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Journal 57: The 30-Hour Anti-Zonal Flight Part One

The Makkah Region Desert, Saudi Arabia
The Makkah Region Desert, Saudi Arabia

The benefits to sitting in the exit row are few but valuable.  The most important for me, a man of 190 centimeters and 114 kilograms (6’4” 260lbs), is that I can stretch my legs without too much worry as to whether or not I will be abruptly awoken by the infrequent settling back of the chair ahead of me.  This is key, since the reason that the person in front of me would need to slide the seat back in the first place is because they’re going to be preparing to sleep for the next few hours – assuring that I won’t be doing so for at least that long.

The second benefit, of course, is that the restrooms are 10 feet away.  Convenience when needing to use the restroom is always a comfort.  It also helps in the event that there is a long line.  One can rest easy and simply wait for the line to be an amicable length before committing to the bladder dance that will ensue once in line and looking forward to the relief that will be arriving soon.

The drawbacks to being in the exit row, however, are more numerous and far outweigh the benefits.  For starters, while you’re 10 feet away from the bathrooms, you’re also 10 feet away from the bathrooms.  So while the wait might be less and the access convenient, one finds that they have leveraged these accommodations with the continuous odor that emanates just a short distance away.  And on a flight from a Middle East country and continuing onto one with a high concentration of Indian descendants  that particular aroma carries with it a continuum of reminders of the kind of digestion problems which are inherent to the colons of nations with such a long dietary history of curry and spice inclusion.

Of course, the hidden gem of advantages to being seated so close to this nocuous location is that one can fart without worry of being suspected as the culprit.  It goes without saying, however, that one can’t make a terribly audible reverberation whilst breaking wind.  Because, though the engine and wind against the hull may lull one to sleep along the day-and-a-half trip, the infrequent rumble from the seat next door might well become questionable when followed by an aromatic differentiation with the common scents abound – especially when no one is using the lavatory in a pressurized vacuum.  But, well timed, the internal release of the kind of pressure that airplane food can concoct in the average bowel system is a welcomed respite in an otherwise nerve-wracking situation.

The second most profound detriment to winding up in the exit row is that this is the row where the airline places the families with very young children.  And, while I think kids are great and cute and interesting, I don’t necessarily find the percussion of noises, the incessant and hyperactive activity and the sensory-debilitating stench quite so adorable.

Even being extremely tired, wearing a headband over my eyes and with earplugs crammed into my ear canals, I remained sleepless for the 12-hour flight from Washington D.C. to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The third, yet no less disappointing item that stands in the way of a pleasing experience on the aircraft’s exit section is that on the bigger aircraft, there is no window in this isle.

Needless to say with all the inopportune elements to the start of this long journey to Malaysia, I was not pleased by the time I arrived in the Kingdom of Saud.  But nevertheless, I was in good spirits as I was still looking forward to a great time in my new life.

So in my many long hours aboard Saudia Air Flight 036 I had a lot of time to think about the goals that I wanted to set for myself in the coming year and to look forward to the new insights that I will behold in my new position in Malaysia.

I utilized my time on that leg concentrating on the positive attribute of the flight and found creative ways to get around the crying babies, nasal assaults and lack of good views of the passing earth below.  I was able to find a row in the back of the aircraft that had a window seat free and snapped a few shots and captured some footage of the long, empty desert below.  But we were lucky because most of the flight was during the nighttime hours.  So by the time we were flying over Egypt, we’d reached the part of the world where the sun was up.  And I wound up getting some great shots of the Nile River, the Persian Gulf and of the geologically impressive Makkah Province desert (pictured above).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yL_uqseRgQ&w=560&h=315]

Once in Saudi Arabia, I realized that I was only one of very few white faces in the crowd.  So, while I was able to figure out quite quickly that I wasn’t going to blend in, I also realized just as fast that those who stand out in Arab cities seem to be categorically selected to be most scrutinized.

If I’d thought that people in the U.S. profile travelers at airports, I was in for quite a shock here in the most extreme of right wing, conservative Muslim countries.  I, as well as basically every other westerner, found myself the victim of not one, but two trips back to the same searching station in order for guards of varying paygrades to quite thoroughly rummage through my belongings and wrinkle up the shirts that I painstakingly folded and placed so that I would not look like a hobo for my first day at work.

I was asked several times what I did for a living and if I was a journalist.  I didn’t have the heart to tell them ‘yes.’  So in an effort to be honest, I simply told them that I was not staying in their wonderful country, but that Jeddah was just a through-flight for me to land in Riyadh, where I would then be off to my final destination in Malaysia.

But while the guards were less than welcoming, the locals seemed very nice.  I sat and talked with several people that were awaiting flights.  I didn’t approach any women, but the men were very welcoming and informative.  They spoke with very good English and seemed very formal and respectful.

One man, Dr. Sharif, talked with me for about ten minutes and spoke about all my inquiries with enthusiasm and pride in his country.  I asked about the type of dress that people wear, the interesting things to do in the Middle East and about what people from the Kingdom thought about Americans and westerners.

The audio clip from that conversation will be loaded soon.

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Journal 56: Back in Southeast Asia

Kuala Lumpur's Patronas Towers.

Kuala Lumpur’s Patronas Towers.

Well, I am finally back in my favorite region of the world, Southeast Asia.  This trip represents the fifth or sixth time that I have been to Malaysia.  It will be the first time that I have lived there, but I like to think that I am familiar enough with the area that I will adjust quickly and adequately.

This year has been a very active one for me.  And what I have done this year will hopefully win your forgiveness for not having kept up with my blog as I have wanted to these last eight months.

Along with having done a lot this year, I am also emerging from probably the toughest year in recent memory.  In just the last three months alone I lost the love of my life, I forfeited the opportunity to be a full-fledged Guatemalan expat, faced tragedy on the home front, nearly got mugged in one of the most violent countries in the world and was forced to leave probably the best shot at earning a Ph.D. that I have ever had (and that was completely paid for).

On the other hand, I also had some of the most amazing experiences of my life.

Since May, I have lived in Taiwan, the U.S., Guatemala and back to the U.S. where I moved from Maine to Virginia. Then I had a visit to the Middle East and started a new chapter in Malaysia.  And in the interim, I put myself through film school, visited five New England states, produced almost a dozen short documentary films, lived in the Mayan capital for the 5,000-year anniversary of the turn of its calendar, made some amazing new friends, published two ebooks, released two full-length documentaries from three countries (with a third coming soon) and traveled around the world for the third time.

It’s been an eventful year.  And even through some staggering losses and unimaginable challenges, I have resurfaced with new insights and am more sure than ever that I will be making this year one of my best ever.

My goals for this coming year are not so much numerous as they are important.  I have started a new position teaching at a college outside of Kuala Lumpur.  So while I am ecstatic about the idea of working back in the college setting and rekindling my love of instructing on the post-secondary level, I am also very sanguine about living in a place that I will be using as a hub for my photographic exploits in the coming years.  And my goals are befitting not only my passions in writing, photography and film, but also in my professional life as well.

