Hanging Coffins and Caving!

Hanging Coffins and Caving!

Sagada, Philippines, Asia

Today was an awesome day! I woke up after a great night sleep at George Guest House and wasn’t sure that I really wanted to do anything today. I knew that I was going to be staying here for tonight, so I had the full day, but just kind of felt like relaxing. I bummed around until about 10am and then went for breakfast at Yoghurt House. I had an awesome breakfast with a scrambled egg, a pancake wrapped around a banana and yoghurt and some orange juice. It was a perfect start to the day and gave me the energy to go seek out a tour around Sagada.

I went to the tourist information center and found a walking tour to go see the hanging coffins in Echo Valley. I had read about these in my guidebook, and had definitely never seen anything like it, so I decided to pay the 200 pesos ($4.50) and take a walk. My guide Bernard was excellent and told me about the American influence on the town of Sagada and the surrounding areas. The Americans came in and built a school, a hospital and a church, so we are pretty well liked in this area. A lot of people, like Bernard, were born with much more American names than Filipino.

We made our way through a Christian cemetery and then got to a viewpoint where we could spot some hanging coffins. I was really surprised to see how many pine trees there are up here, because it looks like we are in a rainforest, and you don’t generally see pines around there. Apparently they were also brought in by the Americans to grow and use as timber, and they have spread like wildfire. We took a hike down into Echo Valley and got to see some of the newest coffins up close. The most recent ones were from the 1970s until as recent as December 24, 2010. They have hung them on the walls and in caves because it is just too difficult to find places where you can dig graves, there are so many rocks up here. It was also thought that this was a way to keep their bodies closer to God.

The tour finished and on the walk back Bernard told me about a tour that he was going to be running later on in the day if I was interested. The tour was a caving tour that started out in the Burial cave, and came out from the Sumaging cave. I decided that if Bernard could find some other people who wanted to go, I would tag along, but I didn’t really want to go on my own. I went back to the hostel for about an hour and just relaxed, and got a phone call from Bernard at about 1pm saying that he had a group. They picked me up outside the guest house and I met the five Korean people I’d be spending the afternoon in a cave with.

There were only two of them that spoke English, and only one spoke it very well. The only names I caught were Ruth (who spoke English very well) and Aria, who was here on holiday with his daughter. There was also Ruth’s pastor and another Korean guy. We headed into the Burial cave with Bernard and our other guide, who was nameless. The first thing we came to, to no surprise, was a huge group of coffins that had been placed there a few hundred years ago. The wood tends to rot on the coffins after a while and a couple of the coffins had fallen to the ground and shattered. This is where we saw our first human bones, so that was a creepy start.

Now let me just say, Bernard did not prepare me well for this caving trip. He had said that although this was the longer tour, it was the easier one where we wouldn’t get very wet. He also said that I would be absolutely fine to bring my big new Nikon camera. He was wrong. It turns out I should have had a waterproof bag for all my belongings, a headlamp, gloves, climbing shoes, and definitely not my big camera! I was ill prepared. This ended up being a very intense caving tour, especially for someone who had never been in a cave like this before. We were climbing through tunnels I could barely fit through, shimmying across vertical walls on slick limestone, and rappelling down 30ft wall faces with a rope, but no safety gear at all, and then climbing up other walls with a rope and no other support. It was intense to say the least!

We did get to see some unbelievable stuff though. We waded through water that was up to my chest, heard (but couldn’t really see) thousands of bats, saw some amazing stalagtites and some beautiful underwater rivers and pools. The 5.5 hour trek seemed more than a little dangerous at a few points, but by the end I was so glad that I did it. Next time I wouldn’t risk bringing my big camera, but I got a few good pictures in there, and it’s a trip I won’t soon forget. The price for the tour was supposed to be 400 pesos ($9), but I gave Bernard a trip because the tour ended up being so good, so he got 500 ($12).

The Koreans are staying at George Guest House as well, and they were nice enough to invite me out to dinner with them. We all went up to Yoghurt House and I had one of the best meals of my trip. I had a massive plate of Carbonara, and some yoghurt with bananas and apples for dessert. The Koreans were then nice enough to treat me to dinner. They said it was a custom in Korea to treat a guest, and being the only white guy around, I was the guest. They were really lovely people, and they made the whole day a little better. I’m absolutely knackered now though and I’ll be heading to bed very soon. I’m getting a bus to Banaue tomorrow to finally see the infamous rice terraces!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *