We arrive Batad, Ifugao in the afternoon of Saturday, May 28, 2016. From the registration booth, we walk directly to Ramon Homestay where we will be spending our night. Its location are steps down the school.
There is a marker at the gate of the homestay. Near the entrance, a beautiful native Ifugao house greets us as we walk towards the waiting area. The waiting area also serves as a restaurant and a venue for social gatherings during rainy seasons.
Since it’s already past noon, we take our lunch at the restaurant. Sir Ben brings cooked fried chicken for our lunch. We also order rice from the restaurant. While eating, we are also enjoying the view of the terraces since the location of the restaurant is fronting the amphitheater view of the terraces. After our lunch, we plan our menu for dinner. We choose chopsuey because as per their attendant, they will be cooking their own harvest of vegetables.
Upon check-in, the attendants give the keys for the two cottages for our group according to the original booking of Sir Ben. Since we are only few and can fit to one cottage, we are ask the attendants if we can change our booking into one bigger cottage. Unfortunately, somebody is occupying the bigger cottage that time so we just stay with the original booking.
The occupants for the first cottage are Apple, Chai and Eden while on the other cottage: Sir Ben, Paul, Shades, Cha and Me. The cottage is an authentic Ifugao house with its removable stairs. They also don’t install electricity connections for their guests to really experience the authentic Batad living.
In the afternoon, it is raining in Batad. We are staying at our cottage just to observe the rain while chatting with each other. We also make some coffee while munching our snacks. The rain continues until evening. When its dinner time, we all gather at the restaurant. All of us are wanting to taste their harvest. It is delicious. You will really taste the sweetness from the vegetables. We still have leftover fried chicken during our lunch so we finished it as well. The rice that we ate at lunch was also their farm produce.
After dinner, we are planning for the group socials and to do it at our cottage. We have a liter of Empi Lights just to enjoy the night and to have a good bonding with the group. However, Mang Ramon invites us at the restaurant. He is setting up a bonfire at one portion of the restaurant. So we grace his invitation and just bring our drinks and chips there.
We are not the only guests present. They also have some foreign visitors who are also staying at other cottages at Ramon Homestay. As I’ve known, he’s always doing this gathering every night to enable his guest to interact with him. Another purpose is to answer guests’ queries regarding Batad and its people. He is a former guide in the Ifugao mountains too so he must have enough knowledge on the place as well.
He shares a lot of story about Batad, the terraces and the locals. He also explains their culture. He also has insights on how Batad is surviving with their way of cropping. Before, they are growing rice crops at least twice a year. Now, they only grow once. He further explains how they harvest and store their produce, including the basic processes of cleaning the rice. Actually, his grandchildren is doing it in the afternoon and I actually try it too. It needs some force and it is so tiring. The ones we have for dinner are the ones we clean in the afternoon. I have my participation to it.
As we have known from what Mang Ramon is sharing, they have three varieties of crops as of the moment. These crops yield harvests after a span of five to six months so in one-year time; they only have a single cropping season. I make a follow-up question on what alternative crops they are planting after the harvest and he just said none. Alternative crops are not yet part of their cropping practices. They believe that they need to rest the farm for a while to bring back the nutrients it needs for the next cropping season. That’s again a nice idea too.
In a wedding ceremony, everybody is automatically present to the occasion. There is no need to send invites to villagers. They also have different ceremonies before the big day. They doesn’t celebrate foundation day, they only celebrate fiesta. He also tackles on the myths in Batad and I cannot really remember what is that, maybe I am busy with the bonfire then.
It is a nice learning from what Mang Ramon is sharing to us. We are thankful that he frequently conducts such kind of let’s say fellowship among visitors. It is for us to be able to mingle with one another and also a chance of knowing the place more. With this, I am saying that our stay with Ramon Homestay is more than worthy.
We called it a night at 10pm. Ramon Homestay has a house rules in his place and everybody’s respecting it. It is also amazing to see the segregation of wastes depending on the kind of garbage. There is a proper place for each trash.
We have a good night sleep at Ramon Homestay. We wake up early to catch the sunrise and for the rest of the itinerary including the trek to Batad Rice Terraces and Tappiya Falls. We order our breakfast; Sir Ben brings his luncheon meat and asks them to cook it for us. And after breakfast, we fix and prepare ourselves for the great adventure.
In the morning while having our breakfast, we are again planning our menu for lunch and agree for tinolang manok. One purpose of having a good lunch is to regain back our energy from the tiring morning activity.
After the quite tiring trek to Tappiya Falls, we are looking forward for the native chicken soup or simply tinolang manok. We are hungry then following the unlimited assault from Tappiya Falls. The food is really our reward after all the challenges. We appreciate the preparations made; it was sumptuous.
We have a wonderful stay at Ramon homestay. It is really a home away from home. I love to comeback to Batad and stay here again.
Been here: May 28-29, 2016
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