With that in mind, the first thing I would like to do is to finish editing my newest film from Taiwan.  It should (hopefully) be released by the end of this month.  But if I am not settled until later in January, I will have to move the release date back to February.  This film is going to be really something.  I traveled to many of the islands around the country including Lanyu and the Penghu Islands.  I climbed way into the mountains and visited a giant gorge that seems so large that it cuts the earth in half.  I went to a fireworks festival where an entire town literally shot them at one another in a very dangerous, exciting celebration.  And I even saw this amazing festival of lights and lanterns.  This was a trip that enveloped the entire country; coast-to-coast, mountains and cities, and north-to-south.

After that, though, I will finally get to tackle the giant list of photography that I have yet to edit.  I have galleries from Java and Sumatra in Indonesia’s two largest stand-alone islands; a gallery of photos from Kota Kinabalu and Brunei on the island of Borneo; a huge list of photos from all over Taiwan; and I even have a few that I took around Guatemala in August and September this year.

The job that I will have here (which is awesome, by the way), along with only four teaching hours per day, affords me three day weekends every week.  So after I finish editing the film and going through all my unfinished photos, I will be heading out on every weekend and holiday that I can to get lots of footage of the best things to do in Malaysia.

This next film is going to be awesome.  Those of you who have been following my photography and this blog for a few years know that I already have many photos from Malaysia.  So I will be showcasing a lot of footage from the places that I have visited already and adding in many more highlights along the way.  I will also be adding a lot more travel tips and country-specific advice. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from my wonderful readers.  And people seem to like the shorts that accompany the longer films in-country.

For those who have been following my travel documentaries, you know that I have had a lot of recent success with my doc on the Philippines and in Hong Kong and Macau on my Youtube channel (which now totals more than 17,000 video views).  But if you watch these films, they were produced before I went back to film school over the summer.  So I plan on utilizing all the lessons that I learned this past year in creating better aesthetic, stronger composition and I will also be adding more of an “informing” feel to the narration.

I hope that my efforts will be rewarded by more views.  And if you like these films, please pass on the links and share them with others.  This, to me, is the best success I could ever hope for.  To know that people are genuinely enjoying what I am creating in an effort to share the amazing experience of travel is very gratifying for me.  So in the coming months, look for my best work to come.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yOrf5G55Mk&w=560&h=315]

First on the list of new films (after Taiwan, of course) will be Malaysia.  I will be hoping to get out to a new destination every other weekend.  This means that, along with jaunts through the cities, like Kuala Lumpur where I will go to the top of the famous Patronas Towers, I will also be going to amazing places like Penang, where the food and culture is like nowhere else in the country (or the world, for that matter).  I will go and be a part of the sacred Hindu festivals held within the limestone caves just seven miles outside KL known as the Batu caves.  I’ll take in some sun and forget about time at the majestic Perhentian Islands.  I’ll trek through the Taman Negara National Park where they have the longest canopy suspension bridges in the world.  I will see the world’s largest flower and hang out in orangutan-populated primary rainforests in and around the Cameron Highlands along Peninsular Malaysia’s central mountain range.  And I’ll even go over to Borneo where I will travel around Sabah and climb Mount Kinabalu, Southeast Asia’s tallest peak.

I might even tackle a longtime goal of mine to go skydiving.  I’ve already done a little homework, and it looks like the highest jump goes from about 12,000 feet, reaches vertical drop speeds of 190kph and I can do it just about any day of the week for less than $400.  The last time I was investigating it, I was too heavy to go tandem.  But since I’ve lost about 20 lbs., I’m good to go!

Whatever I decide to do, I will be making this next documentary an amazing one.  It will be full of cool information, tips and advice and I will also have tons of additional footage that I will release after the film is produced.  I will also be following it up with my latest book, Moving Stills Volume Five: Faces of Religion in Malaysia, which documents and discusses the many facets of religious diversity throughout the peninsular portion of the country.

Beyond that, I will be able to do Singapore, Indonesia and possibly even East & West Timor by the end of the year.  I don’t want to put too much on my plate, but I definitely want to leave something enticing to look forward to in the coming months.

So look for those to come soon and feel free to watch all the films that I produced throughout the year on my Youtube Channel.

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Journal 53: The end of my Southeast Asian Travels

Well, this journal ends almost three years of wonderful travels throughout all but one country in Southeast Asia.  In order, I have visited Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Indonesia, Borneo-Malaysia, Brunei Darussalem and the Philippines.  In the fall, I will be headed out to East Timor to begin my video trek which will bring me east and then north as I make my way up to Myanmar, the last country on my documentary goal of hitting all eleven countries on one shot.

In a way, this blog marks the end of a period of wonderful memories in my life.  It also stands as a series of lessons that I have learned.  It also resembles the broadest expansion into my photographic and journalistic efforts.  And through it all, I have been able to do enough in-country studies that my documentaries at the end of this year are sure to be complimented by experiences throughout these great countries.

All told, I have collected more than 10,000 fully edited images (almost half my career total); created a feature length documentary along with many outtakes, interviews and shorts; two published books on research from two separate countries in the region — and about to publish my third; eight manuscripts awaiting publication ranging from the religious and cultural, to the traditional and historical aspects of the diverse micro-societies in each nation; traveled nearly 14,000 miles; and lived and worked here the entire time.

But while seeing all this in my rear-view mirror might inspire pensive appreciation, it is the future that brings me more joy.  As I look with anticipation to the year ahead, I know that it will be just as memorable and meaningful as these many months in my past.

Coming up this year is a full lineup of some really great things that I plan on incorporating into my focus for the blog, for my commercial website, cyleodonnell.com and for my travel lust.

Firstly, I will be releasing tons of new books.  I have been writing for the last eight years (as you know) throughout my travels about all sorts of things.  And in the last year I have been able to bring many of them to completion.  So in the next year, as more of my works become completed, I will be releasing ebooks in droves.  These will mostly be articles that I have written for magazines, articles I’ve written for myself and the enjoyment of my close friends and, of course, this blog.

I have also written several full length novels.  And as soon as I am more settled, I will be sending them off for professional editing and then publication.  But I wanted to release all the smaller works first so that by the time the larger works arrived, I will have established a wider reader-base and hopefully a larger audience.

I have also been working with designers for a few ideas that I have had to incorporate my photographic and video exploits into apps for the iPhone, the iPad and Android phones.   I won’t ruin the surprise, but they should be finalized soon and I will be really excited to see them come to life.  It will provide a lot of people access to the photography that might never have knew that travel photography could be so interesting.

Additional books planned for release on the iPad, Kindle, eReader, and others, are photo books of specific regions that I’ve gone and taken some amazing images.  These photo books will be available in hard copy, but the primary mode of publication will be within the obvious future of book publishing — electronic copy.  So look for those to start coming soon.

