Travel Pinas: Sagada adventure guide

We went to Sagada, Mt. Province around mid of January 2012. We heard a lot of good stories about the place so we decided to check it by ourselves. That was our first DIY (do-it-yourself) trip so far and we don’t have any reservations for the accommodation.

We rode a bus in Cubao heading to Baguio at 12 midnight and we arrived at 6:00 am.

From the terminal beside the SM City Baguio, we rode a taxi to terminal beside the center mall. One good thing about baguio is their low flag down rate in taxi so we just paid not more than 50php.

The buses there were small and old and it is not air conditioned.

When we got at the GL terminal we rode again a bus and this time it is the direct trip to Sagada.

Almost 80% of the passengers were foreigners and tourists like us J

Bus Manila – Baguio 445php

Baguio – Sagada 230php

Taxi to GL terminal 50php

Hotel Traveller’s Inn 200php/night/pax

Cave Connection 400php/pax

Whole day Tour with Van 3,000php/van

it’s really a long drive we stopped over a place where you can buy food, use the rest room and stretch a bit. It is called Morning star.

We arrived in Sagada around 12:15noon. Since we don’t have any contact with the hotels we just tried our luck and walk along the street and then we saw the Traveller’s Inn and thank God they still have a vacant room. It was a long weekend and we arrived before the place gets crowded.

Traveller’s Inn only have a common restroom and it doesn’t have air condition as well, (well you will need a heater rather than air condition in Sagada, the weather was not just cold, it is freezing!!!)

We settled ourselves and went outside for lunch. The first restaurant that we tried was the famous Yoghurt House. The food was quiet pricy but I love their yoghurt cake that costs 50php per tiny slice.

Just beside the restaurant you will see the SAGGAS office, they are the official tour guides in Sagada. They offered the cave connection as our first activity. We thought that it will just be a typical tour where will just visit and go but for our surprise it was like trekking down under but of course it is called caving.

It will take 2-3 hours to finish the activity and you need to walk along the rocks, swing on the rope, pull and lift your body the hardest you can and love yourself and be cautious because you are walking at the cliff edges (remember it’s a cave and the only light you’re going to have is the gazera). But at the other end of the cave all the energy that you lose will be worth it.

They have incredible rock formations around the place but it is different from the formations in underground river Palawan. They were color brown and the people have their label in every formation like king’s curtain, the teeth, chocolate cake, and etc. The rocks were rough in general but it doesn’t look like that.

After the cave connection we headed back to traveller’s inn and had dinner at the restaurant across called Salt and Pepper. Although the accommodations were cheap around Sagada, when it comes to food it’s a different story. But you can also cook your own food at the hotel’s kitchen area.

We met people whose on vacation like us and since the van have a fixed rate per van for the whole day tour we decided to share the trip with them to pay cheaper.

At exactly 5:30 am we headed to a place where they are doing those rituals and wait for the sunrise. It’s is a perfect place for sight-seeing activity and because it is freaking cold we lit up a bonfire while waiting for the sunshine.

After that, we also went to orange farm, rock farm, and. At around 10:30am we went trekking, we literally trailed the rice terraces down to Bomod-ok falls and when we got there we were amazed by the magnificence of the nature and as soon as we tried to swim we jumped back because the water is chilly, you were like swimming in an ice cold pool and you can’t stay on the water for even half an hour. In my case I was able to hold the crazy temperature for just 5minutes.

Later, we went back to the town to have our lunch to prepare for the main attraction, the hanging coffins in echo valley.

As the name implies, it was called the echo valley because anything that you’re going to say, the valley will bounce back the sound. Literal huh? J

On the way to the valley you will see a cemetery and I stopped with one grave stone because the name imprinted is obviously not a Filipino or tribal name, a boy saw me staring at the tombstone and he said that it was a tourist way back that had a heart failure (if can remember it clearly), I asked him why he was not sent back to Hawaii with his family and the boy grin as he spoke, “they don’t want him back anymore” and suddenly I felt sad for that person.

Not too far from the cemetery we saw a lot of tourists all zooms their camera lenses to see the highlight of the trip, the hanging coffins. But we are not satisfied in peeking far from it so we asked our tour guide if we can go near the coffins, he said it is up to us if wereally want to, it is optional and it is not included on the tour we paid for so we pay him additional hundred.

It was a quick trek, we trailed down and before we know it we already in front of the coffins! Yes! My dream!! Another dream fulfilled!!!.

Kuya Andrew said that the coffin on lower side of the blue one labeled for Bomit-Og was just a week old.

Not anyone can be buried like this, only those who were included on the upper class family on their tribe are allowed. If you notice there are wooden chairs that were hanged and tied up with the coffins, it was the exact chair that the corpse were mummified, they were formed sitting for few days before they were buried, some calls it as “death chair”.

When we are about to go back since our tour ended, we saw these super charming toddlers playing around and picking up flowers, I can’t help it so we asked their parents if we can take a picture with them. We really can’t understand their language since they were French but they happily agreed with our request. After that we went back to the hotel for some rest for a really tiring but excellent day for us.

On our last day, we walked and went to another famous café in town, the Lemon Pie House. We had our breakfast there. The ambiance and interior of the café were enticing and it is very relaxing in deed.

We ran for the last trip at around 12:30noon and we arrived back in Cubao at past 12 midnight.

For additional experience, some random foreigners get on our bus and they were on a race, Amazing Race perhaps.