Photos

It was the rainy season in Januaray, in the mountains of north Luzon : it rained heavily almost every day, some days non stop, so it was not the best time to admire the famous rice terraces in and around Banaue, which were completely inundated with heavy rainfall.

Landslides were a daily occurence, and the farmers living close to the road are paid to clear the road every morning ; often, the job is only half done and the first buses have to negogiate their trajectory with great skills and caution on those narrow, often unpaved roads.

On the other hand, I remembered appropriately that according to Chinese culture, rain is nicer and much more interesting that sunshine, and I now could not agree more : I saw there the most dramatic and fantastic and amazing mists and fogs of my entire life (even better than the ones seen in Darjeeling some years ago), and thanks to the nice clouds everywhere, I was never bored, as they moved all the time, playing hide and seek in the wild valleys, in the pine forests and in the hills shapen like stairs with the rice terraces seeming to climb till heaven.