After seeing the pictures and videos online of the Rice Terraces, one of many claimed “8th Wonders Of The World”, we knew coming to the Philippines that we had to get to Banaue and Batad to check them out for ourselves.
The thing you hear most about Banaue is the splendor of the Banaue rice terraces, but what we found after going there was that Banaue is a beautiful and fascinating town, rice terraces or not!
As I wrote elsewhere, the town is basically a stretch of road along a mountain trail, within which there are other little networks of streets that go up and down the mountain that the town sits on. This brings me to my first point, and tip for Banaue.
You’ll go everywhere in Banaue by trike ride. The little motorbikes with their two seater passenger carriages line the streets in the main part of town and are willing to take you pretty much anywhere around the tiny town you could wish to go. The tip here is:
BANAUE TIP: Don’t plan on walking anywhere in Banaue past where you can see ahead. The roads are all very windy and go up and down the mountain continuously. This makes it both 1. easy to get lost and 2. a serious hike, mostly up hill, where ever you choose to walk in Banaue. If you’re fit and ready, go for it, but just be remember these words as you embark on your journey.
Top Things to Do in Banaue
What’s there to do in Banaue?
I thought I’d extend this guide on Banaue because I think there’s lots to discuss about this small mountain town, certainly much more than just the rice terraces that the town is known for.
I’ve included here some of the other things you should do while you’re in Banaue as well as some of the things you should avoid if you can.
Here are a few things other than rice terraces that can bring great joy in Banaue.
- Walk (I know I just said not too, but this part is worth it… AND you can get a trike here if you want) down the road to the village part of Banaue and check out some of the local houses. There are kids playing in the street, houses perched on jutting edges of mountain side, and local animals scampering between houses in search of their next scrap of food. There’s also a cool little bridge over a babbling brook that we didn’t get a chance to walk, but that looked awesome.
Most of the things you do in Banaue you’ll walk UPWARD up the hills from the main hotel area, so this downwards walk is one different road but you won’t miss it.
- Check out the local shops
Around Banaue there are a multitude of little shops for souvenirs, like wood carvings the locals have made, and the ubiquitous “penis” fertility statues, but there’s also some interesting little grocery stores, as well as spots for clothes, and more. You’ll surely find the shops a treat for the senses; certainly charming and full of character.
- The Sunday Markets
This one we found completely by accident but on Sunday morning this elaborate street market emerges from nowhere on the main thoroughfare of Banaue. There’s all kinds of local foods and beverages, not one of which I recognized. Stroll around and chat to the local vendors, try some weird and wonderful local treats, and enjoy them at one of the many vantage points looking over the terraces.
Of Course…
Of course there’s the cool “terrace” related stuff to do as well, but I thought I’d mention a couple of the Banaue’s little treats that you can partake of outside of the popular attraction.
Banaue is a quiet, sleepy little town but one who’s offerings you simply must take in, in their entirety.
Getting to Banaue via Bus – Be Careful!
For a number of reasons, any writing about Banaue has to begin with an explanation of actually getting there, because it’s a decent journey from Manila and if you get it wrong, you could end up on the wrong side of nowhere.
I wanted to write a special section just on GETTING to Banaue on the bus, because as you’re about to learn, it’s not your average bus trip.
We did a LOT of research on this trip, both online and asking various locals around Manila about getting to Banaue and we never seemed to get a clear picture of what we needed to do to get there. So having made the journey I’ve put together some of the most important points you need to take note of if you’re considering doing the same…
First things first…
The cost is really cheap so you don’t need to worry about getting the best deal. We paid $18 each return… for a 9 hour trip. Ahhh how we love PI 🙂
You need to take the bus from a small station in Manila. The most reliable we found was “Autobus” BUT what we realized only after getting there is that the advertised bus terminal thats listed on the websites has actually MOVED. It took us one crazy taxi trip across town in the middle of a busy Manila night including a couple of near death experiences, a yelling match with our taxi driver, and a last minute trike ride to a different street by a random local to actually FIND the real bus terminal.
So here’s the address as listed:
Auto Bus Terminal: España Blvd corner G. Tolentino St., Manila. The bus leaves at 10 PM daily and arrives at about 7AM.
The time it leaves is right but the rest is not. Have the taxi driver take you to that area and just leave in plenty of time to get out and ask locals where the NEW “Autobus” terminal is. I wish we’d written down the street name for you but we were so rushed and frantic that we didn’t have the peace of mind to do so.
The bus trip to Banaue is 9 hours through the night. It was a tad draining because the bus wasn’t the best, the air conditioning was incessant and too cold, and the seats reclined juuuust enough for you to THINK you might be able to get comfortable before crushing your dreams of any form of decent sleep.
