Extreme Northern Luzon Mountain Adventure

[earthdome]

My girlfriends family was going to have a family reunion for the return of my gf's oldest sister who works OFW as a nurse in the middle east. The family home is 300km north of Baguio in the village of Balbalan in Kalinga province. I wanted to meet her family so we started making plans to travel there.

 

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Balbalan,+Philippines&hl=en&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=44.879582,78.662109&oq=balba&t=h&hnear=Balbalan,+Kalinga,+Cordillera+Administrative+Region,+Philippines&z=10

 

We could have gone by bus that would have been a long trip with a number of bus changes that would limit our options. So I decided to rent a car and drive. Then combine the visit to her family home with some sight seeing at the Banaue rice terraces http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banaue_Rice_Terraces and the mountain city of Sagada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagada,_Mountain_Province for a week long vacation.

 

Since I have been in the Philippines over 3 months the first step was to go to the Baguio LTO office and get my Philippines drivers license. It took less than an hour and only cost 720 pesos to convert my US DL to a Philippines DL.

 

Next was finding a car to rent. I found two car rental agencies in Baguio. Avis and Toyco. I stopped by Avis and they stated that due to mountain road conditions they would only rent to me if I also used one of their drivers. The total cost was going to be over $100 USD per day and I didn't really want a driver tagging along for a week long trip. So I checked out Toyco car rental. Toyco could rent me a 2009 Mitsubishi Adventure 2.5L diesel 5 speed manual rear wheel drive SUV for only 14k pesos for the week (2k/day) and I could self drive. They only required a 1k peso deposit. I checked out the SUV, made sure it had a good spare and jack, checked out the tires which were needing replacement but looked ok for the trip. I was on some pretty rough roads at times and several times during the week I had to get the air checked in the tires. I returned it with mud splattered all over it and mud on the floor mats. Toyco was ok with the condition and returned my deposit. Only gotcha was that they gave me the SUV with a near empty tank and told me I could return it that way. Of course it is hard to time your tank fills to return from a long trip near empty, so they got almost half a tank of diesel out of it. I knew that ahead of time, so I was OK with it. The SUV performed very well for me.

Edited October 27, 2013 by earthdome

[earthdome]

Extreme Northern Luzon Mountain Adventure - Day 1
 
First day the goal was to get to Tabuk in Kalinga province from Baguio. Here is the route Google Maps recommended.
 
http://goo.gl/maps/E1RxK
 

 
My neighbor uses the mountain road from Baguio towards Tabuk to get to his family home in the province. He told me he had driven that mountain road a week earlier and it was in very bad condition. During the typhoon season heavy rains in the mountain regions of norther Luzon result in many land slides which can make some of the roads nearly impassable at times. He strongly recommended that I not take that route through the mountains. Instead he recommended I drive south to San Jose City then north to Tabuk. A much longer route but with good roads:
 
http://goo.gl/maps/y7axb
 
I drove 10 hours that first day and didn't quite make it to Tabuk.
 
The drive was on very good roads. The drive started by driving down out of the mountains on the Marcos Hwy. Excellent road. The route I took south is the same route buses take when going south towards Manila from Baguio. Little traffic on this part of the drive in the morning. I hit more traffic once I got out of the mountains on the way to San Jose City.
 
From San Jose City the drive north towards Tabuk was very pleasant. Little traffic and much of the drive was very scenic through some mountains (nothing like the mountain driving to come later).
 
We ended up staying in Roxas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxas,_Isabela at the Forrest Hotel and Restaurant, a luxury hotel located along National Highway in Brgy Bantug. I wouldn't call it a luxury hotel but it was nice by filipino standards. 900 pesos for a small room with a "queen" bed. The restaurant was nice and they did have a nice coffee bar with espresso based coffee drinks. I would stay there again.
 
Overall it was an easy drive. This was the first time I have done any driving in the Philippines so it gave me a chance to ease my way in and get comfortable driving here and with driving the SUV.
 
I only took a few pictures the first day. Nothing noteworthy enough to upload.

