--- title: "Our Banaue & Sagada Adventure" description: "Join our unforgettable journey to Banaue and Sagada, where learning English and cultural adventure go hand in hand. / An adventure in Banaue and Sagada that taught me how to interact with the world in English on my journey." canonical_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/our-banaue-sagada-adventure" author: "Mark Ku" author_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku" site: "Mark Ku's Tech Notes" date_published: "2025-04-06 01:01:02 +0800" category: "Travel" tags: ["banaue", "sagada", "philippines", "travel", "rice terraces", "adventure", "english learning"] language: "en" license: "CC BY 4.0" license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" attribution: "when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original" --- # Our Banaue & Sagada Adventure ## Purpose / Background Because of a Philippine national holiday, I have two days of make-up classes over the next two weeks. I don't have a full weekend off for the next two weeks, so I decided to join my Korean classmates' trip. They wanted to go to Banaue, and I helped them rent a van. It costs 18,000 PHP for a 15-seater van for two days and one night. ## What are the Banaue Rice Terraces? The Banaue Rice Terraces were once called the "Eighth Wonder of the World." They're carved into the mountains of Ifugao in the Philippines, and they look amazing, like giant steps. They were built over 2,000 years ago, using just simple tools. They're not just beautiful; they’re actually used to grow rice. It's pretty smart and useful. Even today, people still farm there. It's pretty impressive! ## Our Schedule We planned to stay there for two days and one night. ![Schedule - created by Jenny](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/schedule.jpg) ## D-day / Departure Day We went to Banaue and Sagada, and rented a van from school. ![White Alfraisy Transport Service van at night with open rear door](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/vent.jpg) We set off at 3 am from school and took the van to Banaue. During the van ride, many of our classmates got motion sickness because the mountain road was so incredibly winding. They felt like vomiting, so we had to stop the van more than ten times. After a van ride of around 8 hours, we finally arrived at our hotel near Banaue. Because the van couldn’t drive right up to our hotel, we had to walk about 15 minutes to get there. We stayed at BATAD Countryside Inn. The name is funny and quite a coincidence: a "Countryside Inn" in the countryside. ![Countryside Inn in the countryside](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/countryside-inn.jpg) The view of the rice terraces was magnificent. I had lunch with that view, and it was wonderful. ![Lunch at the rice terraces](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/launch-in-rice-terrance.jpg) The only thing I regret is ordering the roasted rice coffee; the flavor was really strong. ![Roasted rice coffee](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/roasted-rice-coffee.jpg) In the morning, the weather wasn’t good. There was a lot of fog. ![The weather in the morning](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/the-weather-in-the-morning.jpg) But after lunch, the weather started to clear up, so we hired two tour guides. The view was really terrific, but the food was just okay. ![Banaue rice terraces](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/banaue-rice-terrance-2.jpg) The tour guide was super strong. She didn’t even use a walking stick while hiking! ![Tour guide](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/tour-guide.jpg) After hiking for about two hours, we had afternoon tea in a small hut among the rice terraces. ![A hut in the rice terraces](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/building-in-the-rice-terraces.jpg) We also visited a waterfall. The tour guide said she had only been there five times because the hike is so tiring. Most visitors give up halfway. ![Waterfall](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/waterfall.jpg) During the hike in the Banaue rice terraces, this guy, Justin, fell into the fields five times but still kept an optimistic smile. ![The Optimistic Fall-Down Master - Justin](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/optimistic-fell-down-master.jpg) Grandma Jenny, using a walking stick, hiked through the Banaue rice terraces too! ![Women hiking a path through lush Banaue rice terraces](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/hiking-in-rice-terraces.jpg) After finishing the hike, we were exhausted, so I just had some instant noodles while enjoying the view. ![Group photo / created by Yuyu](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/group-photo.jpg)![Eating instant noodles at the hotel](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/eating-instant-noodles-in-hotel.jpg)![Hiking record](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/hiking-record.jpg) On the second day, we went to Sagada. Because not everyone wanted to explore the caves, we split into two teams. One team went to see the hanging coffins, and the other went to explore the caves. The ever-optimistic Justin gave up on exploring the caves because he was afraid of falling again after already falling more than five times the day before. Our tour guide told us a lot of dirty jokes because many of the rock formations in the caves looked like private parts. The caves have formations resembling a father's, mother's, and son's private parts. That's when I found out some people call them the “sexy caves.” ![Exploring the caves](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/explore-the-caves-1.jpg)![Exploring the caves](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/explore-the-caves-3.jpg) Finally, we returned to school and had dinner. ![Five travelers enjoying a seafood dinner at a restaurant](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/our-banaue-sagada-adventure/images/dinner.jpg) All in all, we had a great weekend. It was totally worth it. If I get the chance, I’ll go back again and stay longer. --- ## About this article and its author Originally published on [Mark Ku's Tech Notes](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/our-banaue-sagada-adventure) License: [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original ### About the author **[Mark Ku](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku)** — Software Solution Provider - 10+ years senior software engineer, now an AI Builder - Focused on large-platform architecture — North-American e-commerce, AI SaaS subscription billing - Combining AI Agents and automation to build evolvable product foundations ### Free tools built by the author All of these are free to use: - [Free PDF Sign Tool](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/pdf-sign): Online PDF sign tool — draw, type, or upload a signature, then drag, resize, and download. 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No sign-up, nothing uploaded to a server, and mermaid.live share links work as-is. - [React Intl Phone Number](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/react-intl-phone-number): react-intl-phone-number is an open-source React component: framework-agnostic and antd-free, with E.164 in/out, a searchable flag / country-code dropdown, configurable validation levels (strict / mobile-strict / loose), themeable CSS, and i18n — phone logic powered by google-libphonenumber. Lightweight and fully typed. Free and open source (MIT). - [Uptime Kuma Cluster](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/uptime-kuma-cluster): Turn single-node Uptime Kuma into a highly available cluster: OpenResty + Lua smart load balancing, shared MariaDB state, health checks and automatic failover, plus cluster-management REST APIs. One Docker Compose command to start. 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