Our ferry was due to leave Coron for Manila at the very precise time of 11.59pm and lo and behold, before the stroke of midnight, we were on our way. A punctual departure hadn’t seemed likely. The security at the port was tight with much checking of bags for sharp objects and lighters. A mango that Caoimhin had in the side pocket of his backpack was confiscated with no explanation….perhaps the official liked mangoes, as much as we did.

Once we entered the main departure area, all bags had to be placed in a single row on the floor so that a sniffer dog could check them out. The problem was that the single row already snaked down and around a vast hall (the amount of luggage that some people were carrying was staggering) There was much unintelligible shouting and gesticulating by a very officious steward….even the Filipinos didn’t know what was going on. They just shrugged and smiled. We were told that we had to wait and put our bags in a second row once the first row was checked. The dog came, sniffed the first few bags, some ID documents were scrutinised, and the first twenty people were even body searched. Then it all went a bit haywire….more shouting when some people tried to remove their luggage. In the ensuing mayhem, the stewards weren’t sure which bags were checked. We just sneaked out the door and headed for the boat….Caoimhin loves breaking the rules.

Although we had assigned beds on our tickets, we were told to just take any available bunk. We headed for the open top deck. We are not paranoid, but the safety record on Filipino ferries is appalling and the enclosed air-con tourist class was a little too enclosed for our liking….especially if you had to get out in a hurry. The ferry wasn’t full, and the top deck was virtually empty except for loners and the prudent. The engine noise was loud up there but that was compensated by the lack of human noises. it was a lovely constant noise that lulled us to sleep for a few hours. The crossing was smooth with a light breeze providing natural aircon. This ferry (2Go company) wasn’t fancy, but it was a giant step-up from the other long ferries we have taken. There were life-vests on all the bunks and also in the canteen area, the aisles were clear of crates and boxes, the toilets were (reasonably) clean. The morning dawned hazy and overcast. Meals were included in the ticket price (€54 each), and by 6 am, a long breakfast queue had formed, a bit like a soup kitchen. Everyone was given a plastic plate with a large mound of rice, scrambled egg, and some beef cubes ( the choice was simple – ‘take it or leave it.’ )The process was repeated at midday with rice and battered shrimp smothered in ketchup. Hardly gourmet, but nobody wanted to give up a ‘free’ meal.

Karaoke started up on the boat as we approached Manila…maybe to celebrate a safe arrival after 17 hours at sea. Manila port was busy with cargo ships and fishing boats , the water full of floating debris and the odd jumping fish. When we disembarked, the traffic was appalling on that misty overcast Friday. We walked in circles around the stinking streets in the port area looking for a taxi – usually we are pestered with taxi-drivers when we want to walk. Huge lorries barrelled along within inches of our feet. Eventually a man wondered what we were looking for and pointed us in the direction of taxis a couple of streets away. It took more than an hour and a half to drive ten kilometres. When we got to our hotel (RedDoorz near EDSA camp), the room was tiny – we had more space on the boat. There was a pile of festering rubbish on the street corner outside and a woman and baby sleeping on the other corner. So we were thankful that we had a roof over our heads. The area was a bit rough but we stumbled upon a Jazz club down a quiet leafy street (the only leafy one in the area) We counted our blessings, listening to live music and sipping cold beers.

Rice is more than a food here in the Philippines, it is part of the psyche of the people. No meal is complete without it and we have sometimes eaten it three times a day. There were paddy fields all over the Philippines, but the UNESCO Heritage rice terraces were in the north, a nine hour overnight bus journey from Manila.

Manila was hot and sweaty, we weren’t interested in touristy things (we had already seen anything we wanted to see). We wandered around the crowded air-conditioned shopping malls, buying nothing , just watching all the Filipinos doing the same thing. I don’t really want to admit this, but we toured the food courts going from Starbucks to McDonald’s to Jolibees, a Filipino version of KFC on a fast-food binge.
But finally we were on the overnight bus to Banaue in the Cordillera mountains with perishing aircon and corkscrew roads. I regretted our food choices with every bend and curve of the road.

We arrived before 6am in Banaue where the early morning sweeping was in full swing and tendrils of smoke curled upwards from the fires burning rubbish and dead leaves. We were met at the bus stop by a tricycle to bring us to our accommodation, Rice Homestay, a friendly place where there was a whiff of dampness and thick blankets on the bed – we haven’t needed a blanket since we left home. There was a wonderful cool freshness in the air, which was invigorating despite our tiredness.

Banaue was a stunning area of natural beauty with deep valleys, waterfalls, rivers traversed by swaying rope bridges, and of course rice terraces. Many of the terraces were two thousand years old and created by the Ifugao people with their own distinct rituals and customs. This was an area that was perfect for hiking along irrigation channels and ancient paths that hugged the contours of the mountains. A head for heights and a sense of balance were certainly an advantage. The terraces were of varying sizes and steepness, sometimes shrouded in cloud and mist, but the vividness of the green rice stalks was incredible, especially after rain as if newly scrubbed. The heavens opened most afternoons in torrential downpours, but even in the rain, it was a pleasent 22 degrees.

We walked for two days with our guide Feny from village to village. Feny was great company, smart and funny with a big personality. She was one of a handful of female guides. She was local from the Ifugua tribe and was a mine of information. Like most mountain people, she chewed betel nut (called momma here) non-stop, spitting great splashes of blood-like juice along the trail. We stayed for a night in a homestay in Cambula. The houses were spread over the hill in a higgledy- piggedly fashion….no planning permissions needed if it was your land or your ancestors land. The locals kids put on a show for us, singing If you’re happy and you know it . Far more enjoyable was a tribal dance involving a headdress of eagle feathers and much banging of gongs and bamboo sticks.

It’s hard to say how many of these children will remain in the village in the future. The children go to elementary school in the villages but then go to high school in the towns where they stay with relatives. Growing rice and maintaining the terraces is labour intensive and incredibly hard work -a long, back-breaking process. The number of older people bent double was alarming and sad. The way of life of the Ifugao People is still ruled by ritual and ceremony. The colours of the traditional clothes denote your caste and how many rice terraces you have. The tribal priests play a big role in life and death. The suitability of a marriage partner may be decided by the examination of the bile of a dead chicken. If the bile is ‘bad’, the union will not be blessed, but Feny said that you could always kill another chicken until you got the ‘right’ result. The celebration of an engagement was also a big event. The bridegroom’s family must bring a pig to the girl’s’ family home. The pig is slaughtered there, and all the neighbours who are present are given a hunk of raw meat.

In this part of the Philipines, your dead may be closer than you think, they might be in the house with you. The bodies of the dead are exhumed after two years, the bones are cleaned in a ritual ceremony and kept in a cool place in the house. They are periodically brought out, particularly in times of illness and crisis when there is a ‘showing of the bones’.

But things are changing. Most people carry the outside world in their pockets with mobile phones. One damp afternoon in the middle of nowhere, the sound of Have I told you lately that I love you (the old version by Jim Reeves) reverberated around the terraces from a ghetto blaster, covered with a white plastic sack. A man nearby repaired walls and chewed momma. Both young and old love country music in the hills.

Back in Banaue, the most memorable sound was the heart-rending squealing of pigs , all legs bound with rope, who were being butchered on the street for the harvest festival that was going on. Food here is real, the slaughter of animals is up close and personal, meat isn’t wrapped in plastic on supermarket shelves.

Our next stop is Sagada, another mountain town, famous for the coffins hanging in the surrounding mountains . Hope you can join us there.
Until then….thanks for reading.