My World#76 Batad Rice Terraces

Batad Rice Terraces are different from the more popular ones shown in our P1000 bill. Those are easily seen from the Banaue town while Batad is a more than an hour ride through rough mountain roads and another hour trek through mountain trails. The view, however, upon reaching the mountain town facing this ampitheather-like rice terraces more than compensated the hour-long trek underneath the sweltering sun.


That's our guide walking casually along the rice terraces. Thankfully enough, the pathways that ran on the edge of each rice paddy were mostly thick and wide enough to keep us from getting out of balance. According to our guide, the improvements started happening when more and more tourists from all over the world came to visit.




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Skywatch#27 Meeting of the Sky and the Rice Paddies

Seeing Batad Rice Terraces is like watching the meeting of the blue skies and the green rice paddies. The amphitheater-like rice terraces of Batad have the most stairlike appearance of rice terraces that I have seen so far. A lot of people quite appropriately call them "Stairway to Heaven".

Sadly, because of the El Niño phenomenon heating its way all over the country, the harvest from the rice terraces are in danger of getting destroyed by the unrelenting summer heat. While the rice paddies found in the poblacion of Banaue Rice Terraces are mostly doing well courtesy of their ancient irrigation system, Batad's Rice Terraces' also-ancient irrigation system is suffering from thinning mountain cover exacerbated by the unusual hot days.

The hut on the right on top of the hill is a resting place before tackling the trail going down to Tappiyah Falls. While the smaller thatched-roof huts are the native huts of the Ifugao people.

More pictures of Batad Rice Terraces here.

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Skywatch#26 Stairyway to the Skies

Like stairways to the skies, these rice terraces found in Banaue never fail to amaze me. I can only imagine the sheer determination and hardwork of the people who carved these stairlike rice paddies on the mountain slopes.

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