[earthdome]

Extreme Northern Luzon Mountain Adventure - Day 2

 

Day 2 started with an easy drive from Roxas to Tabuk where we met up with my girlfriends father and several siblings with his stake truck. They took a good look at the SUV I was driving and came to the conclusion that with their help I could make it to Balbalan.

 

We started on the concrete road that goes from Tabuk to Bontoc. There were number of places where landslides had reduced this road to one lane. After an hour on the nice concrete road we reached the turnoff for the road to Balbalan. The start of the road was very muddy due to excavation to prepare for concreting the start of the road. Then it turned into a rock/dirt one lane road. This road was fine, no problem going slow in 1st or 2nd gear as needed.

 

The first major hurdle came when the road crossed between some rice fields. The road had a cemented gutter in the middle but the tracks you drive down on either side of this gutter were much lower. It was a bit of a challenge and needed careful guidance and a bit of shovel work for me to get across this. I still ended up bottoming out a few times on that concrete gutter in the middle. Ouch...

 

Right after that we hit an area where there had been a big landslide with a very deep muddy path where the road should be. I bottomed out quite a bit here and at one point got suck. The father and one son got the shovels out and after 15 minutes I was able to backup and make it through.

 

The road to Balbalan was 10km and took 2 hours. Other than those 2 bad spots above there were 3 or 4 more muddy areas to traverse where they had done excavation to lay forms for pouring concrete. Work was in progress to concrete this road but only 5-10% of the 10km had been completed.

 

At this point I was wishing I had a 4 wheel drive SUV with a bit more clearance!

 

We made it to Balbalan just fine and spent 2 nights there. Here are some pictures from the drive in and out of Balbalan.

 

[Tukaram (Tim)]

Sounds like quite an adventure so far.  Can't wait to hear how it turned out

 

 

Spoiler alert - you live through it (good thing, too)    :tiphat:

[earthdome]

Extreme Northern Luzon Mountain Adventure - Day 3

 

Day 3 wasn't very extreme. The family home had recently been remodeled and expanded so they were able to give me my own room to sleep in.

 

Kalinga has a coffee culture. They grow coffee beans there and the family always had a large thermos full of Kalinga bean brewed coffee. Everyone in the family drank coffee.

 

In the morning I went for a walk around Balbalan with my girlfriends father. We stopped by the homes of relatives and family friends. We were offered fresh brewed coffee and merienda at every stop.

 

We discussed local events. The NPA is active in this part of Luzon and he mentioned there had been fighting recently between the NPA and AFP.

Here is a link to a Google search with recent stories about NPA activity in the area of my extreme northern luzon adventure:

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=philippines+npa+kalinga+province&oq=philippines+npa+kalinga+province&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8

 

In the afternoon the gf and I along with several siblings and neighbor kids drove to a mountain stream close by where the kids swam in the mountain stream.

 

That evening we sat in the living room singing videoke.

 

Here are some pictures from the day in Balbalan.

 

[earthdome]

Extreme Northern Luzon Mountain Adventure - Day 4

 

Day 4 we left early from Balbalan to make the trip to the Banaue rice terraces. We drove out with just the SUV. Two siblings came along with shovels to help just in case we got stuck in the mud. The trip out went fine with no problems. The siblings got off and waited for a jeepney to take them back home.

 

Here is the google map route we took. We were advised that the mountain road from Tabuk to Bontoc was almost impassable so we went the long route around. Still we got to the hotel in Banaue before 4PM.

 

http://goo.gl/maps/RPX1h

 

Before I left I noticed the right rear tire was kind of low so they found a hand pump and inflated the tire before I left. I had to get the air in the tires checked several times during the trip when one or more tires looked slightly low on air pressure.

 

For this trip I used my Samsung Galaxy SIII mini phone with GPS and an unlimited data plan to navigate using google maps. This works great except for when you can't get a data connection. Back in Balbalan there was not data connection so the GPS and google maps was useless. If you plan on driving in any remote areas I recommend you get a real GPS unit where you can load the map data you need in advance. I also looked a bit but not that hard to see if I could get any good road maps for the Philippines. Couldn't find any.

