Leg one of the leg one

Phew, it's been a whirlwind tour lately.

I enjoyed my time in Singapore and eventually got to see some of it: Dani and I walked around the Arab quarter, which is an interesting mix of Singapore's organization and the culture of the area. We then caught up with everyone that was around and had one last night hanging out eating and drinking.

I was up early the next morning and flying to Manila!
All of that went pretty easy, but I wasn't able to meet up with my fellow intrepid explorer until the evening because she was off seeing sights like a good backpacker should! Eventually we got caught up at her hostel, Friendly's which lived up to its name and let me hangout there while waiting.
The next thing we knew we were on a grungy, but AC bus up to Banaue. The bus took longer than we expected, but we got in, grabbed some breakfast and then started the most extensive hiking I have done in along time.
The landscape here is VERY steep, yet 2000-4000 years ago the local people decided that they needed to make some enormous rice terraces. I'd seen pictures, but they didn't do it justice at all!

Our first walking was around Banaue. It was very impressive, but in retrospect it paled in comparison to our next stop: Batad. The hike to get to Batad was grueling in itself because we missed the Jeepney and had to walk up to the saddle (i.e. mountain pass).
We eventually got down there and got ourselves a place. We were lucky and found some fellow travelers from Germany who went with us the next day as we hiked ALL OVER the area. You'll have to wait to see the pictures, but the area is astounding. It's described as amphitheater like and it really is, but the elevation change is somewhere around 1500 feet! I was also a little surprised by how remote it was. There was electricity, but everything that wasn't grown there had to be packed in by foot on a 45min hike down from the saddle.

You really have to see the pictures to appreciate it, but the area was gorgeous and after 2 days of non-stop up and down, my legs are fried. The drugs have kept my knee from being too sore, though I had to go really slow downhill and was always bringing up the rear with my weird one foot at a time. I was able to redeem myself by hauling ass up the hill, particularly this morning when Steph and I weren't sure if we were going to make it to the Jeepney back to Banaue; where we are now waiting for a bus to Bontoc and hopefully on to Sagada.

The fun has just started!