Also, because I have been spending a lot of time filming for my most recent film, Travel Geek: Documentary Taiwan, I will be releasing snippets and teasers of that in upcoming blogs.  It will be really exciting to finally release that.  The date, by the way, that I have slated to release it is set for May 10th.  If I can get it out before then, I will definitely do that.  But because I will be going to Macau and filming for the Hong Kong/Macau documentary and editing double-time, that might not be possible.  But, again, I am working on it!

Here in Taiwan, they have some really strange holidays.  For instance, every year in a new place the entire town dons protective gear and has an all-out fireworks war where they shoot each other with flaming, exploding firecrackers.  Some people stand atop huge pires of billowing flames and rockets shooting out all around them.  Some people spin in circles while swinging enormous ropes of M-80 fire crackers blowing up as they move and filling the streets with huge pockets of smoke.  It’s really amazing.  And that is the type of thing that I have traveled all over Taiwan and filmed for this latest one.  It’s going to be pretty exciting.

And finally, the big one:  For the last six months, I have been preparing for the grandest of all my exploits.  Over the summer, I will be returning to the states and take a refresher course in film studies.  Then, when I have finished the intensive (and expensive) six-week course, I will be putting the hands-on studies to the test.

This fall I will be headed back out to this are of the world to complete four months of filming documentaries in all eleven countries of Southeast Asia.  I am slated to start my journey in the country that I missed on the first run, East Timor, and then make my way west and north until I reach Thailand.  Midway there, in Malaysia, I will be flying out to Borneo to tackle both Indonesia and Malaysian island life, but also to Brunei Darussalem which I wanted to see more of the last time around.  And then after a run through the southern islands of the Philippines (which I sourly missed this last time) I’ll continue my trek back through peninsular Malaysia.  Once I’ve reached the mountains of Chiang Mai, Thailand, I will be headed over into Laos, south to Cambodia, east and then north through Vietnam and then straight over to Myanmar.

Because visas expire and require careful planning, I have chosen to do Vietnam and Myanmar back to back.  So that will be the end of my trip.

After this trip I will likely be settled in Thailand while I edit the content for the videos, tackle the gargantuan task of compiling the library of photos from the trip and updating the website, completing the journal entries and begin marketing the release of all these materials.

I hope that by the time I am finished with the films I will have enough support with ad sales and book purchases that I can simply release them for free right here and everyone can enjoy them.  But not everything works out the way we hope.  I have been keeping this blog for more then 7 years and have even transferred an old blog that I used on Blogger to import it into the new and improved WordPress format.

But in all that time, it’s never been quite as expensive a hobby as it’s become in the recent past.  So I am asking all of you who enjoy this blog to visit as often as you can, to spread the word to others about the site and to bring the site stats up so that I can offer advertising and help replenish the expenses that have gone into the content that you see here.

It won’t cost you anything to come back and visit, read through and click on all the photos.  It’s free to send a link to friends who might enjoy the blog.  And I have never charged for any of the content I put up.  So return the favor and keep the blog alive by visiting everyday and spreading the word around.

Hopefully I will get enough followers that I can move to a bigger site that will support more traffic and I will be able to keep blogging as more than a hobby — a passion that pays!

Below is a video of my fond farewell to the Southeast Asia Journals and the welcoming in period of this year’s coming projects from other parts of the world.  I also discuss my slated return to the region to compile several more Travel Geek Documentaries.  Exciting stuff!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C5Xwuo6Nys]

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Journal 52: Philippines Day 15

Last day in the Philippines — and Last day for the Southeast Asia Journals:

This last day in the Philippines was very bittersweet for me.  While I have loved this trip and been able to do a lot from it, it also symbolizes the end of my journey throughout Southeast Asia.

From the Philippines alone, I have made a full length feature documentary spanning the middle to the north of the country.  A gallery of more than 300 photos was produced from the HDR image above to the black-and-white still-lifes that capture the essence of its timelessness.  Documenting in journals and articles, I have savored my thoughts and reflected on the amazing times that can’t be conveyed in visual media.  And then, of course, are the amazing friends and experiences that will remain in my memory throughout the rest of my days.

Here, I am setting up for taking the picture shown above. What a great shot it turned out to be.

But for the rest of Southeast Asia, I will have similar and unique experiences that memorialize my time in each country Ivisited.  Each province had its own rules — attempting to better itself for the benefit of its inhabitants.  Each town remains in my memory with its own feel — its own energy.  Each village carried an air of playfulness or excitement, based on the number of children running after me as I walked through.  Every beach drew different waves.  Every face brought new emotion.  And they all add up to something deeply personal for me as I worked my way through every country in the region.  Every country except one.

Photographing the Bomod-ok Waterfall, Sagada, Ifugao.

I have visited all but East Timor.  I tried to get there when I was in headed east in Java.  But it simply wasn’t in the cards for me to make my way there.

Of course, I don’t mean that in the sense that I will never be returning.  In fact I will be back this fall to start filming on a huge project that will hopefully take me through all eleven countries of Southeast Asia.  But I will be talking more about that in upcoming journals.

This last day in the Philippines really brought home the sense of awe that I remember having upon the first day that I arrived in Thailand.  And while the surprise may have dulled with each new experience, that sense of awe has never faded.  The culture and diversity that exists here is more than just the metaphorical “world apart” from the western society that encompasses most of my memory.

And these were my thoughts as I walked along the beach, leaving behind me the incredible place that, while no less impressive, stands as a symbol representing the many years, countries, miles and memories that I have spent and acquired in this part of the world.

Quite a moving experience indeed — pun proudly intended!

The final part of the six-part series is below, please enjoy it.  And be sure to watch the full length video on my Youtube channel HERE.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqszGYufcXY]

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Journal 51: Philippines Day 14

Cuyo to Palawan:

If the first night was not bumpy enough as we plied through the coastal waters getting to Iloilo, the choppy, unfriendly waters from Cuyo to Palawan certainly were.

Apparently, Palawan used to be its own district in the Philippines.  And it claimed Cuyo as its capital city.

All told, Cuyo envelopes 45 islets but only has a total area of about 50 square miles. Cuyo, itself, takes up about half that area.  And Palawan, the longest of the islands, holds more square mileage than all the islets and Cuyo combined.

At Palawan’s southernmost tip, is the pirate-infested Sulu Sea.  This is where you hear about all those terrible stories about how the Islamic radicals who fund their terrorist campaign by boarding tourist boats, stealing from and killing the inhabitants and then tying the resisters to the anchor and send them overboard.  It’s not pleasant what people do in the name of religion.

Boasting a culture all its own, the Palawan area of the Philippines is home to more than 350 years of recent heritage as the region’s unique center for traditional festivals.  The park, I am assuming, must have been its hub.  Because, as the encampment was constructed of four, squared-off bastions which were 10 meters high and 2 meters thick,  it was even used as a fort to stave off attacks from the Moros in the late 17th century.

