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The Rice Terraces Of Banaue: A Stay Of Two Halves
Our stay in Banaue took something of a different turn as a proper deterioration in the weather took hold. The Philippines has this week been hit by a weather front known as a “shear line” – no, we hadn’t heard of it either – which has brought torrential rain to several islands. South of here the damage has been much worse with devastating flooding, here in northern Luzon it was less damaging but still pretty extreme. Our perseverance in getting out to the rice terraces on the wet day was rewarded by some better weather on Day 2. This is how it went… The thing which draws visitors to the…
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Northwards To The Heritage City Of Vigan
A bit of geographical perspective first. The Philippines is made up of no less than 7,641 islands, about 2,000 of which are inhabited. The island of Luzon, where we have started our Philippines tour, is home to both the capital city Manila and just over half of the population of the country as a whole. Luzon is the Philippines’ largest island, roughly half the size of Great Britain. From Manila we have headed to the north of Luzon, to the region of Ilocos Sur, bound for the town of Vigan. The short domestic flight lands at Laoag, from where it’s just under two hours by road to our instantly appealing…
