After three active days around Banaue, we now had a travel day ahead of us.

We left Banaue in the late morning for the 50km trip through the mountains to Bontoc.
En-route we had a couple of stops, to get further glimpses of rice terraces and beautiful valleys.

It took us less than 15 minutes to our first stop – a view point looking back to Banaue and the Banaue rice terraces. Weather conditions were less favorable than on previous days with light rain, plus mist and clouds going through. We spend a good 20 minutes here (souvenirs anyone?) before making it back into the warm and dry car.

We had further stops near the villages of Talubin and Samoki. These being in different valleys, the weather now had improved quiet a bit.

From our last stop it was just a stone’s throw to nearby Bontoc. Bontoc is home of an incredible little museum – run by nuns – providing an introduction to the various tribes of the region and their customs, including a recreation of a traditional village in the museum gardens (complete with a pig in the pig stable).

Following the museum we had a walk around town and into the local market – where we sampled various cakes – made from various forms of starch (some rice based, others cassava based etc.). By now everyone was hungry and we were getting ready for lunch in the outskirts of town – and what up as probably being the most delicious pancit of the whole trip.

After lunch we continued our trip to Sagada – with another 20km ahead of us – a drive of about an hour on curvy roads … some good coffee and (with dinner) a special birthday cake were waiting for us (the latter actually mainly for one …).