Interestingly, Tabon Man was also discovered here, too (well, in the Palawan region — not sure exactly where). In 1962, an American researcher by the name of Dr. Robert B. Fox, found what was thought to be the earliest human remains, dating back to more than 40,000 years ago from the Carbon-14 dating system which was available then. In 2007, however, Callao Man, found elsewhere in the Philippines, was uranium-series tested to have been around about 67,000 years ago — almost twice the age of Tabon Man.

By the way, he was named Tabon Man because he was found in Tabon Cave, a dwelling which was in use all the way from the upper Pleistocene period to about 10,000 years ago (about 30,000 years in all).  That’s a long time to be in one cave. I guess they had things pretty well the way they wanted them. Plus, moving all your things without a u-Haul can be pretty cumbersome.

Sometimes I wonder how, that long ago, people made it to these parts of the world. What kind of boats or floating constructions would have given them the ability to cross vast expanses of very intimidating waters — and without navigation tools, maps or even the promise of actually finding land.  They’re almost always found in singles, too.  So what’s confusing to me is that these lone migrants just sort of make their way around to uninhabited areas and die there, alone without heir.  Were they outcasts?  Were they failed explorers?  Were they lost?  Or did they simply roam about like wandering animals in search of less competition for food?

The things I ponder while in transit in the far reaches of the world…

Heavily influenced by the Malaysian settlements in the 16th century, Cuyo has celebrations which include a Malay folk dance called “Pondo-Pondo” even today.

Later, in the year 1622, a Spanish Count San Augustin formed the first mission of Christinan Colonization and gave the island its current name.

Interesting fact: People who live in Cuyo are called “Cuyonos,” rather than Filipinos. And this dates back to the Augustin baptisms when they were indoctrinated into the new way of life. I think this is funny, however, because that would be like someone coming to my house from the other side of the world, telling me that they know better than me the spiritual traditions that have been passed down through more than 40,000 years and then telling me that if I believe them, I can be renamed and allowed to continue living there. Well, maybe that’s not very funny after all.

But regardless how morbid the humor, it only lasted another 15 years.  They were invaded by religious zealots — this time in the form of Muslim pirates who burned their newly built churches, killed their proud religious heads and stole everything they could get their hands on.  This included of course, everything from heirlooms to the island’s women.

And aside from a few punctuated periods of extreme scandal the Republic of the Philippines, the history of the 12th most populous country in the world, has remained pretty much the same since then.  The Islamo-Christian tug-of-war over the Muslim-pirated seas in Mindanao, the height of radicalism in the Visayas and the staunchly Catholic resistance in the north has been surpassed in profundity only by extreme political corruption, bloody revolutionary sieges and World War II.

And I was smack in the middle of all of it as the Milagrosa Shipping vessel pulled into the main port of Palawan, Puerto Princessa.

Along the trip, I met a really cool guy named Michael Rammassammy.  He’s the guy holding the camera while filming the “Balut” consumption on the documentary.  Camera-Dan was out cold from being seasick for three contiguous days anchors-aweigh.

Michael was from New Caledonia.  Don’t worry, I have never heard of it either.  In fact, that was the running joke.  He told me that when he traveled and people asked him where he was from, he’d tell them and then wait for their response which, he said, normally came in the form of a confused look.

At any rate, I knew that because I was so late coming in, I might not get over to the other side of the island in time to see the underground river — one of the “can’t miss” goals of my trip.  And since the last bus had already left by the time we got to the bus station, we’d be hard pressed to get the earliest bus the next day, go to see the subterranian river, hop on another bus and make it back to this side of the island in order to make our flight back to Manila and then back home the next day.

So all together, we rented a private van that would get us there in less than two hours.  I don’t recommend this unless you have a pretty unlimited budget.  It was quite expensive.  But it was air conditioned, comfortable and we could stop wherever we wanted along the way.

And speaking of that, we stopped at this really cool place where the farmers had come together and started their own tour company of the areas around their land.  And, I have to say, if they do this thing right, they won’t have to be farmers for much longer.  They have what I consider to be the best rock climbing, spelunking and zip-line location in all of the Philippines.

They have set some of this up, too.  So I was able to see it all in its infancy.  And it doesn’t look like it has any signs of slowing. It’s great, really.  Lots of ideas running around this place.  Hiking into really cool limestone rock formations is always a blast. And since they already have a few

The caving and zipline tour website is HERE.  And the permalink is here [http://www.dutchpickle.com/philippines/palawan/ugong-rock-caving-palawan.html].  The websites are not that exciting, but remember, they are run by farmers and their families.  So be kind!  And besides that, there are some pretty good photos that show the fun people have spelunking and climbing.

I strongly recommend going there to support this very eco-friendly accent to your Philippines trip.  I was even tempted to stop and hike for a while, but then I remembered I was running out of time and had a tight schedule to keep.  But the driver let us get out and check out the grounds.  Perhaps I will go and take the zip tour next time.

Anyway, back on the road, we finally got to the other side of the island.  And when you go there from Puerto Princessa, the southern route brings you up through this cliffside vista that’s just breathtaking.  You can see other islands.  And along the road there are little souvenir shops attached to eateries and nooks to stop and see different things.  More importantly, most of them have a trail out back that will lead you all the way to some break in the foliage where you can get a great view of the islets off the coast of this long, thin island.

The thing about this slow pace of life, including not having electricity until 6pm everyday, is that no one’s really in a rush or to provide you services on the fly.  And normally I wouldn’t mind that mentality.  When I go to an island getaway, I do so fort he very purpose of slowing down and taking it all in.  But today was not a take-it-in type of day.

I needed to be on the west coast by 3pm so that I could have the best shot at making one of the last boats leaving for the subterranean river for the day.  But I would run into a few hassles before then.

I also had to secure a hotel room, drop off my things and get a ticket for the boat and the tour.  But in all this, I also realized that I hadn’t eaten anything all day.  And this went for Dani and Michael as well.

The problem that I started to run into was that my driver suddenly decided two things without the forethought of discussing the matter with his passengers.  First, he decided that he was not going to drive us to the hotel and then back to the boat dock.  This was not acceptable, seeing as I was paying him quite a lot of money to get us to where we needed to be.  And secondly, he decided that the price of the ticket to bring us to the other side of the island would cost us even more than we’d agreed upon.  Again, unacceptable.

The video of the scandal unfolding is available to those receiving the ebook.  And trust me, it’s an interesting show.  It documents just how fervently one must argue for ensuring that would-be third world scammers know their place.

But after that was settled, I found myself at the dock having bought a ticket, checked in with luggage secured, and on my way to the nearest restaurant.  We ate quickly and made it back to the boats just in time for our trip to be afoot.

The ride was pleasant.  A little choppy.  But pleasant.  There was a storm making its way off the mountaintops on the horizon that threatened to put a damper on our trip.  But it was stayed long enough to go to the tour and back.  And I must say, it was a really encredible time.

