Philippine rocks

Here I am, deep in a string of caves in the mountains of Northern Philippines. Not exactly stuck, but certainly at times secretly regretting I never took up yoga and ate that last muffin. If my position in this image looks strangely elevated, it's because the picture is the wrong way round, but I haven't managed to work out how to flip it round. In reality the above was a rock chimney down which we had to clamber. It would have been rather hard to say the least if the strong (muscular, oiled... oh, getting off track here) thigh of my guide hadn't acted as a human ladder to step on half way down. The guide, a local lad called Geraldo (all the locals seem to have Spanish names) was great and anyway, you can't enter the cave without a guide. Apart from ladder service, Geraldo provided tips for getting down the hardest bits, the light (a flickering gas lamp - very Gothic) and acted as the paparazzi. Things I learned on the way: A) being agile would be nice, B) being smaller would be handy, C) jumping into underground lakes (below) is fun fun fun, D) climbing out of underground lakes is very very hard indeed.
The place where all this frolicking around underground took place is Sagada, a small town a very long and bumpy ride away from Manila. The relative luxury of the night bus (very relative indeed) to Banue deteriorates into a string of jeepney rides for the last three hours of the way from Banue to Sagada. The bad thing about jeepneys is that you sit in two rows facing inwards, so you back is always towards the views. The other bad thing about jeepneys is that they are always full - always, since they will not leave until they are full. And despite being full to start off with, they will pick up every farmer and his potato sack along the way. However, the good news is that this time I got to ride on the roof of one! The views were stunning! Beautiful tropical moutains, rice paddies, rivers flowing below - usually a very steep and long way below. However, you have to sit on the luggage rack, which is welded to the roofs of the jeepney and believe me, if the Spanish inquisition didn't have this device at their use, they missed a trick or two! The metal rods are positioned at precisely the distance from each other to create maximum discomfort on backside as the jeepney driver deviously seems to hit each and every pothole ever formed. Anyway, the proof is in the pudding, and as you see, I got to Sagada intact (if slightly bruised in the nether region).

Sagada is best know for the tradition the locals have of hanging coffins of their deceased elders on vertical cliff faces. It's an old tradition - the oldest coffins are some 400 years old. You have to be a community elder to even apply for the honour (apart from high age, many kids all happily married off and doing well seems to be one definition of elder here). Recently this tradition is becoming rarer. However about once every three years one of the town elders selects this form of burial over the Christian cemetery.

I have now moved on - back to Banue and tomorrow hopefully the gods would lift their veils (i.e. it would stop raining) so that I could get to see the famous rice terraces of Batad in better light and dryer clothing.
It's been raining on-again off-again since I got to the Philippines and so far my umbrella has been more use than my sunglasses. So tomorrow night it's another night bus to Manila to catch a plane to Palawan - island paradise of the South.
From there forwards my entries will probably be much less adventurous and daring- centered more around on the temperature of the sand and the consistency of my G&T, Cosmopolitan or Sex on the Beach.