoulder of the road and we could proceed. The scenery was great, as the bus followed the coast from east to west there were: views of some beaches and nice rock formations, the mountains were very close to the sea. We took a pass on the touristy Pagudpud which is supposed to have a nice beach, but expensive lodging for Philippine standards. The city of Laoag was good for us, there were many old churches in the city from the 1600's; many horse drawn carts can be spotted throughout the city.
We went to the La Paz beach which had large sand dunes, it was very nice; I would classify it as an exotic beach, very hot though. We saw very few people on this long beach, perhaps it was too hot, maybe the seas were too rough ?
There were barking dogs close to the Casa Lianes Pension House so our 2 nights there did not result in good sleeps. We shared a jeepney with a guy who rode on the back with me, he was complaining how hard it is to survive in the Philippines but he has 7 children and smokes. On the way to Baguio from Laoag we passed through Bauang where there are many old churches, some with bell towers. The bus nipped down to the coastline every once in awhile before climbing the mountains into Baguio. After Baguio we took the bus back to the coast and stayed at the Hideaway Beach Resort that is north of Buang and south of San Fernando; that night we had our best sleep in 2.5 weeks; there were no barking dogs, no roosters, but rather the sound of the fan and the waves of the sea. We stayed a couple of days around this area because the atmosphere was great; friendly people, nice beaches, and tiger prawn//mango dinners.
The Philippine travel is time consuming and exhaustive but the effort given is usually rewarded in some way by natural beauty; this may come on the same day or within several days of an inconvenience. To see this 7,000 plus island country in it's entirety would take a life time but with a few months of an itinerary filled with hustle and bustle one can witness some incredible scenery.
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