Once you get to the dropping point you walk through this completely jungled area where the monkeys have become completely accustomed to people and roam about without too much concern for what you’re doing.

Then there are the monitor lizards.  These land dragons are pretty amazing.  And in their own way, they have been desensitized to humans as well.

At the launch, you meet your guide who, in our case, is a cheeky, entertaining fellow.  And what he might have lacked in ability to talk with technical knowledge of the formations along the inside of the river, he made up for in jokes about the appearance of eroded structures like “Sharon Stone” and “Chris Rock.”

There’s also a resident boa constrictor living in the cave that seems to love a certain perch.  How he got there, I am not sure.  But he’s definitely chosen that cave as his home — frequent visitors or not.

The outtakes from the documentary capture these interesting occurrences.  This, too, is available through the ebook.

When we arrived back at the dock, there seemed little sense in rushing around anymore.  We’d seen what we came there to see.  And so the rest of the evening was ours to lounge around, soak up what little sun poked through the overcasted clouds.

We chose to walk along the beach, which is a wonderfully peaceful hike, back to the hotel from the boats.  The rooms that I rented were little more than bamboo huts with very little privacy from the neighbors beyond the next wall.  But the staff is accommodating and friendly.  And they have no problem with people lounging with a beer on their driftwood furniture along the headwall of the shore.

I found a great spot that I knew I wanted to take pictures from later that evening around sunset and Michael joined me as I set up for the shot.  The surf is powerful and the jagged rocks are not to be trifled with.  But from a photographic point of view, it’s definitely worth taking the risk to get out there and shoot at the golden hours of the day.

The shot that I was hoping to get is at the top of this blog entry and is for sale in high resolution.  Through this blog, I am pricing it at $24.99 plus $7 shipping from here in Asia.  The dimensions are about 24 x 14 inches and can be processed as large as 48 x 32 inches from here in Taiwan.  And once I am in the states, I can do other varying sizes.  Larger copies will be priced per order, but just inquire and I will see what I can do.

After returning from the rocky coast, I toasted my new friends from the hotel grounds and went to bed.  Tomorrow would be my last day in the Philippines.

For everyone reading my latest ebook, Postcards from the Pavement: Southeast Asia, look for the password at the end of this entry to see the hidden footage from Cebu, Cuyo and Palawan.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqszGYufcXY]

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Journal 50: Philippines Day 13

Iloilo to Cuyo

The birth I secured was a cabin.  It was a modest, hostel-looking cabin on the top deck of the boat.  And I didn’t think much of it at first.  But when I snuck aboard the bridge and got a look at the captain’s quarters, I was pretty shocked.  His arrangement was quite modest compared to what the first class tickets provided.  And after the comfortable ride and pretty reasonable price, I would definitely recommend this trip to anyone riding on this particular charter.

But this is not the case for the second leg.  In fact, if you find yourself in this area and can float through the Visayan Sea while remaining aboard the Cokaliong shipping and charter line, I recommend that you do so.  My next vessel made the comfort of the Cokaliong look like the palace gates to the early Roman Empire.

My original plan was to make it to Cokaliong’s sister charter at Iloilo.  However, when I arrived to purchase my ticket, the real fun started. The boat was dry-docked — and had been for several weeks.  And would be for several more.  This was told to me by mechanics who looked like they were about as motivated to fix this boat as it was to fix itself.  The fattest of the stooges — and I am not kidding about the cliches, he was chomping on a fat cigar and had a greasy gas station ball cap on — stood towering over what looked like an accumulation of evaporated tobacco spit.

The most I could get out of them was where the next boat might be located at.  I didn’t inquire further.

When I showed up at what I thought was the right place, I sat next to another traveler and asked him if he knew anything about the boat that might be leaving today.  He honestly looked terrified.  He seemed to have been hoping I might know.  This worried me.  And so I simply proceeded to the counter and tried to ask about the births and departure times.

There were two people scribbling furiously onto big, green sheets of graphed paper and when I said something, the lady jumped as if I had shouted at her.  Her jump made me jump.  And the room went silent as if people were expecting me to whip out a gun and rob the place.  It was right out of a dusty, old western movie.  I half expected John Goodman and Nicholas Cage to jump out of a back room and start fighting over one of the Arizona Quints.

I started to take a slow pan around the room.  But I could I could tell the woman was anxious for me to reveal my innocence and get to the point of why I interrupted her obviously essential task of filling in the little green squares in front of her.

I started to express the thoughts that I’d come up to inquire upon and a dirty finger shot up from behind the glass and pressed down on a pre-made list of birthing types, schedules and costs that had before been flapping in the lazy current of air being generated by a tiny, steel fan bolted to the railing of the counter.

“Ahh,” I said, pretending that I didn’t notice her rudeness and general disengagement of my concerns.  Her hand retracted and the paper lifted back off the glass and re-established its pattern of slapping and laying flat just long enough to read for a few seconds.  Eventually I pieced together that I could purchase an open-air ticket, a cabin ticket or a “tourist” ticket — all of which were leaving this evening.

Once I thought I understood, I began to form the question which, if allowed to finish, would have sounded something like, “I’d like a ‘tourist ticket,’ please.”  But another finger cut me off and quickly struck the glass behind a price list — this time taped down — and then, noted at the bottom, were instructions indicating that I should sign in on the registration form below, await my turn and then retrieve my ticket when my name was called.

‘Nice and easy,’ I thought.

Shot from the short time hitting the beach.

That thought was followed instantly by a rumble in my stomach.  So I asked the scared tourist at the end of the bench how long he’d been waiting.  He told me that he’d been there for about an hour.  So I went back to the roster, found his name and calculated that I had at least that long until I needed to be back.

Without being invited, I went to the boat and dropped off our things.  But on the way, I was hit squarely in the face by what smelled like a mixture of formaldehyde and cat urine.  I have no idea what it could have been.  But whatever was being loaded into the belly of this rusty, aquatic beast, it smelled like it could have been ignited by a clap of the hands.  Honestly, not a whole lot could have made the entire boat smell any worse.  But that smell was powerful enough to motivate the senses into making my entire body think that it was under some kind of viral attack.  It was completely rancid.

The boat was well outside of the main part of town.  So once I loaded my things onto the rack where I’d be sleeping, I hopped in a tricycle and went for a bite.  The boat was scheduled to leave at 7pm — not that its captain, crew or the poor bastards doomed to loading the rest of that menacing substance had even the slightest notion of making that reservation.

What happened next was quite possibly the craziest thing that I have seen since traveling.

I had come back, bought my ticket, made it through the search (which was completely pointless, seeing as my bags were already on the boat, people had been walking around without any regard for security and whatever they were loading on that boat had to have been the most radioactive substance known to man.  For all I knew we were on the same vessel that was transporting yellow cake uranium to the Muslim underground for the first wave of enrichment and vaporization for hexafluoride preparation.

