hello good morning and welcome to Sagada a town surrounded by misty mountains it has a tranquil sleepy vibe and honestly is giving me on first impressions the feeling that I’m somewhere in North America full of wooden lodges and cabins country folk music playing in all the restaurants and cafes not really the iconic pristine beach or exotic islands that you associate with the Philippines but here in a few Gow you can find it behind me here is my homestay I’m paying just five pounds a night roughly for my room which is incredible it’s a private room single bed shared bathroom but extremely good value today I’m going to be showing you the town and some interesting parts and places around it before I go I just want to let you know how I got here from Bernard I took a minivan for around an hour and a half two hours to reach bontoc through lots of winding steep roads then when we arrived in bontoc I changed into a jeepney van and from there it was around 35 minutes to reach the garden in total I paid something like 300 pesos to get here and it was about three hours so really not too bad and quite a fun journey great views from the homestay here I can’t wait to dive in so without further ado let’s get into the town and let’s get exploring leaving my hotel now Isabel ozium is the name if you’re interested right in the center of su yada it’s pretty chill not too much traffic beautiful morning here in Sagada a perfect escape from the other parts of the Philippines in May slightly cooler but the Sun is still quite sharp this is the entrance to the church the Echo Valley and also the hanging coffins which are the most famous things here in Sagada so when we go you can see the scenery of the town is really quite different to burn our way and batard the rice terraces very beautiful looking Church here big trees and rolling green mountains it’s known as the Church of st. Mary the Virgin quite a unique style from others I’ve seen here in the Philippines super-quiet I’m the only person in here quite a modern depiction of Jesus which is interesting to see from the church I was in just a moment ago I’ve walked a bit further on down the road here to the entrance of the Echo Valley Gardens which hosts a Gardez most famous tourist attraction the hanging coffins however it’s closed for two days and I’m very disappointed to hear that there is a local burial ritual going on and no tourists are allowed to enter that’s pretty devastating because that was what I was most looking forward to seeing here in Sagada I’m going to flash a few pictures on the screen now to show you what they look like it’s basically coffins hanging on a rock face some are hundreds of years old some are just five ten twenty years old and many of them are the local inhabitants of Sagada the coffins certainly add to the creepy almost horror story like backdrop of Sagada it’s also extremely beautiful but you cannot deny the mystery that surrounds this place luckily for me there are also plenty of other coffins dotted around the town I can go and find some in some cave entrances some in other places I’m not too sure I’m about to find out as I carry on walking down this path and hopefully I can see something but definitely don’t miss the hanging coffins of Sagada if you’re here I’m sure it will be open I just got quite unlucky this time and I’ll have to come back in the future [Music] I don’t really know where I’m going I’m sort of guessing where the other coffins are there’s nothing else on Google Maps apart from the main caves and the main set of coffins that are closed today more than that it’s just a really picturesque pathway can you imagine it how nice it would be to live in this house here walking around the back of some of these houses here in this extremely quiet area you can see the jagged rock faces here they carry on following the path round to see where it leads me beautiful views the hanging coffins that are closed just above here somewhere I’ve made it back onto one of the main roads leading out of the town I’m gonna continue walking south down here and eventually reach one of the most famous caves outside of Sagada some pleasant cafes and guest houses dotted around the quieter areas if you’re looking for a pretty chill escape from Manila then heading north to Sagada is a good choice some pretty good views of the surrounding valleys like NZ rice terraces in the distance from the main road here few kilometers outside of town I’m pretty far outside of town now been walking for around 15 to 20 minutes and the road has gone very quiet look at this breathtaking view of the rice terraces in the valley below there are these steps leading up through this forest but it looks too off the beaten path for me it’s so quiet most people who visit the caves do it on a tour and so they get a van taking them there and they have a guide yeah I haven’t done that so I’m pretty lost well I might be about to get lost let’s head up here into the woods and see if I can walk through this way it’s a pretty epic and picturesque bow when you just do things on your own off the cuff you can find some pretty interesting places there seems to be a bit of a dip down here oh wow that’s pretty deep and slippy I have to be careful here that really veers off deep but nobody can tell my camera it’s very steep I’m not going to attempt to walk to get a look over the edge because I have quite a strong likelihood of falling in and if that happens even if I survive the pool no one will know Rowan so I’ve now reached samargan cave I’ve walked all the way here from Sagada I wanted to try and get to the entrance of the other cave but I couldn’t find it there was no pathway leading to it so I thought if I come to the second cave walk further down the road maybe there’s a footpath leading to the other one so I’m now at samargan cave you can only enter if you’ve organised at all from the tourist office back into guard so I’m not part of a tour I’m not gonna be able to go inside really on my own what I might be able to do is get near the entrance and hopefully get some shots of the cave from the outside or maybe just walk in the very beginning but I’m not too sure let me try my luck I want to see if there’s any coffins around here too because obviously I missed out on the coffins pretty cool so I’ve managed to actually get in it no one stopped me so I’ve been able to see the inside of the cave which I’m quite happy about although I haven’t really had the chance to go deep yet I don’t really think I’ll be able to without someone stopping but let me try anyway there’s a tour group just to the bottom it looks very dark if you want to do a tour here make sure you’re not claustrophobic you don’t have fear of heights you don’t mind getting a bit adventurous with everything it can be quite a strenuous activity but from all the reviews really worth it [Music] [Music] [Applause] you finally made it to a viewpoint of some hanging cough and I’m so happy even though I think there’s just three that I am just so relieved to say yes I saw some hanging coffins these ones are very very old but they are legitimate nonetheless and I’m so happy after all the effort I spent walking down to try and find them that a big group of Filipinos all in one evening I saw and I thought yes that must be the viewpoint so I turned here and they go there’s a few coffins that you can see just faintly in the middle of the shop and this large group of Filipino tourists were so friendly all of them were taking selfies of me asking me all about my life and they’re all laughing and really fantastic sense of humor and big smiles Filipinos always make you feel like you can make friends with them instantly there’s always that kind of light-hearted connection that I really love about the people here and I’ve only just begun to sort of understand what they’re like and they’re some of my favorite people of any country I visit so far I’ve walked around a lot today and I’m back sort of where I was earlier walking along the street when I first began towards the church which you can see behind me and I want to take a closer look at some of these local stores so here we have local wild honey or 350 pesos Muscovado which is like brown sugar red rice about animal rights of all organic strawberry wine I guess why different spices here leaves pretty cool even Sagada colony with some more in hair the same stuff lots of jams banana chips he was on sale a that’s what I tried me yeah lots of little souvenir places everywhere here of burger for just forty pays off different Inns and restaurants around the town tourist information center over there which is pretty useful the boss pickup point where I’ll be going back to Manila coda lines and a little bit more down here more home stays and lodges a restaurant I ate at last night hey so I’m now no longer in Sagada and I’m just ending the video here I want to say I’m sorry that this video was quite messy I actually got lost trying to find the other place where the coffins were which I then eventually found after I visited the cave if you want to go in the caves you have to be on a tour so I got kicked out of there by the end of the day I was very tired after walking and I just went back and slept in my hotel and then I took a bus back to Manila the following day and then from Manila I took a flight to another place in the Philippines which is going to be my next video so stay tuned to find out where that’s going to be and I’m sorry again if the cigar the video was messy I highly recommend that you do one of those cave tours and you go and visit the hanging coffins of Sagada when it’s open and hopefully at least this video gave you a good idea of what the town is like and the scenery enough of a reason to make you want to visit and that I guess is why I can take away from the fact that I didn’t really achieve much in the video itself so I’ll see you in the next part of the Philippines and thanks for watching again peace you Video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3scmGGuaY0