Another tip, don’t even try to get the back seat so you can lie right down, it won’t help. The back seat is reserved for the driver to sleep after he rotates with another driver half way through the trip. We found this out after being kicked out of our comfortable sleeping position after mistakenly thinking that the back seat was a free for all.
But don’t let me discourage you, this is all part of the experience, and when you get to Banaue it’ll be hard to argue that the trip wasn’t worth every minute of it.
When you’re leaving Banaue to come back to Manila things are much easier. You go to the one terminal in Banaue where you entered and await the bus that by memory leaves twice daily, once in the morning and once in the afternoon.
Where to Stay in Banaue
There were a decent number of choices for accommodation at Banaue so you might find it difficult to make a decision.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Banaue is a much bigger town than it’s little brother next door, Batad. There’s a lot of houses scattered along mountain trails, plenty of little stores selling souvenirs and clothing, and, as we discovered after it sprung up from nowhere right outside Sanafe Lodge on the Sunday morning, a thriving little weekend market!
The positioning of our accommodation at Banaue was important, because the town is spread out along a pretty decent sized stretch of mountain road, and one end is closer to where you come in on the bus, and the other end is closer to where you need to go to get on to Batad and also to the places where you see more of the Rice Terraces.
The price of most lodges is around $20 a night. I believe there was some slightly cheaper options at Banaue but for the central location, the hospitality of our hosts and the killer view, we certainly weren’t upset at paying $40 for our two night stay.
Banaue Rice Terraces
I wanted to try and provide all the information you’d need to know if you’re planning to head up to the Banaue Rice Terraces in Northern Luzon, Philippines.
Amongst other reasons, the effort it takes to get there, namely, the 9 hour bus ride from Manila, means you want to get your trip right, and know what you’re getting yourself into.
If you want to see the Banaue Rice Terraces, you need to know what it is you stand to see.
Your first view of the rice terraces will be, if you stayed awake on the bus trip, as you’re winding your way through the mountains to the Banaue bus stop. These ones are just scattered and not as extensive as up the road, but it gives you a taste of the beauty before it clobbers you over the head later in the trip.
Next, depending on where you stay at Banaue you’ll have a view of some terraces from the main town area, likely from the balcony of your accommodation.
The mountains and valleys of Banaue are smaller and more intricate so the terraces here are in smaller patches than at say Batad and don’t seem to stretch quite as far, but you’ll definitely get a decent view of them from your inn’s balcony.
But to get the best view of the rice terraces at Banaue, you need to take a short tour. We asked a trike driver to take us up to some of the lookouts, (cost about 300 pesos) but if you’re fit, you could have walked up the mountain trail and seem the good lookout points without spending any money. Getting to the lookout points is easy.
There’s only one road going into and out of Banaue, and to get to the lookout points you just follow this road through the township in the opposite direction to the way you came IN on that road. Make sense?
It’s at these lookout points that you get the best views of the terraces in Banaue, like the photo here. There’s little tourist stops along the way to check out some of the locally carved woodworks and of course the ever present wooden backscratching devices.
The view at the highest lookout they take you to is fantastic. There’s a little picnic table there that you can sit at and just appreciate the view all the way down the valley, with terraces on either side. There’s even a little staircase where you can walk down and amongst the terraces if you want. Just make sure you only walk along the stony edges, and don’t step into the wet body of the terrace: it ruins the rice growing AND you’re likely to end up with a handful of leeches on you if you do.
After this, you make your way back down to the town.
Overall, I think it’s important to point out that the Banaue rice terraces are beautiful, but they’re not AS special as when you get up to the Batad rice terraces. You just can’t see as many or from as nice a view as you can at Batad, so make sure you’re ready for that when you get there. I think if we’d ONLY been able to see the terraces at Banaue, we’d have been disappointed. When you get up to Batad, you’ll know what I mean.
The Batad Rice Terraces – Oh The Beauty
I’ve gotta be honest, Batad, in Northern Luzon is one my favourite place on earth.
And it’s not just the Batad Rice Terraces that are the highlight, it’s everything about the place, from when you arrive to when you leave. In this post I wanted to give you a rundown on the 2 days we spent at Batad in the hope that you can get there and enjoy it as much as we did…
So Batad is a relatively tiny town in the mountains of Northern Luzon in the Philippines. It’s big brother next door, Banaue is the one you hear more about around Manila, as Batad is a little harder to get to. That said, I tell you now if you make it all the way up to Banaue from Manila, and don’t go the little extra to see Batad… I will find you… and bad things will happen.
