The Batad Rice Terraces were carved into the Philippine mountains, supposedly mostly by hand, by the indigenous people of that area over 2,000 years ago. Apparently, if the steps were put end to end, it would encircle half the globe!

It took a nine hour over night bus to reach Banaue, the entrance to the rice terraces, and initially, traveling there by myself, I was planning on visiting it on my own. However once the bus reached its final destination, I met up with a lovely Dutch girl, and we decided to do a two day tour together.

The tour was set up for us as soon as we arrived by a local, and, after eating a quick breakfast and leaving a few items in the guest house, we departed with our guide. We jumped into a ‘tricycle’ - basically a motor cycle with a tiny cart attached to the side - and sped off towards the beginning of the trail.

It had rained the night before so there was plenty of mud and lush green forests to walk through and occupy us on our five hour journey to our guest house for the night.

Our guide was a nice, quiet young man who leads these tours every single day. We asked him if he ever gets bored walking the same route all day every day. He gave us a quick and resounding YES. Totally understandable.

But he graciously put up with us and even complemented us on how fast we walked (after spending all that time walking to Everest I should hope so!). There was a lot of uphill and slippery walking but we both managed alright.

Though, just like with the Everest trail in Nepal, the standards of safety you might find in other countries was non existent here. One little slip and down you fall! We spent a lot of time walking along the edges of rice terraces and the walkways, if there even were any, were only perhaps a foot wide.

Basically I just employed the strategy of leaning in towards the terrace as I walked so, if I were to lose my balance, I would topple into the water and not off the side of a cliff.

After a few hours of walking, a quick lunch stop with a menu that strongly resembled those of the guest houses in Nepal (aka fried noodles, fried rice, fried potatoes), and a lot of slippery uphill walking, we finally made it to the famed Batad Rice Terraces.

It’s hard to fully grasp how large these impressive rice terraces are. Though as you can see from the photos below, even zoomed in pretty far with my camera these people walking through the terraces look tiny.

The local people can still be seen planting rice in the terraces, though younger generations are opting for tourism over farming, even if, as our guide so nicely put it, it’s boring. I guess leading foreigners to the terraces makes a bit more cash than harvesting rice and vegetables. Unfortunately the lack of upkeep is causing the terraces to gradually erode, as they are very delicate and need to be under constant care.

After a nice break at the top, admiring the views, we made our way through the maze of the terraces to our guest house for the night. It was a cute little place and we were the only people staying there.

The next morning we set off for a nearby waterfall, the Tappiyah Waterfall, once again having to make our way along the maze of terraces, and work very hard at maintaining our balance on the narrow and slippery edges.

Then it was time to continue on to the actual village of Batad where a tricycle would pick us up and drive us back to Banaue to either stay the night or catch an overnight bus back to Manila. The view was a bit different from the rainforests we had marched through on or way in; this time around it was all lush, rolling green hills.

Once we returned to Banaue I opted to take the overnight bus back to Manila that night instead of waiting until the next day, which resulted in probably one of my dumber moments on my travels…safety wise at least. But that’s a story for another post!

Ever witnessed amazing rice terraces yourself? Where did you see them?