Banaue -- First of Five Groups of Photos

The day after Christmas, when things were pretty much closed down at the Area Office for the holidays, we were given permission by the Area President to travel to Banaue, up north of Manila about 10 hours, up in the mountains. The Banaue Rice Terraces are one of the eight wonders of the ancient world. We left Manila on Wednesday and returned on Saturday, staying in Banaue three nights -- one day traveling up, one day traveling back, and two days looking at the scenery in the mountains. Here are some of the 200 or so photos we took. Enjoy.

Like Baguio, Banaue is in the mountains. The houses are stuck to the sides of the hills. And there are houses almost everywhere you look, in the smallest of openings, tucked away at the bottom of a river bed, perched on the side of a rock, right next to the road. They have no yards, just hills that fall deep down into the river below. The children play in the streets. You see people squatting there on the side of the road, just inches from the traffic.

When we stopped to take a couple of photos, these three little ole' ladies came over in their red T-shirt. They wrapped themselves with the native skirts and put on their fancy hats. For this show we gave them five or 10 pesos. There were folks like this whenever you stopped.

We went out to see the sights on Thursday and Friday. We hired a jeepney to take us because we didn't know where to go and because the roads were impossible -- muddy, twisty, bumpy, narrow, dangerous and whatever else you can imagine. At one point a couple of local guys jumped on the jeepney. One climbed up on top in the rain, but this fellow wanted to come in. We let him ride inside with us. He was chewing bettle nut and kept spitting out the back window opening. (Bettle nut is a mild narcotic. They somehow mix it with lime powder (a chemical) and chew it more or less like tabacco.) He could speak English fairly well, and we asked him a few questions about the local places. After about 15 or 20 minutes, he reached his destination and opened the door and jumped out. The driver didn't charge him -- after all, we had paid for the whole trip already.

The photo doesn't show the vertical depth. These terraces were way down there, probably a couple of thousand feet. You can see the road along the left side of the terraces. From where we were standing to take this picture it was a vertical drop. Of course, the fall wouldn't hurt much, it would be the sudden stop at the bottom.

Here you can see how the road was on the edge of the hillside and the drop along the side of the road. The fog came and went. Sometimes we were above the fog, sometimes below it.

Banaue -- Second of Five Groups

The ancient Filipinos started constructing these terraces some 2000 years ago, we were told. They likely came from China and brought the rice paddy industry with them, but had to adapt it to the mountainous terrain. So they took advantage of the abundant water springing in the mountains and the rich valcanic soil. The problem was finding level places to build the paddies. The terraces were the solution. Thousands and thousands of them stretch up and down the hillsides.

Here you can see the intricate patterns created by the terraces. Each paddy needs to be level to hold the water, so a rock wall is built and the area behind it was leveled. Sometimes the spot is only a few yards wide and a few yards long, but they took advantage of every square inch.

The season for planting was just beginning -- starts in January. So, some of the paddies looked dried up. The bright green sections are the seedlings. These will be dug up and moved to the flooded paddies, planted about six or eight inches apart. Although you can't see it here, occasionally there were red plants at the edges of the terraces here and there. We were told these red plants marked the boundaries showing which terraces belonged to whom. The terraces went for miles all up and down the hillside and down the valleys.

Sister Roundy with the terrances in the background -- just to prove "we were there." Lookin' good!

It was foggy and raining all the while we were in Banaue, and it was cool. We even wore our jackets at times. The fog would be in the bottom of the valley and rise up to the tops of the mountains. Just when you thought it might not raining any more, it would start again.

Banaue -- Third of Five Groups

Outside the hotel flower gardens were in bloom -- probably not as abundantly as they would have been in the warmer months, but nonetheless pretty. This is a poinsetta tree. We saw poinstta trees all over the place, simply growing wild it seemed. They grow on tall bushes, probably up to 12 feet high.

Another pretty red flower. We saw all kinds. Sister Roundy probably knows the names of them -- blue flowers, white flowers, yellow flowers, purple flowers. And butterflies here and there.

Banaue is built in the mountains. There is no flat places on which to build houses, so dwellings are perched on the side of the hill. This shows one house (and there were hundreds just like it) that is at least five stories with a sixth one to be added. And there is a terraced foundation below it. Most of the houses on the hillsides were made of concrete. There is not much lumber (just jungle plants -- bamboo) for building, so they use concrete. They never finish the house . . . because while it is under construction it is not taxed, so and unfinished building is not taxed.

This is the hotel where we stayed. This picture is taken from across the river gorge. From the picture you cannot tell the vertical depth of the gorge, but it is deep. And there are rice terraces all up and down the sides of the hills.

The houses are clinging to the sides of the steep hills, up and down the mountain. There are not many roads into these places, so the people just walk in and out, up hundreds of steps and down again on the other side. We did see one swinging bridge and the men crossed over to the other side, bouncing and swaying back and forth.

Banaue -- Fourth of Five Groups

There are jeepneys everywhere, thousands of them in the cities, hundreds of them out here in the provinces. And they load them to the hilt. We counted at least 25 people in and on this jeepney.

