This morning we were up at 7:30. "Ironman" had to be our alarm call, with a subtle knock on the door and a "Come on girls it's breakfast!!!', seeing as both TC and I and even the two Jos, (who's room was next to ours), had not bought our phones and therefore our alarm clocks with us. It seems we were all fearful that we would end up deep in one of the rice terraces and desperate not to destroy any of our forms of communication back home to our loved ones to let them know we had survived!
After I managed to struggle into my clothes, force my swollen knees into my bright blue elasticated knee supports, my swollen feet into my filthy walking shoes and my now extremely frizzy hair into a scrunchie. I managed to crawl out to the breakfast area where the only other person suffering appeared to be Jo M who's knees were also playing up! TC managed to make it for breakfast - just - her stomach was playing up - again! (She's too obsessed with cleanliness and as I've told her on numerous occasions, she needs to eat a bit of dirt every now and again to build up her immune system, obviously she was apalled by that comment?!) She kept mumbling under her breath about the state of the toilet, mind you you can't blame her when you see what we had to use.
(The above photo was courtesy of Jon, the American guy on our tour, he seemed so impressed by the toilet facilities he put a pic up on Facebook!)
Oh and you may notice a tiny little drain at the bottom of the picture? That is because next to the red bucket is another large bucket with another scoop in it and that is the shower!!
So finally we were off for a 20 minute walk or in my case crawl, around the tiny local town. Johnson showed us around the school, we even went to see one of the classrooms where the children were learning English.
Notice the positive affirmations and lessons in kindness and generosity that cover the walls. This is instilled in every child from a very young age. Maybe contributes to why Filipinos generally are a very kind and considerate people.
Finally we loaded up our day packs and set off for another trek through the rice terraces towards Batad. As we were leaving, a group of young women from the village were queueing up offering to give us all massages again at the end of the day. I felt there was some benefit from my previous massage so I said yes to one of the women, then I asked for her name. "Merlin" she said. I smiled to myself, with the thought that with a name like that the massage had to be magical and that was to be the incentive I needed to keep me going through my trek today.
Three hours! Yes three hours of trekking ahead of us - well I should say me, as i tended to be further back than most. And yet again my legs were killing me, my heart was pounding and the sun beat down on us. Luckily "Ironman" offered to carry my daypack for me, I reluctantly excepted having to admit that I was weak and pathetic!! But what a huge difference it made, without the 15ltrs on my back I could finally manage to lift my knees about 2 inches higher than I could the day before! If it wasn't for the pain I would've skipped along!! Besides which, I was being entertained by TC's conversation with "Ironman" just behind me: she was trying to teach him British English slang words. For example she was explaining to him that the term for a nasty, rough man was an "Oink". I had to tell her that that was the sound a pig made, and the word she was looking for was "Oik" as I would have hated our Antipodean buddies to have got their words the wrong way round! Mind you this is a nation that refers to us redheads as "Bluey", so go figure?!
And so after three hours of traumatic manoeuvres and with a little (OK a lot) of support from my bamboo stick and Rosalyn - one of the Kiwis on our tour who was kind and patient enough to lag behind with me and help me on some of the steeper steps - I finally made it to the guest house in Batad!!
The speciality of Batad are the rice terraces that surround it, they are compared to that of an amphitheatre in the centre of which the village can be found.
Also found here is The Tappia waterfall, which is 40m (131ft) high and just as deep. Supposedly stunning to see, but when we were told we had the afternoon off and an option to go and visit this waterfall, which would be many steep steps down and as we know what goes down must come up, I opted out, feeling I deserved a well earned relaxing, quiet afternoon.
And so after lunch - vegetarian style with the chicken bits - it was massage time! Even TC was going to have one today, which I was quite surprised about considering that (A) she generally doesn't like being covered in oil and (B) she had already passed comment to me about not liking her bed as she felt she had already felt somebody else's dead flesh on it!!
Suffice it to say we both retired to our room with Merlin and friend in tow and TC and I laid down on our respective beds in anticipation of our relaxing massages.
I should have guessed that mine was not going to be the same kind of massage as the one I had received from Ophelia the day before, when Merlin pulled out a jar of talcum powder as opposed to massage oil. I lay face down on my bed and she poured on the talc then started on the soles of my feet, working up my legs, pressing with the tip of every finger and each elbow deep into the pressure points along my already tortured legs! It was hardly relaxing, it was hardly agony-free, and I was being very British by trying not to complain. I sucked in deeply with each shot of pain and told myself that this was good, that this was the best way to release the tension from the muscles in my battered body. And then to make matters worse, the overindulgence of vegetables that week started to take effect. I couldn't help it! Ingested vegetables create gas in the gut and when you are lying face down on your stomach and someone else is using all their force to press hard into every pressure point in your lower back sometimes a little bit of aforementioned gas is released! I was highly embarrassed, obviously, but Merlin seem to take it in her stride and carried on with the massage. I told myself this was okay. We are in Asia. This is natural. (Particularly as some of you may remember, after my experience in India four years ago). And then my thoughts were all confirmed, after Merlin seemed to have a similar problem to mine later on in the session!?
The massage lasted an hour, the pain lasted slightly longer, but I have to admit my legs did feel slightly lighter. And it was easier for me to walk down the steps to the scoop shower room afterwards. I paid my extra 50 pesos for hot water and treated myself to a hair wash. This involved me getting on the floor onto my swollen knees and having to literally stick my head in the bucket as I knew there wouldn't be enough hot water if I poured it over my head.
The rest of the afternoon was fun, TC and I spent it playing a card game called 'Uno' with the other Brits and Tracy the Aussie whilst the others were at the waterfall. I'm not saying the friendly game got competitive, but suffice it to say, it's a good job there wasn't any sharp objects lying close by!
Eventually the rest of the group returned and confirmed for us that the steps taken to and from the waterfall were in fact pretty steep and difficult. Maybe they just said that to make us feel better, but either way, I felt better about the decision I made and was quite happy to just admire the waterfall from their photographs.
Dinner was almost ready and TC stood up and announced to us that she was going to the toilet but didn't have any spare tissues on her. 'Ironman' reached into his pocket and pulled out a half used toilet roll and handed it to her. I turned to Jo M sat next to me and told her to watch TC, I predicted that she would have to remove the outside sheets of paper from the roll before she would use any of it. Jo M looked at me quizzically and I explained that as the outside sheets had touched the inside of Damien's pockets, TC would be fearful of germs, seeing as they weren't her own pockets.
And sure enough Jo M watched in amazement as bang on cue, TC quickly unwrapped the outside sheets and handed them back to Damien!
Dinner was delicious! I had ordered ... Egg and chips!! (Sorry to be a cliche) but I felt justified after all the exercising I was doing! And boy did they taste good! Then TC held court amongst most of the group in order for them to help her compose an email to her ex-boyfriend after finally realising that he wasn't actually that nice to her and split up with a couple of days before the trip, yet he was still pestering her with upsetting messages.
Everyone was pleased to help, she was pleased of the input from everyone. And I found it all quite amusing considering a few days before she had told me that she is actually quite quiet and not very sociable and hates to be the centre of attention!
And so, after TC's love life was finally sorted out we all set off for bed, tomorrow was the final part of the trek, only 45 minutes - allegedly - but all UPHILL!! Thank goodness our bedroom was on the same floor as the dining area; no steps for me to crawl up tonight ...
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