But this wasn’t the amazing part.  Come to think of it, it wasn’t actually what happened “next.”  What happened next was that I waited for more than five hours for the boat to launch.  It was 1am before that would happen.

No, what I am talking about is what happened during those last hours before embarking.

It seemed like the entire cabin (this time, an open area full of bunk beds) was asleep.  One guy was in such a deep sleep that even his vibration-causing gas didn’t wake him up.  I had just put the camera away for the night.  I happened to look out the window where the men were working heartily at getting the cargo aboard.  And I saw the crane drop an unsecured package on the deck.  It split open and I could have sworn that I saw a huge bail of compressed marijuana fall in between the boat and the pier.

More shots from the very short trip ashore while awaiting departure for the last leg to Palawan.

I was completely shocked.  It looked like the only bail of its kind on the crate that was being moved.  And the guy all but dove in after it.  They tried to poke and fish after it for about five minutes.  And I couldn’t get my mind off the idea that it might have been dope.  And if it was, it must have been $500,000 worth of the stuff. It was the size of a bail of hay and, by the way it tore open, must have been at least as heavy.

The men eventually stopped, scratched their heads, looked around and went to alert someone.  But someone came back shouting and they promptly returned to work.  It was incredible.

I eventually realized that  I could have been filming the entire time.  So because I was no longer sleepy, I broke out the camera, filmed a few minutes of them moving cargo and hoped for a repeat of the event.  Or at least to catch someone trying to find and pry the bail back out of the black waters underneath.

Once I did finally fall asleep, we’d long since set off.  So it had to have been around 3am when I finally passed out.  And then, even in my deep sleep, I was stirred many times by the rocking of this clearly overstuffed shipping vessel.  A couple times I woke up thinking I heard the ship dragging bottom.  It was not a pleasant trip.

Once in Iloilo, I realized how late the boat had actually been.  Not only was it delayed in overloading freight, which then caused more drag and slowing us down more.  It also had to unload that freight.  And through the channels I’d talked to when we were aweigh, I found out that the previous crew had left without unloading and they had to call in the next shift of workers.

This leg of the trip was doomed from the start.  In fact, about the only good things that came of the time I spent aboard that drug-toting deathtrap was meeting cool people, eating this terrible substance known as “Balut” (an fully-embryonic chicken served with vinegar and salt), and hitting the coast for my first taste of white sands since being here.

Altogether, that last line up was a pretty good one.  But what brought it back into the negative spectrum of things was that it delayed us for an entire day, forcing me into quite a pinch once I got to Palawan.  More about that in Journal 51.

This second night on the erratic waters between the islands gave me dreams of being on a ocean-going cruise piloted by a coke-crazed cartel crew.  And at its helm: the boss.  A man who’d lost a huge bail of of drugs and his paranoia had forced him to come completely unhinged.  Throttling the unsound ship to its peak, he’d lost is rag and once he found out that it was the conspiring crew that left him drugless, he threatened to captain this ship straight to the bowels of the benthic plane.

But that didn’t happen.  What did happen, however, will have to wait until the next journal.

For now, enjoy this film, it’s the last of the six part series covering the film from the documentary.  Those of you who ordered the ebook will have access to the outtakes and extras filmed while on the island of Iloilo and from around the towns I visited while sailing the Visayan Sea.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqszGYufcXY&w=1280&h=720]

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Journal 48: Philippines Day 11

On the road back to Manila:

Back at the hotel, I spoke with someone just in passing who told me that the buses out of the area were to be closed for the next two days down to Manila because of the holiday.  So I had to put a fast forward on my plans to get out of town.

So that next morning, I packed my things and headed out the door at about 5 a.m. to catch what would ultimately be a 6 a.m. bus down the mountain.

It was a rickety bus providing a bumpy ride that only a meaty shoulder would allow for a leaning nap.  And since there was no one taller than me sitting next to me, Dani was the only one getting any sleep on the ride down.  And it was a long ride.

Take the average developing nation — usually loud, most likely hot, always overcrowded — and then hop on a bus to its capital.  Oh yea, and on New Year’s Eve.  This was my plan for the day.

The area’s recent rains had caused a rise in congested traffic and construction even more than their normal congested-ness (if that’s a word?).  So that added to the delay.  But the bus driver stopped at a few places to eat and we eventually made it to the city.

It’s probably the one thing that I detest about traveling — not knowing about hangups that could otherwise have been avoided.  But they are, as the crux of the situation denotes, simply unavoidable.  You need to know about the delays, the problems with transportation, the days buses aren’t running.  But you won’t know unless you travel there and find out.  Travel in that country would be made much more pleasant, but you have to put in the frustrating time in the trenches to know — thereby ensuring the unpleasantness inherent in the arena of world travel.  It’s the ultimate traveler’s catch-22 (which, by the way, is also the title of the book by Joseph Heller that I will be doing a book review on — as soon as I read it).

Yes, you just can’t get away from those pesky quirks.  But I generally make the best of the time by writing journals, taking photos, talking to the locals — which is a wonderful blessing to have in an English-speaking country like the Philippines.

The people here have been exceedingly friendly.  And even when I inadvertently sat in someone else’s seat, they let me have it without too much fuss.  I am not sure I would have fit anywhere else anyway.

Riding along, I can say that if you visit this area of the Philippines, you should definitely take the day trip.  Crowded or not, the views from either side of the road are bound to amaze you.  There seem to be endless peaks jutting up from below the cloud line and peppered with bright green plumage.  Then you pass through the terraced fields that people have been tending for generations.  These are probably the most spectacular site because of their sheer grandiosity.  Once you reach the highest point, these cascading steps seem to have placed you at the to of some immense temple in the heavens.  Below you  is only a cloud-hewn sea at the surface of a slowly wavering boundary between you and the chaotic city-scape below.

Back in Manila:

New Year’s Eve in Manila is not what I would recommend to anyone wanting to spend that day in a nice place.  It’s noisy because all of the homeless people have saved up their money, apparently, to buy their children fireworks that they can shoot at passing traffic for shits and giggles.

So not only do you have the frequent blasts from the random detonations all over the city, you have the ensuing honking and occasional accident thereafter.  Reason number 108 for why I bring along earplugs on foreign travel.

That night I settled up in the hotel near the airport and headed directly out for the Mall of Asia, which, I heard, was the biggest thing in Manila since shantytowns.

It was big, there’s no doubt about that.  But what was cooler was that the huge globe sitting in front of the main entrance which had recently been redone with more than 26,000 lights coordinated to create the most impressive form of advertising I have ever seen.  Besides actually making a spinning conflagration of countries swirling around as would a globe, it also made use of its spherical shape to cast other amazing items like ornaments on a Christmas tree that zoomed out to show the entire scene and cool ideas like that.

