Friday, 24 October 2008
At the town center, Brutus dropped us off at People’s Lodge & Restaurant, where we could have breakfast and talk about our schedule for the day. 
People’s Lodge is just across the Banaue Tourist Information Center, a good starting place to get help with your travel plans.
TIP: The Tourist Information Center is run by the Banaue Tourism Council, which you can contact via landline at (074) 386-4010. You may also directly contact Ms. Juliet Mateo (in photo above), Information Officer, via her cellphone at 0929-469-2138.I highly recommend that you inquire directly from this office first, before you decide on anything on your own and get duped by pseudo-tourist guides in the process (which almost happened to me).
Anyway, after breakfast I showed Brutus a list of the places I wanted to go to, and asked him to pick out those sites which he thinks would be possible for the short duration that I will be staying in town.
I made it clear to him that I needed to finish all the possible sites before 10am the next morning, before I leave for Bontoc as per my planned itinerary.
Initially, I wanted to go to Batad on my first day and get back to town in the early afternoon so I can do some other stuff. Brutus said that this would not be possible because it was already past 9am that time.
He pointed out that it would take about an hour and a half to drive to Batad junction,
and that I had to trek for about an hour and a half to get to the village,
Batad Trekking, originally uploaded by greendolphin18
another hour if I wanted to see Tappiya Falls,
Philippines: Batad Rice Terraces, originally uploaded by brien h.
plus a minimum of 30 minutes to stay and shoot some photos, and then trek again for just about the same time (or even more) to get back to the junction. He said it will be dark by the time we get back to town, so it would be useless as there would be nothing left to do in town at night (except drink a few bottles of beer).
He said that the couple who rode with us to town (who we shall be calling the Osmonds), also had plans to go to and stay in Batad for the night. So he suggested that I just do the same, and he will just pick us up the next morning at the junction and drive us back to town.
But I had other plans, I really didn’t want to spend the night in Batad and just get back to town the next day just to leave for Bontoc. I wanted to see more of Banaue, the people, the culture, the museums, whatever. So hesitantly, I had no choice but to just drop off my Batad adventure and just do the other stuff.
LESSON: In Banaue alone, you need to stay for at least two nights to see Batad and the rest of what the town has to offer. So here is what we came up with. I get to see Guihob Natural Springs and the rice terraces at the village of Bangaan. After which, we drop the Osmonds off at Batad junction. Also, as agreed, I can stop anywhere along the road to shoot some photos. We split the P2,000 rent for the van.
I thought that was a bit stiff, but maybe just fair enough, P2,000 divided by three wasn’t that bad an investment compared to what I will be gaining (my priceless photos).
So off I went to check-in, freshen up a bit, and off we went on our journey.
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