Banaue Rice Terraces Tour Day 1: Batad Rice Terraces Trek

Once belong to the  7 Wonders of the World, the Banaue Rice Terraces. Built by the Ifugao, Banaue Rice Terraces is composed of 4 Rice Terraces located in different Baranggays of  Banaue, Ifugao Province. Showing the history, culture and heritage of the, this is now one of the Philippine's top tourist destinations.


As far as I know Banaue Rice Terraces is a terraces-like rice field lying in a single mountain but when we happened to visit the place I found out that Banaue Rice Terraces is composed of different Rice Terraces.  This is composed of Batad Rice Terraces, Hapao, Rice Terraces and Hapao Rice Terraces, not to mention those unpopular Rice Terraces. We visited the place last January 24, 2011. We travelled 9 hrs in a bus from Manila to Banaue and stayed at the Oyami's Greenview Lodge.

View of Banaue from Oyami's Lodge

To start with the tour, we were approached by the Tourist officer giving information and helping out where we should go. After negotiation of rates, we decided to experience Batad Rice Terraces Trek. We ate our breakfast, packed things up and we're good to go. To get a cheaper Jeepney Fee, we went together with the rest of the tourists. They were all foreign tourists with different nationalities  (Korean, Israelite, Brazilian, English, Canadian, Australian, Mexican) and just two of us were Filipinos. The Jeepney was travelling more than an hour before we've reached the drop-off point. From there we've separated with the the foreign tourists and started the trek with a Tourist Guide. We were advised to  bring a stick since it was a bit rainy, the road was really slippery. I was just wearing slippers and that made the trek much more challenging, quite a tough trek! After an hour we've completed the 1st part of the trek and reached the Batad Rice Terraces. We logged in at the Batad Tourist Information Center and ate our lunch in a store where you could choose common recipes like adobo or just buy canned goods and etc. and have them cook for you. We ordered corned beef, noodles w/ egg and Banaue Rice.

There are small inns in the area where you can stay for the whole night. After the lunch and a short rest, we started to rove around the terraces starting from at a lowpoint and slowly climbed at the top (slowly but surely..hehe). The first step at the Batad Rice Terraces!

Going down again in the terraces and climbing up back to the Tourist Information Center to hide from the heavy rain and rest to prepare for another hour of walking back to the base. It took us about an hour and a half before reaching  the drop-off point where the jeepney is waiting for us. Another hour of travel back to Oyami's.

A day that was!

Facts About Banaue Rice Terraces:
- Banaue Rice Terraces is composed of Batad Rice Terraces, Hapao Rice Terraces and Hongduan Rice Terraces and other unpopular rice terraces in the town of Banaue.
- The type of rice they are planting would take a year before they can harvest, thus harvest is just once a year.
- They are just using their harvest for own consumption and not for sale.
- Because they only harvest once a year, they buy rice in the market if they no longer have stocks.

More Photos of the Batad Rice Terraces:

Posted in: Banaue Rice Terraces