Rice, Rice, Rice, Chickens, Rice

We set off to see some small villages, rice terraces, hill tribes and more... first we took an over night bus from manila to the mountains in the north ending up in a little town of Banue.


then hired this guy to drive us an hour up an impossibly rocky, muddy road to a trail head.


We then hiked for about three hours along rice terraces and over a few hills. We later learned that most people take a local guide. Somehow we found our way. We passed some really small native grass hut villages.

Our final destination was this little village (Batad) set in a large ampitheater like valley surrounded by terraces. It was one of the most amazing landscapes imagainable. We happened to be the only guests in the little guest house. There are about 1500 native tribes people that live here. The town just got electricity about a year ago and only few of the huts have it.

we hiked around the town and found a realy nice guy who is kind of the local historan--he invited us into his native hut that he had inherited from his great grandfather. we had some native coffee and he told us all about the people and their customs. (there were wild cat skulls hanging all about, made me think of little grey)