There was supposed to be a fireworks show at the mall, but because the crowds kept swelling and the elbow room kept shrinking, I thought it was probably best to bypass the traffic following the show by getting out of there early and getting some sleep for my 6 a.m. flight to Cebu.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL4NqhT0tKE]

End Part One

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Journal 47: Philippines Days 8, 9 and 10

Day 8: Arrival at Sagada

In between the muted calls of song birds in the distance and quiet gale making its way through these peaceful mountains, I found myself finally able to take in the tranquil notions I’d been hoping for thus far on the trip.

I was extremely lucky in choosing my lodgings the night before in Bontoc.  Because the organization that ran that guesthouse, also had a sister hostel which happened to have the very last room available in any of the homestays in the entire town.

Creeping up on the New Year, this area becomes a hippy mecca in terms of its festivals and celebratory traditions.  Almost every morning people cook up a storm and have their shops open selling all manner of trekking and camping gear.   Almost every afternoon you’ll see people coming back in from long hikes in the surrounds.  And almost every night there is a bonfire festival.

There are pockets of scattered masses moving in their own dust clouds up the dirt streets through town.  And they appear to be a pleasant mix of foreigners, locals and hippies — and various combinations of the three.

And upon arriving and noticing all this, I also noticed that it was well past due for a relaxing day doing little to nothing, save showering and scrubbing the last few days of dirt from my pores.

First order of business: Shower.  Next: the bunk.  Evening time: beer.

So that was my first day.  It’s quite easy to sleep in a town like Sagada.  The dreaminess of the place almost keeps you in a perpetual state of laziness anyway.

Upon arriving at St. Joe’s, I was confirmed for the reservation that the lady from the Bontoc hostel had arranged for me and promptly shown to my room.  But it wasn’t two minutes into the conversation that I was interrupted multiple times by desperate backpackers trying to secure a room for the night.  So along with the horror stories that accompanied trying to sleep through the last week’s rainy nights, I was also told about how there were quite literally no more places to stay anywhere in town.  People had started to go around asking the locals to take them in for a fee.  I am sure that some of this was arranged.  But I would still hate to have been in that position in such damp climes.

The restaurant was as peaceful and cabin-like as the surrounds.  All the woodworking from the entire grounds was done by local artisans with quite a western sympathy.  It seemed like it was more influenced by Norwegian winters than the more common tropical humidity.  But it nevertheless brought in a feel that was well accepted by the patrons.

The food was good.  It took quite a while, but when I went to find out where the staff was at with the preparation of our meal, ordered no less than 45 minutes before, I found the head cook: a vicenarian mother of two (one of which was strapped to her rump like a huge humpback with curious eyes).

I let it pass.

On to bed to plan my next day.

Day 9: Humping through the hills

Being a top-heavy lad of 33, the longer, more technical, more demanding hikes I’d pounce through like a gazelle in my younger years, I am finding the excuse to shy away from nowadays.  Thankfully, Filipinos are among the like-minded citizenry who make an effort to place their most important cultural relics within a stones throw of the main arteries that gnarl the mountainside around Sagada.

Besides the miraculous echos that pander themselves along the jutting karst formations, gaining depth and definition as they bounce around the area, the Hanging Coffins of Echo Valley are just the right counter to break their flow.  And as you descend the mountain to reach them, the echos of even your conversation-level tone can be heard answering back at you like phantoms escaping the limestone erosion.

Seeming so foreign even to this unfamiliar corner of the Southeast Asian wilds, these stoic boxes clinging to the sheer cliff faces at the base of the hike offer an otherworldly glimpse of the deep spirituality that has existed here long before Magellan plotted his course and imposed his Portugese slant on Catholicism here.

Off in the distance was an amazing looking mansion overlooking the entire valley.  That house, my guide told me, was at the end of the hike that we wouldn’t be doing today.  Oddly enough, I knew that I had paid for that hike.  But this news came after an all-important phone call of his to which my day unfortunately took the back seat.  So it was to be back into town with me without word on when I would be completing my hike.

Throughout Sagada, you’re not supposed to hike without a guide.  That’s what the sign says when you perform the other required task of registering as a foreigner to the town hall.  I couldn’t tell if this was for safety purposes or for commerce.  Well, I couldn’t tell until I read the part of the ledger that asked the budget, rather than the number of days, that you had planned for their lovely hamlet.

Pacing and feeling like I was wasting my day to the badly prioritized teen guide, I decided to hop in a jeep and take the long hike through the Fidalizan village to the Bomod’ok waterfall on the other side of the crescent valley.

Up at the top, I met my other guide.  Equally expensive.  Equally young.  We set off down through the village which rounded banks overlooking the valley in 180 degrees of crisp, sunny views.

The village, itself, was quite and serene.  But infrequently, we would hear gun blasts or some such oddity coming from an undetectable direction.  My guide would tell me that it was dynamite from the copper mining near the river to the south.

Making our way along the only concrete path in the layered rice terraces, we eventually weaved through the pass and down to the foot of this magnificent waterfall.  The water was a brisk and perfect contrast to the hot day working in on us from behind the mountains.

I swam for about a half-hour at its base.  But all one need do is stand near it and become drenched in its powerful sheeting swathes of fall-spray.  It was a wonderful experience to see that kind of power from mother nature even in this remote, unexpected place.

Once out of the water and dried off in the sun, we headed back.  But not before my boots lost a sole.  to this day, I have no idea what took them down.  But whatever the case, I was forced to run through a new pair of socks on the climb back through the other side of the village.

Back in town, we found out that, because of New Year’s traffic, all the tickets would be booked for the next two days.   So if I was to have any hope of making it to the islands before my departure time, I would have to cut my mountain escape one day short.  So I packed and woke up to the early bus for a day-long trip back to Manila.

There, I would run into all sorts of problems.  But that’s going to be another journal.

Check out the rest of the images from Sagada, but don’t forget to watch Part Four of the Philippines documentary below:

At about 3:00 into this movie, you see Sagada from where we arrived, at St. Joe’s.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbf1O6my9-c]

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Journal 46: Philippines Days Six and Seven

Pushing on today, I made it to about the half-way mark: Bontoc.

Bontoc was one of the towns that I had made it a goal of mine to visit because of one particular fascination of mine: the ancient headhunters.

Warring tribes all throughout the mountain areas have feuded for hundreds of years over land, power and mating rights with the women.  And I wasn’t aware of this before I went, but a missionary had set up a museum, the Bontoc Museum, years ago when he’d arrived to rape the local people of their then-current belief system.  Funny – even ironic – I thought, that Christianity would aim to remove all traces of the local belief system which included beheading, worshiping ancestors and honoring gods of unknown western appreciation, and then turn around and build a memorial commemorating its amazing past.

