Vayang Rolling Hills, Batanes

One popular place for viewing both seascape and landscape in Batanes is the Vayang Rolling Hills found in Northern Batan.

It boasts for being a great place for tourists to see the other major and inhabited Islands (Sabtang and Itbayat) of Batanes.

The land in Rolling Hills Batanes was once divided and marked by fences by a public official but the Ivatans prefer their native communal lands preserved. Only the concrete fence posts now remain in the place.

Marlboro Hills of Batanes

More popularly Known as Marlboro Hills, Racuh A Payaman serves as a communal pasture land for the cattle and horses of the Ivatan people in Batan Island of Batanes. Racuh A Payaman literally means wide pasture.

An Ivatan can choose to bring his own herd of cow/goat to the pasture land or just tame some wild animals that can be found freely roving in there.

"Alongside with numberlessness, Filipino space is also boundless. Indigenous culture did not divide land into private lots but kept it open for all to partake of its abundance." - Ed Lapiz

It's too good the area is wide enough to accommodate tourists that can safely explore a big area of it since many of the animals found there are really undomesticated.

Many agree that the movie Sound of Music should have been shot in this beautiful place of Batanes.

A Weekend in Batanes

Just visited Batanes, the northern islands of the Philippines, last weekend. It is the only place in the Philippines with four seasons in a year. And I still feel the same excitement I first felt if ever I visit there again.

After a less than two hours of plane travel from Manila to Basco in Batanes, the cool breeze of spring welcomed me along with the majestic mountain of Iraya near the SEAIR airport.

Unexpectedly, my friend and I saw the "Mike Pua & company" sign waved by one person in the waiting area. He and Ryan, our tour guide, accompanied us to to ride in their tourist van and dropped us by at the hotel afterwards.

Within a few minutes, we were already ready to start the tour to compensate the one hour we've lost while waiting for the delayed arrival of the plane in Manila.

One thing I've learned is to keep taking pictures while the tourist van is moving. There are so many great sceneries we passed by that I won't let a single one not to be captured by my camera.

From time to time, the tourist van stops for our closer view of the culture and community of the Ivatan people.

Plant Pictures at Los Baños, Laguna

These white squash (upo in Tagalog) sprouts remind me of the time I was planting its family member squash at the backyard of my house in Isabela. Only one of the squash seedlings survived and it produced only one successful fruit but I think it's the best squash I've ever tasted.

The cone shape of this ornamental plant right beside the UPLB Navigators Center caught my attention while strolling around. I'm sure it already spread the next time I visit Los Baños again.

After looking for this pink flower for a couple of months, I finally saw it again. The first time I saw its kind was when I took a picture of the post entitled Wild Flowers at Los Baños. Saw it twice already and too bad I still don't know what name the plant is called.