A Passage to the Philippines

I woke up to an extremely foggy morning. Despite my inn’s prime location at the top of Batad’s rice terraces, I only caught a few glimpses of the terraces below through occasional tears in the clouds. The night before, I had arranged a tour around the terraces for eight o’clock in the morning, but I began to doubt whether I should go through with it as the fog showed no signs of lifting. I considered staying at the inn all morning. It was a cozy place run by a young lady and her mother, and I found the set-up quite charming.

My room looked more like a room at a traveller’s lodge than a hotel: it had two queen-size beds with relatively shallow mattresses and mismatched bedding (the bed had a repeating print of a giant white bunny holding a smiling carrot). The windows did not close all the way, but it was warm enough at night that I did not mind, and no mosquitoes made it into my room. My bed faced the amphitheatre-like valley of Batad, which amplified the clucking of chickens and crowing of roosters as well as occasional explosions of petards lit by village children.

I decided to take the tour anyway. I figured that if I waited until the fog lifted, it might settle again by the time I reached the viewpoint, so the best bet was to try catching a few clear spots on the way. For most of the journey, the guide spoke very little except for a few rehearsed lines; he had trouble understanding my questions, often answering my open-ended inquiries with a simple “yes.” He was, however, an engaging conversationalist with all the locals we met. Oftentimes, he would stop on the narrow pathway and obliviously begin a talk with an old man or woman, both of them slowly chewing on betel leaves. Every now and then, a red cloud appeared in the water of the rice fields as he spit his discoloured saliva into it. His teeth were black and worn.

I am told that December is not the best time to visit Batad, as the rice fields are mostly brown and unsown. The old lady at my inn told me that the local community used to have two harvests per year, but with most young people now working in the cities, planting only happens once, in January. Still, seeing the fields full of water and unprepared for planting was interesting, if not quite as aesthetic. The clearness of the water allowed me to see the occasional fish leaving a cloud of mud in its hurried wake, which made me wonder: how did the fish get there? Were they carried by humans or did they somehow wind up in these mountain fields by themselves? I noticed that tiny fish even swarmed some of the gutters by the roadsides.

By the time we reached the lookout point above the rice terraces, the fog had mostly cleared up. Thick clouds still draped the nearby hills and blocked out the sun, but the terraces were now much more than faint contours in a sea of milk. Two wooden figures stood at the lookout point, one male and the other female, who my guide said were the local “rice guardians.” He told me the same thing as the man who led me to the inn yesterday: that people conduct animal sacrifices to honour these guardians and ask for a good harvest. It struck me that “rice guardian” was a more inoffensive expression than “rice spirit,” which I accidentally put in my guide’s mouth yesterday while trying to find out more about the sacrifices. I imagine that the idea of a “rice guardian” clashes a little less with the exclusive claims of Christianity.

From the viewpoint, we descended into the heart of the village, which finds itself completely surrounded by rice terraces. The excursion exposed me to the strange mixture of traditional culture and modernity that has been created by tourism. For one, all the villagers listening to music on their phones and radios were tuning into contemporary American pop. I briefly wondered what the traditional instruments in the region looked like and whether they were still being played at times. Furthermore, there were a number of small shops strewn across the trail selling soft drinks and coffee. Each of them offered WiFi for a few pesos per hour, which I thought was an interesting idea as the entire valley seemed devoid of cell service.

I had some business to attend to when I returned to the inn. I did not have enough cash on hand to pay for the tour and transport to and from the hotel, which landed me in a bit of a pickle. As the inn did not have a card reader, they asked me to pay via PayPal. However, I hit a wall trying to download the application on my phone, as the app required confirmation by phone number, which made it impossible to establish an account without cell service. It occurred to me to ask my friend Barron for help, as he still owed me money for our trip to Laos and Cambodia. Luckily, he was online, and after confirming that my phone had not been hijacked by scammers, he sent the money on my behalf.

I left the inn at two o’clock, slipping on the stairs on my way out. I did not get dirty, as I caught myself with my left hand, but I have a feeling that one of those days I will break my wrist. The tricycle driver was waiting for me at the parking lot. We had arranged beforehand to stop by another set of rice terraces at Bangaan before he dropped me off at the bus stop in Banaue, which did not add all that much time to the itinerary. We still arrived at the bus station with over an hour to spare. I filled this time trying to wash my shoes using a barrel that stood at the edge of the bus stop with two ladles floating inside.

Having now taken a night bus with three different bus companies, I feel qualified to make a few comparisons. My first bus ride, from Manila to Vigan with Partas, was by far the most luxurious with its two-by-one seat arrangement, charging ports, and TV screens. My second bus ride, from Manila to Sagada with Coda Lines, was a bit of a downgrade: it was a two-by-two-seater without charging ports and with seats that did not recline as far. As far as these points of comparison are concerned, the third bus ride, from Banaue to Manila with Ohayami Trans, was the least comfortable, with uncomfortable narrow seats and no charging points. However, Ohayami was the only bus where I did not feel like I would get tuberculosis and frostbite, which was a great point in its favour.

I cannot conclude this day’s entry without one more complaint about the absolute mess that is Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport. After I arrived at the bus terminal in Manila, a German couple that had been riding on the same bus approached me to ask whether I would like to share a cab to the airport. They were headed to a different terminal, but I figured saving some four hundred pesos would be worth the subsequent hassle of taking the bus from one terminal to another.

Things turned out to be a little more complicated. Once we arrived at Terminal 3, I followed the signs to the inter-terminal bus. Officially, only passengers who are transiting from one flight to another can take this bus, but I was not asked for a confirmation of where I had come from. Indeed, the officer on duty did not seem the least bit suspicious when I told him I was flying to Bangkok after arriving from Thailand (I was tired and could not come up with a better story on the spot). I arrived at the terminal after four o’clock and although the officer said the bus would be there in fifteen to thirty minutes, it only arrived at quarter to five. In the meantime, I watched the officer tell several hapless tourists with short connecting times that they would be better off taking a taxi or Grab cab.

This was not the end of my tour of the airport, though. Soon enough, the bus pulled over and we all got out. No announcement had been made about what terminal we had reached and there were no signs anywhere saying what terminal this was. I blithely assumed that since the bus driver knew at least several people were going to Terminal 1, he would let us know if we left at the wrong stop. Somehow, I then went on to pass through two ticket checks without anyone pointing out that I was at Terminal 2. I only began to suspect something might be wrong when I looked at the board with departing flights and saw that they were all headed to domestic destinations. After waiting for yet another bus (which was also delayed), my total travel time between Terminal 3 and Terminal 1 was a little over two hours. I spent most of it writing, though, so I was not too out of spirits.