Riverbend Journal

When we returned from Sagada, we had a couple days in which we mostly spent packing our luggage for the return trip. We had used cheap second hand luggage to bring many gifts (pasalubong) with us with the intention of leaving them there. However, I had forgotten that I had bought a large chunk of kamagong wood on my previous trip eight years ago that I hadn't been able to bring home due to weight restrictions. So between that and all the food gifts we were bring back to give to friends and family, we were having to shuffle things around so that all the bags made weight. Included in those bags were five new brooms (walis) that someone had hand woven while we were in Sagada. They cost about 250 pesos or $4.00 U.S.D. each. On the right is one of the ones we had bought many many years ago and as you can see, nearly worn completely out. They are superior for cleaning wood floors than typical domestic brooms and our main floor is all wood flooring. My only complaint is that the handles a...

After completing our rice terrace hike and picking up others in our group who hadn't gone with us, we headed into town for a late supper. We ate at a place that specialized in chicken inasal so I ordered chicken inasal. Inasal is grilled chicken with lemongrass and calamansi which is a native citrus fruit similar to a lime. You can find it just about anywhere in the Philippines though it is known by different regional names.  The next morning we had some local red rice that we had bought the day before and cooked some to try for breakfast. It looks like Spanish rice but doesn't have tomatoes in it. It is a bit fluffier with less chew than say Jasmine white rice. A traditional Filipino breakfast is rice, over easy egg and some sort of pork product. In this case we had tocino which is a sweet cured pork. I already posted another version of this photo but after breakfast as we were getting ready for the day my wife shouted at me to get outside quickly and so I did. In case you mis...

  Above is a picture I took 23 years ago on my first trip to the Philippines. There were a lot of memorable events that happened on that trip, namely that I received an official blessing to marry my fiancée. However in terms of sheer beauty, walking among the rice terraces near Sagada is the event that I only have to close my eyes to remember. Back then, we just stumbled upon a path descending the mountain behind the motel we were staying and came across a native village full of nipa huts and a little girl who guided us further down into the rice terraces themselves. It was a beautiful place full of golden rice and purple mountains. For the next 23 years, I have been wanting to get back to this region before it changed to something unrecognizable and this trip worked out. After breakfast, we drove up the road aways to pullout where guided hikes were offered through the rice terraces to see a large waterfall. Foreshadowing a bit, I think the reason this place remains largely undistu...

  Twenty-three years ago, my first trip to the Philippines ended with a visit to the Sagada region which is known for their rice terraces sometimes referred to as an eight wonder of the world. It was such a beautiful place and so far away from all tourism because it was difficult to get to. Back then, we spent a long day bouncing over dirt roads scratched into the sides of mountains and through small creeks and waterfalls. Twenty-three years later, the road is now paved though as you can see from the screenshot above from my phone about midway through the six hour drive, it isn't a straight shot. In fact, it is so twisty and curvy and up and down, that our average speed the entire distance was likely only about 35 miles per hour, about the same speed we traveled twenty-three yeas ago, and this time on a paved road with not a lot of traffic! We rented another van from John Wayne, loaded it with some luggage and food and headed off north up the central mountain range of the Luzon pro...