Wowee Banaue

Trip Start May 15, 2006
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Trip End Nov 2007


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Flag of Philippines  ,
Sunday, February 11, 2007

At 10pm we boarded our bus for Banaue. Up til now we've hardly seen any tourists in the Philippines, now we know why, they're all in Banaue! I've never seen so many pairs of gleaming new pairs of hiking boots or combat trousers as there were in that bus station. I am probably just jealous cos my hiking boots were pretty much dead when we left NZ and v bulky so I threw them out and all I have now is a pair of converse all stars that are a bit small or my tevas (I did have some flippos too but they got stolen on Apo Island and the man from the dive shop, bless him, replaced them with a hideous pair of luminous pink and yellow ones!). I also threw out all my trousers except 1 pair and I only have 1 thin hoody to keep warm so I am pretty ill equiped for hiking. It was a bumpy overnight bus and after 2 overnight buses in a row and a long day in Manila we were knackered(especially as we were woken up by a fat american shouting at the Filipinos to ask if they could understand English and telling them to get the driver to turn off the air con cos he was freezing 01 Flintstones. Meet the flintstones!
01 Flintstones. Meet the flintstones!
 . he called the driver a "Goddamn Schmuck which we thought was hilarious cos we didn't think people really said "schmuck"). We got a room in the first place we saw, had breakfast and slpet until lunchtime.

After lunch we went for a walk up to the viewpoints to see the rice terraces, the "8th wonder of the world". I'm sure we've seen at least 8 8th wonders of the world on this trip alone! They were impressive tho. It was strange walking though the villages and seeing kids play with sticks or really simple wooden toys after the excess of the shopping malls the day before. Dean had a go on a bike made from wood, it looked like something from the Flintstones. From Banaue you can go to a village called batad that is only accessible by foot, many tourists do this, which is why we decided not to. That and the fact that its hard to walk along the terraces on a slippery narrow mud wall. As I have terrible balance and only 1 pair of trousers I decided to give it a miss, there is also a 3-4 m drop from terrace to terrace which I'm sure my short arms and legs would have come in handy for!
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