 

The smart phone with GPS did help out a great deal to make sure I stayed on the correct routes.

 

We stayed the night at the Banaue Hotel and Youth Hostel: http://www.nativevillageinn.com/banauehotel.html

 

The hotel was a bit pricey at 3000 pesos per night for a deluxe room with no TV but included a good breakfast in the morning! The room we had was in the older wing was ok and had a great view. The restaurant was good.

[Papa Carl]

Excellent! Thanks for the adventure, looking forward to doing myself one day, to the rice fields, Ellie has always wanted to go there.

 

 

Again, thanks for sharing.

 

 

Papa Carl

[OnMyWay]

Thanks for the great trip report!  I hope to make it up to the rice terraces sometime.

 

We will be in Baguio this week, Wed-Sat.  I think we have a full schedule with the family, but if time allows maybe we can grab a beer.

[jon1]

Great documentation!

 

I too have this on my bucket list. It seems that whenever I am in country it's rainy season, typhoon or whatever that prevents me from going to Baguio and beyond. 

 

I am wanting to do a north loop thru the mountains and back down the west coast or vice versa. A friend of mine did it at a leisurely pace and took 3 weeks. I may have enough time to do it this coming January/February (crossing my fingers)...

[Jake]

Extreme Northern Luzon Mountain Adventure - Day 4

 

Day 4 we left early from Balbalan to make the trip to the Banaue rice terraces. We drove out with just the SUV. Two siblings came along with shovels to help just in case we got stuck in the mud. The trip out went fine with no problems. The siblings got off and waited for a jeepney to take them back home.

 

Here is the google map route we took. We were advised that the mountain road from Tabuk to Bontoc was almost impassable so we went the long route around. Still we got to the hotel in Banaue before 4PM.

 

http://goo.gl/maps/RPX1h

 

Before I left I noticed the right rear tire was kind of low so they found a hand pump and inflated the tire before I left. I had to get the air in the tires checked several times during the trip when one or more tires looked slightly low on air pressure.

 

For this trip I used my Samsung Galaxy SIII mini phone with GPS and an unlimited data plan to navigate using google maps. This works great except for when you can't get a data connection. Back in Balbalan there was not data connection so the GPS and google maps was useless. If you plan on driving in any remote areas I recommend you get a real GPS unit where you can load the map data you need in advance. I also looked a bit but not that hard to see if I could get any good road maps for the Philippines. Couldn't find any.

 

The smart phone with GPS did help out a great deal to make sure I stayed on the correct routes.

 

We stayed the night at the Banaue Hotel and Youth Hostel: http://www.nativevillageinn.com/banauehotel.html

 

The hotel was a bit pricey at 3000 pesos per night for a deluxe room with no TV but included a good breakfast in the morning! The room we had was in the older wing was ok and had a great view. The restaurant was good.

I would like to remind our good members that posts like this with all kinds of photos of typical daily expat

life, is what the Boss loves to see.  This case, a daily blog of Earthdome's travel adventure was extremely

interesting with lessons learned.  For example, the use of GPS has it's limitations due to lost of cellphone

signal but I would hope that signals directly from GPS satellites would be more reliable using a separate

handheld or vehicle navigation device.  

 

Perhaps a follow on discussion about what to bring on your next road trip.  I would suspect that GPS images

will show to turn right at a certain road.  Unless you have a local guide, most mountain roads are not labelled

to side roads or very hard to see.  Besides medical kit and tools, what would be included in your emergency

road kit?  I think right off the bat, I would bring a rechargeable spot light, spare batteries, compass and a tow

harness.  Here's another item if you want to play in the mud:

 

 http://www.amazon.com/Car-Unstuck-Traction-Mats-Plates/dp/B004IROQH4 (traction mats, shovels)

 

I would love to hear more suggestions, especially dealing with remote areas of the Philippines.

 

Thank you Earthdome for sharing your wonderful adventure.  Respectfully -- Jake

Edited October 28, 2013 by Jake
road check