As the jeepney goes by, people jump on. The driver sometimes slows down and sometimes doesn't. Then when the jeepney gets to where you want to get off, you either just jump off, or if you're inside, you thump on the roof of the jeepney and the driver stops and lets you out. No signals for the car behind the jeepney. Each driver just has to stay awake and be sure not to run over the disembarking passengers.

We saw a place where the landslide had come down the mountain and destroyed some of the terraces. They were repairing it. This shows how they pack the inside of the paddy with clay to make it waterproof. Eventually this will be filled in with top soil and then flooded with water.

This was an interesting old log out in one of the paddies. We thought the fungus growing on it was interesting and sort of pretty.

These are the work-horses of the Philippines -- the carabao (care-a-BOUGH). This one took a breather. This paddy was more or less dried out, waiting, we supposed, to be plowed up and flooded so the seedlings could be planted.

Banaue -- Last of Five Group

This is a typical house out in the mountains. It's made from natural materials. Some houses have corrugated tin roofs (to hear the rain in the night, probably). A women named Evelyn lived in this house with her four children. This house was right down next to the rice paddies at the bottom of the valley. We hiked down into the village. It was a long trip down and every step down had to be retaken on the way back up. Hard work for us old folks.

The rice is dried and thrashed (or is it thrushed?) by hand up in the mountains because there is no flat places to spread it out. This woman is cutting the rice grains from the stalks. The stalks are piled up and burned, so you often see small, smokey fires here and there.

As we left the mountain terraces and went down to the flat lands we saw field after field of rice paddies. The walls keep each section level to hold the water required to grow the rice. This man is preparing his paddy for planting. We were told they plant in January and harvest in April or May. Up in the mountains they can only get one crop each year (because of the short seasons there), but in the flat lands they can usually get two crops.

In the flat lands the farmers spread their rice on the roads to dry. You simply have to drive around it, but sometimes . . . . The husks are removed and it is cleaned before it is eaten, but still . . . . ????

When the rice is dried, it is swept up into long piles and then scooped up and put into bags. The bags are often left standing on the side of the road waiting to be loaded into carabao carts or into jeepneys. Sometimes you see a truck loaded with sacks of rice.

That was our trip to Banaue.

Christmas at the Orphanage

On Saturday, December 14, we joined several other missionary couples to take some Christmas gifts to an orphanage – “The Mango Tree” orphanage. There were 35 children there, mostly about 9 -12 or so.

There was one 21 year old girl and a very outgoing young man who was the obvious prince of the place. His name was Merlin. And he actually was bright and cute. Here is is (red shirt) with the 21-year old girl and his side-kick that followed him wherever he went.

Some of the senior missionaries donated money and we gave them a few things for the home – towels, dishes, blankets, a DVD player, etc. But the mission president’s wife had made a gift bag with each child’s name on it filled with sweet Christmas treats and a child’s toy or age-appropriate item selected for their gender. Thrilled.

Sister Roundy read them a reindeer story, about a reindeer who thought it could fly, but ended up needing Santa’s help. She read it in English and they were all ears. (Most of them could speak some English and obviously could understand much of what we said.)

Elder Roundy taught them a couple of songs. Right, you guessed it: one was the Eskimo Song. They all laughed and sang, and then Merlin (in the red shirt) jumped up and said they would teach us a song. He led the group while they sang about a shark attack, arm and hand movements and all. This particular scene is about "Grandpa Shark" who had no teeth.

We only stayed about a half hour or so. They all hugged us and told us “salamat po” and took our hand and touch the back of it with their forehead – which is a significant gesture of respect and gratitude (plus it allows some of our “wisdom” to flow into them).

‘T’was a great Christmas.

Up to Baguio . . .

President Edwards asked us to accompany the area presidency to a training meeting in the stakes around a place called Baguio (bah-GEE-oh, hard “g” like in guess). This is north of Manila, up in the top portion of Luzon. Baguio is in the mountains. These mountains are high and steep, not rocky, covered with jungle foliage. People told us we would need our coats when we went to Baguio.

We left before noon on a Friday and traveled for about six hours, part of the way on the NLEX, but most of it on provincial roads – two narrow lanes. We had seven of us: the Edwards, the Kos, the Roundys, and Sister Millett. (Her husband had gone up a day earlier as part of his Church assignment.) Elder Edwards drove his van. He drives like he had taken lessons at the demolition derbies, and fast.

Along the way we stopped for lunch in Tarlac. This was a seafood Chinese restaurant. We had a large round table with a turning “Lazy Susan” in the center. We each ordered a dish of our choice and then shared, turning the Lazy Susan around and around. The Kos ordered a fish to eat, with head and all. No one but Elder Ko and Sister Kim (husband and wife) bothered with the fish. The rest of the fare was pretty good.

About an hour before dark we got to the base of the Baguio mountains. President Edwards had apparently taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way, so this road was one he had not been on before, but it was a delightful mistake. Up the winding mountain road we went, back and forth along the contours of the hillside, across narrow bridges between peaks and back and forth up the next summit. It had been raining and the road was wet. Water falls poured off the hillside, plunging down into the river below, terrace after terrace. The green leafs shining in the wet air. Rainbows glowing in the shafts of sunlight. The terrain looked like what often is seen in pictures of Peru and the high mountain villages in South America.

