Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Benguet Traverse part 3



Kabayan Poblacion, surrounded by mountains...


THE ROAD TO EL KABAYAN


As soon as the NA Liner bus took off from Bokod, the road to Kabayan changed from paved to under construction.  The Gurel-Bokod-Kabayan-Bugias-Abatan Road was dusty, bumpy and hot.  We were sitting on the right side so there was not much to see but the face of the mountains, a quick peek at the other side reveals that we are traveling on cliff roads with no guard rails.  On a rainy day i can just imagine the bus slipping down the ravine in a freak accident or on a landslide.  Just being on the road like this makes you wonder how the hell people live like this.  But here we are, sharing a bus with the locals, yep, this is the life! 


I told Keken, "What if you were courting a girl and when she then decides to marry you and let you meet her family, she will take you all the way to Kabayan, Benguet?"  He said he would be out of words.  Kabayan is not exactly near anywhere!


We passed by some waterfalls and rivers along the way, and countless of hairpin switchbacks for about 2 more hours.  Near the town there was construction going on so there was a giant excavator in the middle of the road, and we got held in traffic for some 15 mins.  At this point we were dying for a shower.  We have not had a shower since yesterday at 3AM.  But it is nice to know that road improvement is under way as it would really benefit the people, cut travel time shorter and make traveling safer.


We were getting near the Kabayan town proper and I was getting worried since we might miss the lodge where we intend to stay over for the night.  One of the passengers told us that it was not close yet.  After a few people disembarked, we moved closer to the front of the bus to tell the conductor where we want to get off.  After passing a school, and some buildings, we were told that we reached the place.  We couldn't see where the lodge was but it was right in front of our eyes.  There was a co-op grocery at the bottom of it, and it was under renovation.  We asked if we can get a room and some towels as we were quite dusty and we were dying to be refreshed.  The guy working at the coop was accommodating and made sure we  got a room asap. 


Mass Burial


The Kabayan Coop Lodge
Took a quick shower, a REALLY COLD shower.  I am starting to think that cold showers are the norm here in Benguet.  After we got refreshed we quickly hunted for a place to eat as it was already 3pm, and we didn't look any further than next door.  As usual we were served a hefty serving of rice and boiled meat and bones.  I'm not much of a picky eater, I can live with just rice and soup, but I wonder if this was Benguet staple diet.  The man at the store started conversing to us about the mummies and how many travelers come from far to see them.  I wonder if he had seen them himself.  We asked him if the Mass Burial site was far from where we are and he said it is very close, that we should just stick to the main road and walk towards Opdas, wherever that is.  He was going to sell us a book about the mummies but he had run out too. After the meal, we went looking for the municipal hall to ask for more information and to log ourselves into their guestbook so that if we go missing at least they can trace our presence back there.  While outside, we were greeted by a government official who was really nice (and we cannot believe how nice he is as most filipino government workers we meet are obnoxious and rude), he led us to another nice person who asked us what he can do for us and had us sign our names on the logbook.  I noticed most of the visitors in the log book who visited Kabayan are from Europe.  We again asked for directions to the mass burial site and all they told us is to take the main road down towards Opdas. So we started walking down the road where the (I can't tell if we were going south or east!)

We passed by the school, heading at the direction where the bus came from earlier, and saw a marker that said 'Opdas'.  We asked a man nearby if we were headed in the right direction, and he said yes.  We walked through a narrow alley between few houses then it splits.  First we walked towards the right, then asked directions on one of the houses and they pointed us to the mint green house on our left.  They told us to go in to the house premises and there should be someone there.  So we were wary of trespassing or dogs but we went ahead anyway and there was an old woman in the backyard who talked to me in Ilocano and I tried to reply back but it seemed she could not understand me.  And there was their dog too, who was loose and ready to bite strangers.  Luckily, there was a younger lady who talked to us in tagalog and pointed us to the site of the mass burial which is right in their backyard. Yep, it was right in their backyard!!!  So we gave them our entrance fee of ten pesos each and descended down the stairs to this macabre dwelling made of boulders.  I have seen pictures of the mass burial site online, but seeing it in person was just different.

Skulls at the Opdas Mass Burial Cave
No, we were not spooked!
One cannot help but wonder at what happened to these people, at what caused their death.  We were thinking it must not be a tribal war as the skulls seem to be intact.  We didn't dare touch the bones for fear of unknown diseases, or haunting.  The empty stares of the remnants was enough to make us feel like invaders rudely disrupting their peace.  We both agreed that they might have all died from some sort of communicable disease such as malaria, dengue fever or cholera.  There hasn't been much study about them, all that's know is that they've been carbon-dated and age way back 500-1,000 years ago.  It is amazing how some still have nice intact teeth.  And to see femur bones piled neatly on one side was interesting.  I wish I could study them myself and learn more about these people, but i haven't got the background of archaeology and anthropology.  Glad to know that the cave is in someone's backyard where the remains can be guarded, visitors monitored, and the owners have respect towards the dead.  I hope this place gets preserved for the next generations to come.





of course they want a photo op with the celebrity!
After the cave, we were dead tired, but it was too early to take a rest.  So we stopped by at the elementary school to watch the kids play.  We were surprised that the public elementary students were carrying hard-bound Houghton Mifflin schoolbooks (you don't see those books in public schools in the big cities).  We asked the kids if they know who Justin Beiber is and they said 'No.'  Maybe there is hope amonst this generation then hahaha!  The little boys liked having their pictures taken while the little girls shyed away.  It was nice seeing kids playing after school again when nowadays all you see in the cities are kids playing on the computer or their ipads.


the shy kids running away from keken
bahay-bahayan = 'Playing House'

We walked a few more times around the area until we reached a bridge, and we just stared at Kabayan in awe as we were surrounded by beautiful mountains in all directions.  The place is so simple and so quiet, it feels like a place that is so laid back.  It is far from America where everything has to be done in a hurry and everything is moving full speed, zombie-fied.



Afterwards we went to a grocery to buy supplies for the next day, that's when we meet Mr. Tim Camso again, and we told him that we were targeting Mt. Timbac tomorrow and asked if it was possible for us to get a 4x4 at such a short notice.  But he has been expecting us and said there would be no problem as long as we meet up tomorrow at 830 am.  We went ahead and picked up a few supplies then went back to the lodge to rest.  I think we went to sleep around 630 or 7pm, skipped dinner.  We were dead tired, I mean we've been up since 3a.m.  Crazy!!!

bunk bed in our room at the lodge
brochure on Kabayan taped on the wall

Map of Kabayan, Benguet, Philippines