ThI got out of the city again. Yesterday we were in Banaue and today we are in Sagada which is know of its great Yerba Buena in these parts. No I am not dabbeling. This place is interesting because all of the houses and buildings here are the nicesest in the Philippines. This is due to the fact they are so high up they grow Pine trees and make everything out of pine. If it can be made from wood it is made from pine. Some of the hotels and restaurants just have a terrific log cabin feel to them. These two town have been great to get to because there is not a ton of tourist here and no one yells hey sir, hey sir, hey sir, Sir dont leave me. I do not know where the Philippinos picked up those selling tactics but I can not even begin to imagine that they work on any foreigners.

Last night we found out the hard way that the ENTIRE town shuts down promptly at 9 p.m. so what that means is you better be at your hotel by then or you are sleeping on the streets. This is no joke. We some how ended up at a local bar to a local guy singing classic rock songs and mind he was decent and with plenty of san mig in me I and not knowing there was a town curfew, we stayed at the bar until 9 when they told us to pay and get out. So when we ended up back at the hotel with a steel door shut in front of the place, the pounding commenced. eventually a little old woman opened the door and told us we should have been back earlier. How was I to know??? Mom I am sure you will be happy to know that I will be safely in bed before 10 tonight since I have to be back by 9.

There are plenty of touristy things to do here which mind you are very awesome things to do. I will explain next to the pictures.

The Philippino's love their smog and as you can see from my wonderful snap shot out the jeepney window that they just billow black exhaust.

Today in Sagada we decided to fork over the 400 pesos and take the Cave Tour. I had no idea what the hell I was getting myself into. This is not a normal tour where we would walk into a cave and say oooohhhh aaawwww how pretty. NO NO NO this was the tour that you get to work very hard at keeping yourself alive. Let me just tell you that there is some serious satisfaction is walking away from the cave tour. They try to seriously down play how freaking dangerous this is when you sign up. It is amazing, I am happy I did it but some where between slipping down a bat poo covered rocks and scaling a 15 foot rock wall in the dark with the black hole of death on either side of me I though wow this is a great vacation and I should have got life insurance.


Hard to tell from the photo inside the cave but my hands are covered in mud since you can not really stand up right on the rocks because they are so slick.


The tour guide said this looked like something but I am not sure what so if you have any ideas let me know.


I took this photo just encase I didn't make it out there would be one last photo of me.

My pictures are very out of order in this blog. The follow should have come first.

The trip to the Corrigedor Island

A statue of General MacArthur who took the Philippines back from the Japanese in WWII.


Building bombed by the Japanese.

The tour guide expressed to us how Philippinos really do not like Japanese. There were a few points during the tour I was very happy that the Japanese gentleman who was on the tour with us did not speak great English. She was ripping him up one side and down the other. Possibly made everyone on the tour bus uncomfortable. I guess that happens when your country was taken over.




Here is the lovely 200 pesos a night hotel accommodation in Banaue. So that costs roughly about 4.50 a night U.S. Not bad beside the place does not come with TP. TP is a very rare commodity in these parts so when you can get it you hang onto it and don't share. Every one is stealing napkins and paper towels from restaurants. I think there is some serious money to be made if some body wanted to import the stuff. You could be like a local weed deal except cooler.



Here are the incredible and eatable rice terraces. What is interesting about the millions of them is that they are all family owned, spring water feed and organically grown. They do not really sell any of it off because this is what the family's here eat for 3 meals a day. I was bummed out when I found out they do not have Taco Bell 4th meal here but I became happy when I found out they have the Jollibee 5th meal. (Jollibee is Philippines fast food)

More Rice Terraces. Please note the edges of each terraces. It may be hard to see since it is so small and yes we took a 4 hour tour of them walking along those edges. There are zero consideration for the possibility of death here. That could be part of what makes the tours so damn good.

Next week we are off to Boracay in the Philippines. It should be nice sandy beaches and clear water where I can finally do some scuba diving. Mike, totally hooked us with his travel website http://travel.groovenet.ph/ to get us the hook up on cheap flights and hotel. :) I can never complain about a great hook up.

Let me tell you about good deeds. That is all I do around here, I am dropping 20 peso tips everywhere I go. ;) (around 45 cents) Oh yeah big ballin'

Nick