I’ll leave the “getting there” for another post and we’ll kick this off from when we got down the mountain trail into the entrance to the place they call Batad.
Batad is basically an enormous… valley… for lack of a better word, situated between 4 mountain peaks. The valley however is like a big dish, of which the sides are completely rice terraces!
If you don’t know what a rice terrace it, here goes. Basically hundreds of years ago, the farmers in this area were faced with a conundrum. They wanted to grow rice, but weren’t blessed with any nice flat land on which to do so. So what they did was to effectively build “stairs” into the side of mountains, each flat level of which represented kilometers of land where they could grow the rice they had to! What resulted was thousands of these little “stairs” that combine to make one of the most breathtaking mountainscapes you’re ever likely to see.
If my description didn’t do it for you, just check pictures.
Anyway, so we come into Batad, pass by a small table of men who are collecting a little entry tax of some kind, while simultaneously spit roasting an enormous pig for lunch.
We walk down a steep set of stairs into the front door of our accommodation at “The Hillside Inn”. There’s not really a check in process, (after all there’s no electricity) so we throw our bags down and head for the old inn’s valley facing balcony.
The site we see is one I’ll never forget:
I felt such a feeling of peacefulness come over me that I didn’t want to do anything but sit on this balcony for the afternoon, sip some lemonade (there’s not many beverage options) and listen to the local owner strumming away on his guitar.
The afternoon winds down as you watch the sun gradually disappearing behind one of the grandiose mountains. Next it’s time for dinner.
The food there is nothing special, it’s only special because it’s all cooked there by the lovely family who run the inn. For the circumstances there’s actually a pretty decent sized menu. We enjoyed some simple fried rice with chicken which definitely hit the spot after the big hike we’d had through the hills to get to the renowned terraces.
The next day we woke up with some energy again and were ready to explore everything else Batad had to offer.
Before we proceed I should make you aware of what Batad and The Hillside Inn is so there’s no confusion.
This is a TINY mountain village. There are no cars, minimal electricity, the shower is a big barrel of cold water with a scoop, and the toilets flush by you pouring water into them manually.
If any of that bothers you, skip Batad. OR open your mind just a tiiiiny bit and allow yourself to experience it for what it is. If you do, I PROMISE you won’t regret it.
So, the first thing we decided to do for the day was to take a walk along the terraces. A young man from the inn offered to take us for a small tip.
The walk is a challenging one. You walk up and down mountain paths, across the edge of terraces, up stairs, through little farmers huts, and more.
The walk goes through the terraces and down to a nearby waterfall!
A word of warning. The walk takes about an hour but it’s PRETTY strenuous. Going down, particularly nearing the waterfall it gets into a pretty steep decline with these big steps that can be tricky to navigate. But that’s nothing compared to making the same walk BACK… we’ll get to that later.
When you come to the waterfall you’re sweaty and MORE than ready for a swim. It’s a magical site to see this when you come around the final curve…
You can easily kill a few hours here swimming around in falls as the current pushes you back to the shore, or sunning yourself on the rocks like a regular lizard.
There’s a whole little rocky river segment that you can explore down here too, hopping from one rock to the next and taking in that sweet misty waterfall air.
Finally the time came to leave and begin the trek back to the inn. I say trek this time because it’s pretty hectic. Poor Elysia was feeling it on the old legs, but I won’t pretend that I was fit enough to have taken it without a couple of groans either. Some of the steps down near the water fall are like half a meter high per step. You literally climb them rather than walking them.
At last it’s back to your room at the inn. You thank the guide (who basically RUNS the whole way without raising a sweat) and hit your room for a well deserved afternoon nap.
Overall we spent 2 days in Batad, and as we reflected back, this was about the perfect amount of time. We were able to see what we wanted to see there, relax long enough to take in the serenity of the place without becoming bored, and leave with only the fondest of memories.
In my opinion the Batad rice terraces simply defy explanation. It’s one of those things that you just have to see in order to appreciate their sheer size and grandeur, not to mention this epic feat of olden day farming innovation.
I recommend any trip to the Philippines include a stay at Batad, even if it’s just a couple of days like we did. The Hillside Inn is also definitely the place to stay. At $15 a night you can’t really go wrong, and people will say the nearby Simon’s Inn is better because it has a slightly bigger menu (and some pizza’s that we tried and thought were half decent) but the positioning of the Hillside Inn makes it the definite winner.
If you’re planning a trip to Batad, I envy you. Get ready for a special experience and enjoy the ride!
Now go forth and enjoy the beauty of Banaue and Batad equipped with these tips.
I hope you enjoyed!