louiseinlimbo

Whilst the mummies were the highlight, there was much more on my itinerary for my 30 days in the Philippines.  I was grateful that I no longer scuba dive, as that shortened the list somewhat, but there were still UNESCO-listed churches, rice terraces, old (Spanish colonial era) cities, and subterranean cave-tunnel, not to mention the natural wonders of Bohol island and the karst coast of El Nido.  Too much to fit in, really, but who knows whether I will have the time/money to visit the Philippines again? The churches were impressive, as was the old centre of the city of Vigan (although the latter was pretty touristy), but the natural wonders were my favourites.  I paid for a guided day tour of the island of Bohol, to save time, and this included a visit to the Tarsier Sanctuary.  The tarsier - see picture to the left - is the smallest (and cutest) primate in the world, with a head around half the size of its body.  It's nocturnal, but thankfully this one opened ...

A 30-day visa for a country made up of more than 7,000 islands … what to see and do in the time??  One thing I HAD to see (although it meant a different itinerary for two days for my friend and I) was the mummies of the Benguet region.  I’d read online that their location is no longer publicised, since one of the mummies was stolen in 2017 (why??!), but was able to find out how to get to the Timbac mummy cave.  This trip started with an early morning two-hour shared minivan to a small town in the mountainous interior.  I was directed towards a group of local men, who asked where I wanted to go.  As I referred to my hand-written notes on a scrap of paper (copied from a response to a facebook post), one of the men struggling to understand my pronunciation looked at the paper … and he saw the bracketed PHP500+, being the price I’d been advised to pay for a taxi from this town to the mummy cave at Timbac (some £7, for British readers).  He couldn’t help but rea...