Sagada, 10 days in the hills.

Welcome to ten days at a contender for surreal hotels of the world competition Phillipino entry:-
where service dithered between superb and non existent. I had literately stumbled across the place about 3k out of the small high mountain town of Segada. It was a good price and it had an en-suite bathroom AND hot water AND a balcony from which the next set of pictures were shot.

An evening playing cloud pictures....

 A flying duck

 An angel

 Rabbit

 And just to be silly two elephants cuddling under the moon!

 The following morning

I have no pictures of the actual hotel because I just could not find a shot because the place was surrounded by trees, rocks and steep slopes.

Liza, I know is going to be forthright in her views that this was all 'Liza's boot camp', a truly unwarranted and unjust accusation, so we did walk, a fair way. OK a fair amount was up, but it was all very gentle really.

Our first walk took us up the gentle incline of the local hill (5367ft) but only about an hour of gentle incline to the top, where we looked down at what will undoubtedly be the theme of this blog, terrace after terrace after terrace of rice fields.

 When we first arrived the fields were almost ready to be sown, the terraces themselves were pools of mud. The stone walls between them can be up to 3m.

 The pine woods you walk through give plenty of shade and the altitude does make it cool

 The wild flowers are quite cute!

 And although all houses have a scruffy first look, they all tend to have superb location.

 That evening we had mist not sunsets!

 The next day (ish) we caught the jeepney from our deserted mountain village down to the local town of Bontoc, from there we walked up to the town of Maligcong where there were reckoned to be some spectacular terraces. The graves are kept close!

Bontoc below

 I think the town just overgrew the graveyard!

 Bontoc below again.

 And here she comes up the gentle incline!

 Right to the top..... we had a gentle stroll up the very top, along the ridge and round the butress and got to see Malicong for the first time:-

 My wife looking happy, fresh and not thirsty!....

We thought these didn't look as spectacular until you get not only closer but into the terraces........

The more spectacular it becomes.

 The bright green patches are the seedlings, almost ready to be planted out into the other terraces.
Also notice the damage to the terrace middle-left these things have to be constantly maintained...
Thirdly note how the terrace is dammed with mud you can only walk on the paths unless you have a guide.... not only is it an amazing 3d maze you can also tread in the wrong place, break the wall and drain the pool.
To actually walk across them needs quite a head for heights as a slip is either a large fall into mud or a small fall into mud!

As you can see, most if it is wall not terrace so these used to be used; to plant sweet potato into. However not at this time of year and we did not find out if this was still done.

 The more I saw of these terraces, the more amazed I became, the cover significant parts of the area around here. If they are as old as reported I cannot think, or find anything on a quick trawl through the web of anything nearly as significant, or as large or as old of a structure on the planet that has been in continuous use for what it was originally intended. The longest surviving design in the world!

 To talk of more intellectual things, looks like tomato ketchup, tastes like tomato ketchup.....!!!

And to finish off the photos, another view from the balcony, a gold leafed plant!

Our hotel catered for the local trade, Sagada is a mountain resort where the locals drive up out of the cities at weekends so it is a weekend only place. We had the 25 room hotel to ourselves Sunday afternoon until Friday afternoon then over both the weekends the place would be full. The locals also always travel mob handed, all groups were at least 5 often 8 or 12. These groups would arrive and treat the place as their own, walking round the back to the log pile, lighting a fire in the lawn, bring in their own food and drink and start cooking!, To see one group kick off the large ornamental fire in the lounge only to start grilling fish on it made us smile. While during the week we played a perpetual game of 'hunt the staff'.

Tuesday we caught the first bus back to Bagio, where after a 6 hour coach ride over the mountains in the pouring rain we stopped for 35 min before getting another 6 hour bus to Manila, I think that the long rest beforehand - just strolling up gentle inclines - made this much easier than it sounds especially as we arrived about 12.30pm in our hotel to find, courtesy of the British embassy Hong Kong this:-

Love to all.