I wasn’t able to get much information about the family lifestyles, but I definitely hit the major points in the museum.  There was a Frenchman who wandered into this area in the 1970s when the culture was still in full swing and not yet inhibited by any western conservative movements.  He captured the life that existed here on film and published a book of the best of those prints.  [I have been unable to find this author’s name and would love it if someone would leave that information in a comment at the end of this blog]

In his book there are so many telling photos that show situations where men had just come back from a headhunting party where they had the headless loser of the battle tied up and hanging like a pig from a bamboo strewn between two carriers.  They would bring their spoils back to the village, remove the face of the fallen prey, keeping it as a trophy, and tattoo a patterned series of lines on their chest marking their success amongst their battles.

How amazingly far flung, I thought, from our current accepted way of life these people are.  Nestled in this little country at some far reach of the world, why, too, would their culture not be just as foreign?

Headhunting, as I found out, was not the work of mad people bent on control or power or because of some strange right of passage.  As things went, there were no rules that might keep people from killing each other and taking their land, their animals, their women and on and on.  So, instead of warring on a tribe-wide scale, the village leaders would simply send out two snipers and a small contingent of soldiers to find the opposing leaders – the few people in charge of waging the violence in the first place – and, simply put, come back with their heads; guaranteeing that these orders would not see their way to fruition and certainly sending a message to any who might follow in their footsteps.

The pictures that I saw in this museum showed men with six and seven rows of these tattoos indicating their take of the men who’d otherwise have their memory emblazoned across their chests.  Men sat in the proverbial Asian squat, holding up their latest trophies from the massacre – the eyeless face of the man who’d not fought hard enough, or the man who’d been taken by surprise in his sleep, or the man who’d been turned in by his own people at the risk of losing their own heads in his stead.

The stories, too, were captivating.  I stood reading every etched piece of wood, every banner and sign in the museum – all of them depicting the shortened history of a certain village or strain of people living their lives in their unique ways, wearing their unique cloth-work and providing the camera with their own lives in the villages they lived in.

I won’t soon forget the many interesting things that I found there.  And I apologize that I don’t have any photos from the location.  But the video below should do a good job at staving off the fiendish demand for the answers to the curiosity for secrets of the Ifugao headhunters.

Back on the road, I headed northward.  More on that trip and the gallery from the mountains of Sagada in the next journal.  Until then, enjoy Part Four  of Travel Geek: Documentary Philippines!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbf1O6my9-c]

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Journal 45: Philippines Days Four and five

Ifugao:


See the rest of the photos from the Philippines at cyleodonnell.com

Moving onto the mountains, Ifugao was my next destination.  Highlights abound on this leg of the trip.  I wanted to see the hanging coffins of Echo Valley, the tall, majestic waterfall past the ancient Fidalisan Village and of course the ancient rice terraces.

I have seen many terraced farming fields before in places like Northern Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia and throughout some areas in Korea and Taiwan.  In full season, the fields can take on an otherworldly pallet of colors and, depending on the perspective and the backdrop of the sun at the time of witnessing them, they can make the intricate lines of a valley appear to carve out the steps the gods take to travel to their resting place – or something equally mysterious and grandiose.

But these fields were said to be the best terraces in all of Southeast Asia because of their expanse and their meaning in the ancient world.  I suppose I’d find out in a couple days.


To see the rest of the photos from the Philippines, go to cyleodonnell.com

My first stop was a little town called Baguio.   It was just a quick stopover as I would almost immediately catch another jeep into the higher reaches of the mountains.  But it’s worth mentioning because it’s the carving capital of the Philippines.   Well, that and the fact that I had a great conversation with a lady who sold beetlenut to the locals.

So beetlenut is a small, fibrous bud that comes from within the fruit of a palm-like tree.  Beetlenut by itself isn’t really all that stimulating.  It’s basically got the consistency of chewing on a pine bud or pre-pinecone sprout.  And it’s not all that organic tasting either.  But if you never spat the juices out on the ground, you’d never really get the feeling that this little bud really has an odd chemical reaction in your mouth.

The punch comes when you add two other ingredients.  First, you add tobacco and wait for that to get into the blood stream. Then you squeeze in a packet of mustard.  And the combination of all the various substances forces into the blood, a very amphetamine-like buzz.  It’s effects are fleeting — only 20 minutes or so — but the process can be repeated over and over with the same effect.

Basically, it’s become this ritual for the men in the area, more than a drug or addiction.  However, the addictive qualities of this substance are not to be questioned.  Almost all men do it.  And if the stained red mouths full of quickly decaying teeth didn’t give it away, the huge, snot-covered, crimson spatters all along the roadway will.  All told, it’s probably one of the most disgusting pastimes I’ve seen in Southeast Asia.  And I have seen a lot of them.

But that didn’t take away from the “carving capital” aspect of the place.  Huge trunks and split logs almost completely line the roadway up to the town and even a little after, awaiting their artisan’s shaping hands to come and craft them into something appreciable by human standards.

The town itself has an easy, laid back feel to it.  Shops line the three corners of the central part of town and they supply the entire outlying area with goods and food.  But what I liked the most was that the backs of most of the shops had restaurants hanging about a mile above the huge, mountain drop-offs below.  The people are very curious of travelers, walking up to talk and waving at you from passing vehicles.  And this also adds to the demeanor of the place.


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From there it’s only a short wait until another jeep is full of people and items are piled high on the roof.  My jeep started rumbling up the mountain at about noon and I arrived at my next destination, Banahue. by 6 p.m.

Banahue is another one of those towns where things are a little slower, not necessarily finding any reason to rush around.  And over every mountainside guardrail there’s a vista of the most amazing terraces chiseled into the valley below.

It was Banahue, too, where I got the full grasp of the risk people take in traveling through this area.  The mountains in this area were simply not equipped with the soils befitting of support for the roads being plied through them.  As in several locations I could very easily see the next pass the jeep was headed over, there would be a huge empty space where the mountainside used to be underneath the 4-inch-thick concrete pathway for the passing vehicles.  This, of course, was precariously replaced by a few rickety beams used as temporary replacements for the moment’s pause until the seasonal construction crew could come out and lay concrete underworking to the roads damage.


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Passing over these dodgy turns was shifty business at best, and, as I thought many times, likely to be my last time passing over anything at all on this planet.  It made me wonder if the last vessel of people to have toppled to their deaths during one of these trips was filled with people who may have been thinking the same things I was thinking – anticipating their own demise just moments before it was sure to take place…

In Banahue, I moseyed around and went to the little tourist-based shops and bought a couple masks and a native fighting stick and even a couple little bags to keep my batteries in.  And when I walked back across the lazy road I snapped this shot of local life in a typical shop in this area.  The peacefulness of the mountains seemed to echo its own voice back into the culture that exists here.  In fact, a lot of the mountains’ characteristics are played out in traditional life, I thought.  It was the nice, cool climate that I had been seeking since my retreat from the heat and bustle down in the towns of southern Luzon.


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Below is a part three of the six-part documentary film, Travel Geek: Documentary Philippines (be sure to subscribe to my channel). It covers much more than this journal. But since I’ve already made the video, I might as well put part one of the six-part series in here to add some reference:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEVWwTJMXcw]
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