This is Part II of the Trek From Mayoyao to Batad article.  If you haven’t already seen Part I, check it out here.

I had been in Southeast Asia for 5 months.  I had hired guides to summit Mt. Merapi volcano on Java and for Orangutan Trekking in Sumatra.  I had volunteered doing construction with locals in Payatas and everyone I had come in contact with wore slippers (flip flops).  The toughest jobs where people in the Western world would be required to lace up steel toes,  SE Asians, wore slippers.
I …

This is Part I of a 2 part series of a wondrous hike through the gorgeous 2000 year old paradise rice terraces of Mayoyao where one is not just a tourist but a family friend to the magnificent rising amphitheater of Batad, in the Ifugao province of the Philippines.

I sloppily released a mouthful of bright red beetle juice saliva onto the ground as I struggled to keep my balance on the mud bogged trail.
“In Ifugao, American country music is very popular,” said my guide Efren.  “At a cafe in Phoenix,” …

The jaunt from Batad to Mayoyao took nearly eight hours and included hiking, walking down completely barren mud roads, keeping my footing while crawling over fresh landslides, swinging back and forth on creeping jeeps, and clenching on to highly unstable homemade vehicular devices.
“In Mayoyao you are not just a tourist, but a family friend,”
said Efren, my guide.  “Let’s go and register at the town (village) municipality.”  I arrived to see 3 or 4 cops drinking coffee sprawled out in the office, elevated feet, and chuckling amongst themselves.  They sprang to …

The overnight bus was glacial (the aircon), the sharp winding curves were dizzying, but the morning sunshine that awakened me wriggling its rays through the green mountains was breathtaking.  I was aboard a Florida Liner (no website) bus from Manila to the town of Banaue in the rice terraced out countryside province of Ifugao, the Philippines.
After a quick breakfast and a teeth brush at one of the world’s more magnificent sinks, in the town of Banaue, our group hired a jeep to transport us an hour away where we would …