Baguio, Philippines
Sept 4, 2026
The plan is to go to Kabayan next, home to the Kalanguya tribe but it is not on any direct bus route and logistics are not that simple. Hoping to get transport from Baguio I head there.
The fitful sunshine I had in Banaue is history and it pours as I leave. Vehicles appear out of the fog like a magician’s trick. Slick roads are peppered with landslides big and small. Rivers froth, their levels alarmingly high. Amazingly, Gaby, the driver tells me that in these provinces, landslides are cleared in hours, not days. I am impressed, as I am with the drivers on these roads. Skillfully they negotiate the hairpin bends with an inexhaustible store of good humor and patience. A land with no road rage!
On the western edge of Luzon, Baguio bears the brunt of the southwestern monsoons. Non-stop sheets of rain are taken in their strides by the denizens but wandering around seeing the sights in a deluge is not high on my list of priorities. Instead, I poke around in the Museo Kordilyera at the University campus, devoted to mountain tribes. And voila! I learn about the origin of the pendants I had seen in Banaue.
The almost closed C shaped forms are called lingling-o, a name coined by Henry Otley Beyer in the early 1920s. Among the Ifugao, they are often called hubong or uvong. This is the basic shape but there is a more elaborate shape too – a double-headed pendant with a pair of Bululs on each side. The Ifugao, Kalinga, Kankanaey and Bontoc all wear them, as pendants or earrings or both. They may be considered merely “lucky” by current-day wearers, but they do have a deep historical connection. Although later ones were made of copper, shell, wood and gold, the earliest examples of lingling-o dating from 500 BCE were made of jade and nephrite, their shapes slowly evolving over the eons. Most of the raw jade originated in Taiwan.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Here it is – the Austronesian connection. A paper discusses the prototype of the current shapes . And another shows a map of prehistoric maritime movements of material and artistic culture in detail. I am so stoked! Grinning broadly, I walk on air, delighted at my hunch proven right.
Well, actually I splotch through puddles. The logistics prove even more difficult than I’d thought and I decide to bail and head back to Manila instead. There is news of major flooding in central Luzon and buses to and from Manila are delayed until the roads are cleared. We are stranded by twelve hours or more. I marvel at the graceful acceptance by the passengers and the orderly procession into the buses as they begin to arrive. There is no chaos and no irate people – something that would be inevitable in many parts of the world under similar circumstances.
There are detours aplenty as the long trail of cars, buses and trucks snake their way through stop and go traffic. The roads, adjacent fields and houses are covered in deepening levels of water. They spell catastrophes for many and rescue efforts are ongoing.
We inch by, waved on by traffic personnel standing in thigh-deep waters. I doff my hat mentally.to the resilience and unfailing cheerfulness of these peoples.
ITCHY FEET TRAVELS 