You could see the clouds rising up the mountainside, and eventually we worked our way up to them, then through them and on higher up the road. Looking back we could see the clouds below us, snuggling around the hills like a soft, wool fleece.

Baguio is built on the hillsides. There is not a flat place there. The houses are cascading down the side of the mountain and perched on the edges of the cliffs. No backyards to play in, lest you spill into the valley below. The roads wind through the city, back and forth, up and down. From here you could see the ocean coast off to the northwest – faintly through the haze.

We stayed at a place called Camp John Hay (named after one of President Lincoln's cabinet secretaries). This was a nice, almost ostentatious resort. The Travel Department had secured for us a place with two bathrooms, a living room, a bedroom, a kitchenette. The living room and kitchen was larger than our whole apartment in the Temple Housing. We stayed there Friday and Saturday nights. We had dinner with the others in the dining room. Again, this was a rather formal affair, at least the menu and service were.

On Saturday Elder Roundy went with President Edwards and the mission president, President Collado, back down the mountain to the stake center in San Fernando La Union (off the mountains somewhere north of Baguio) and attended the training meetings all day. Sister Roundy didn’t. She went shopping and site-seeing with the other sisters. The mission president’s wife had arranged to have someone guide them on a shopping tour of Baguio. She saw the military academy, the strawberry fields, a silk factory with live silk worms. She said she enjoyed the day -- a welcomed break from the computer. Elder Roundy attended six hours of meetings, not needing to say a single word (nor taking minutes either, it should be added).

On Sunday the group split up and went their separate ways. Elder Ko and his wife, Sister Kim, went to another stake to dedicate a new building. Brother and Sister Millett stayed at the hotel for an extra day of vacation, and the Roundys joined with the Edwardses to dedicate the new Naguillian chapel (nah-GOOee-lee-on).

Then it was dead-head back to Manila. Edwards deployed his driving skills and got us back in five hours (well, six and a half if you count the trip down the mountain from Baguio to Naguillian).

Wonderful adventure.

We've Been There . . .

Here you can see the deep valley. There is a river down there, fed by all the canyons and cliffs on all sides. The clouds cover the tops of the mountains and it is often foggy there. We went you through these clouds and above them.

We had to climb up from the valley floor. This picture does not show the magnitude of the height of the mountins compared to the deep valleys between them, but it was high.

The city literally covers the mountain tops. The houses are perched everywhere. The roads wind around through the dips and rises. You could look out and see the ocean far off in the west.

This is where we stayed -- Camp John Hay. We were told that when the US Army was in the Philippines during WWII, the officers looked for a cool place to go. They found this mountain area and then a guy named John Hay must have made a camp.

Gail went to these fields somewhere in the mountains. It must be the only flat place in the entire region.

Just in Case You Didn't Believe It . . .

PROOF that we were actually there.

This was taken on November 13, 2007. We had dinner with this group at Elder and Sister Edwards' apartment and then the next day we went to Cebu to the temple groundbreaking.

Who's who (from left to right): Brother and Sister Millett (he's the Director of Temporal Affairs in the Philippines Area -- the agent of the Presiding Bishopric); Elder and Sister Roundy, Area Executive Secretary; Elder and Sister Edwards, the Area President; Elder and Sister Oaks, from the Council of the Twelve; Elder and Sister Cook, from the Council of the Twelve; Elder Ko and Sister Kim (Korean name style), First Counselor in the Area Presidency; Elder and Sister Teh, Second Counselor in the Area Presidency.

Elder Millet set his delayed time camera and then slipped into the group before the camera clicked.

A couple of interesting items:

Elder Millett is from Tropic, Utah (a place about the size of Alton). He grew up with my cousins who lived there. He was the president and CEO of Deseret Book Company and was called as a mission president in Virginia. When he came back the Church hired him to be the DTA in the Philippines. That means he does in the Philippines what the Presiding Bishopric does world-wide.

Elder Edwards and his wife, Judy, we knew from about the time we moved to Las Vegas back in the 60s. The last we had significant contact with them was when he was the Assistant Recorder in the Las Vegas Temple and she was an ordinance worker. He's a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy.

Elder Dallin and Sister Kristen Oaks . . . she knew a number of the Clark County School District administrators when she was a representative for a book publishing company. She also knows President and Sister Tew, of the Lone Mountain Stake in Las Vegas.

Elder Quentin and Sister Mary Cook. No significant information to pass along. We did not know anything about them previously. Sister Roundy visited with her a bit and gave her some hair spray when the airport security confiscated her spray can.

Elder Won Yong Ko and Sister Eun Hee Kim. In Korea the married women keep their original name. He's a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy.

Elder Michael-John U. and Sister Grace Teh. He's a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. He's Filipino, but has Chinese ancestry. Sister Teh knew our son-in-law, Dan Martin, when he served a mission in the Philippines back in the 80s.