Pretty nice fish lunch at my hotel, the St. Joesph's Resthouse.

Lunch at my hotel in Sagada. San Miquel had a super tight monopoly on beer in this country.

Sagada hanging coffins

The chair is the deceased "Death Chair" into which they were strapped up right shortly after dying. That is pretty much how they do their wake. The deceased sits up right in a chair, and friends come by and talk to him as if he were still alive, or some such. Basically, you get to get everything "off your chest" before they are put to rest.

Supposedly you have to offer up 20 pigs, and 42 chickens to the town elders to get yourself similarly situated. Most folks are also Christian, but most seem to prefer this method of internment, if they can afford it. Supposedly no one really keeps a lot of pigs and chickens these days, they get donated by friends / family when you pass.

You can see the coffins shown close up above, in the lower part of the picture below.

Coming back from Sagada and the Rice Terraces

Food hawkers at a toilet break on way down from rice terraces. The woman above was embarrassed to have her picture taken. After I took it she wiped her hand across her check. I didn't realize exactly what she was saying, other than it was a shy/embarrassed gesture. But now I do.

Probably road workers getting shuttled back home at the end of the day. Endless work to be done on these mountain roads.

Coming down from Rice Terraces #2

This stuff was just stellar. Unfortunately on the way up, I arrived rather late, and didn't get to appreciate the granduer. Then coming down, because I didn't know the view would be so good, I didn't set myself up to have a window seat till late in the trip, and by then light was fading then. But this 6 hour, $5 bus ride from Baguio to Sagada is actually one of the highlights of my trip. Well, mostly just the 2 hours closest to Sagada.

One is given the impression before going to the mountains that the rice terraces are just in certain towns. But, no, they follow this road for 2 hours. Some/many are no longer cultivated, but many are. Wow.
Pics above taken around 5 at night out the window of the bus that I would later be throwing up on. Luckily the first time it was at a rest stop. The next, an hour later, I was equipped with a plastic bag, which I then dropped out the window. Six hours of non stop bumps and turns on a full stomach of food, beer, soda. Ouch.

Leaving Sagada, heaing for Bontoc

Just a couple of pics of the local bus I took from Sagada to Bontoc. The ride was think $.50 for about a 45 minute ride, 20 pesos. The woman in the forground was Swiss, about 50, I met her at my restaurant hotel. Her sister works for Red Cross in Manila, and she is her to visit her. This woman, whose name escapes me at the moment, lives in southern of France on a farm, and has six or so horses. She has also worked with the Red Cross in Sri Lanka with the Sinhalese, not the Tamils, and in Liberia, in a prison making sure detainees were treated properly.

Houses around a small neighborhood among the hills and rice terraces of Sagada.
A local guy named Bernard gave me and my Swiss friend two walks around the area, one centering on the caves, the others goal was to see a small waterfall and rice paddies.

Bernard, the local guide in the foreground. He had a 6 year old boy who lived with his parents, while his wife was working in Canada. The fields were allegedly a bit drier than normal this time of year, and farmers were getting quite concerned.

Sagad coffin cave

Supposedly stuff has been considerably tampered with already. He're's a sign saying "Don't do it."

Old bones showing through.
Supposedly there a lots of caves around filled with coffins like this. None are supposedly older than 600 years old. This was near the entrance of a rather large cave. The bodies are interned in the fetal position, thus the smaller size.