Northern Hemisphere. Philippines. Northern Luzon.
How nice, again a culture hardly known to me, where I do not know what to expect!
Practically, in a country with over 7000 islands, there are almost as many languages, of course, but the official languages are Tagalog and English, making communication easy. The real language, however, seems to me to be "Taglish", so the mixture of both ... Therefore, it seems as if one would understand a great deal, even if not English is spoken.
Striking: Karaoke, in this country called "Videoke", is an even bigger thing than any other Asian countries anyway. You can barely walk down a street that does not hear very slanted singing from any house. Absolutely pain-free!
The sound is still better than that of the Tricyles, these are the mopeds with welded sidecar, almost the taxi of the Philippines. For larger groups, there are then Jeepneys, artfully designed jeep minibuses.
The Cordillera, the mountains here in the north of the island of Luzon, is "mountain" in the absolute sense: there is nothing but mountains. A mountain range at the other. The largest flat areas are man-made: sports fields and rice terraces. And even the many dogs here run the steepest mountains and stairs more elegant than mountain goats.
My first big tour here was to go to Mount Amuyao and then through the mountains known for their rice terraces to Batad.
As in other Asian countries, once you do more than a city walk, you have to hire a guide. The cost is not really the thing (it's cheap and the money goes directly to the locals), but sometimes it's annoying if you can not plan independently or are traveling with strangers you did not choose yourself.
And sometimes it gets an incredible bureaucratic flush! Example: after long negotiations and bagging the route we are with our guide Vincente (good guy, maybe a little too proud that he knows the way ... I mean, that's his job, right?) At 4 o'clock in the morning Tricycle to Barlig 55 km away. "We" are mine and Antoine, whom I met at the hostel.
At Barlig we arrived at 6.30 to see that:
- Sundays in the Tourist Office nobody has service (but the police helped us);
- Our guide is not allowed to guide us, as the place is already in the neighboring province (area protection);
- and we can not run our planned route, because we would run into a neighboring community, which is forbidden us, because somehow clinch and also there area protection and what I know. A better reason was not provided and it did not really make sense, but what do you want to do ...
So we had to discuss a lot and engage another guide, who was only after an hour at the start. After all, there was free coffee at the police station.
At eight o'clock it started and the way to the Amuyao was really entertaining and demanding. The summit was unfortunately in clouds, but at least ... A summit!
Instead of just crossing the mountain, we now had to return the 1300 meters to the starting point to continue from there to Pula. The desired night in Barlig we did not want to do on principle. After an ascent of the mountain another 10 km (and 800 meters up and down) unplanned "dranzuhängen" was a nice challenge. At the end we have been on our feet for almost 10 hours the first day, of which a maximum of one hour breaks!
After a dinner in our homestay in Pula, Antoine and I did not wake up at 8pm. I woke up at 7 o'clock .. just 11 hours slept! (The day before but also out at 3.30 clock.)
On the second day we went along many beautiful rice terraces to the most beautiful of all: Batad. The acting as an amphitheater backdrop is part of the World Heritage. Really, really impressive!
There is also a beautiful waterfall in Batad, but our guide Vincente (in the pictures, by the way, with the dog) was already really through and let us go through the area alone!
The tour was really a good action and especially suitable (just places like Pula) to get to know the "real" Philippines!
