Road trip part 4 - Sagada

After a night in Banaue we decided to move on to Sagada. We stayed it a very cute lodge called The Rock Inn that was aimed at backpackers. It is clean in a lovely location just a few miles out of the town itself.

Sagada's main tourist draw is it's hanging coffins. The people of Sagada have devised a unique burial ritual involving the placement of dead relatives into caves or hung from cliffs after carefully preparing a hollowed out log. These coffins are carved by the elderly before they die; if they are too ill or weak their son or other close relative will do it for them. This ritual involves pushing the bodies into the tight spaces of the coffins, and often bones are cracked and broken as the process is completed.

After the deceased are put inside these coffins they are then brought to caves high in the cliffs where they join the coffins of other ancestors. The Segada people prefer to be buried in the cliffs than to be buried in the ground and have been doing this for more than 2,000 years.

In some caves hundreds of coffins are lined up, and unfortunately tourists are unregulated in this area, some have even taken some of the bones as souvenirs. We went to one of the caves that had lots of coffins. It was pretty bizarre. There were hundreds of stacked coffins there. I guess if you come from a culture where you bury the dead, seeing coffins out in the open, is always going to seem unusual. It was an interesting experience.

All of us in the cave.

Having a look a the coffins.

The sign asks onlookers not to remove anything from the coffins. As if you would!!! But it seems that people have removed bones as souvenirs. I can't imagine anyone wanting a more gruesome souvenir.

Awesome cafe that served home-made yoghurt. (Obviously) The food was yummy there.

Liz wearing some layers for our walk to the cave. The temperature is gorgeously cool there.