9 -Sagada, Baguio

Sagada is a pleasant mountain village, alt. 1500m, that everybody recommended us but we still hadn't  

understood exactly why. Anyway we decide to go take a look.

We tour a spectacular cave, learn about the strange local burial traditions (coffins hanging from rock walls or

piled in caves), we enjoy some cool air and some more rain.

To finish in style, we get lost in a muddy valley where you get out by swimming through a cave among 

myriads of flying bats.

By now on our way back, we make a stopover at Baguio, another pleasant and cool town where we spend our

last few pesos in t-shirts and souvenirs.

halo halo, a very popular dessert of

shaven ice, fruit gellies, evaporated milk,

soja, coconut, and sometimes... maccheroni

we take a guide to explore

Sumaging Cave

the tour takes 2 hours. Beginning is very

slippery because of guano, then we walk 

barefooted on the limestone

Lonely Planet: many leave for a walk in 

the Echo Valley and come out hours later,

covered in mud and thorns. We followed

the guidebook "instructions" by the letter

sheltering in a cave, hoping

that the rain will stop

the itinerary ended with a small section on

an underground river. We hadn't realised

though that we had to swim

in the woods at Camp John Hay, born as

a heal and rest facility for US veterans

Angeles, and back home

We spend one night at Angeles because it is close to our "low cost" airport, and to avoid a long detour to Manila. 

The airport was until the early '90s a huge US Air Force base, and the town developed around the soldiers' "basic needs".

As many as 10.000 girls work still today in Angeles night clubs, you meet many mixed couples with a marked age difference between the partners, and 

in the street you (I) keep getting offered Viagra and Cialis. 

To find a "normal" environment you just need to take shelter in the usal (mega) shopping mall.

It's the end of our trip. One more day in Kuala Lumpur, where we don't even leave the airport but test its interesting Food Garden, then a day-long stop 

in Amsterdam as the city slowly awakens from the excesses of the Queen's Birthday, the Dutches' huge street party.   

Zumba! (at the shopping mall again)

we dine at a rather chic restaurant for

our standard; you can swim directly to the 

bar from the nearby swimming pool

so we ordered this (Yong Tau Foo) not having a clue about what it could be.

We still don't! But it was not bad. The drink is soja milk, that we know