We woke super early and quietly headed out of our hotel to do an hour hike and catch the sunrise at the 1636m peak of Kiltepan. Our hotel dogs jumped up on us in excitement which was super cute. The whole walk was along roads and when we got to the top we realised 99% of people had paid for a private jeepney or van up to the top. One guy had even pulled over to ask us directions to the peak, we told him and he thanked us and just drove off. What the hell? Could of given us a free ride, maybe we should have said “we’ll only tell you if you give us a ride…”.

It was a perfect day from the peak, the reason people come here is to see the sea of clouds and we were lucky to get a view of it. The clouds lay low in the valley and moved around, swaying up and curving just like waves. The sun took forever to pop above the mountains but it painted the sky a beautiful orange colour before piercing a bright light towards all of us. It wasn’t exactly a peaceful sunrise though, all the locals seemed rather obsessed with getting a good selfie and it was hard to get a photo without a stick in it.

  
    
 
After the sunrise we had a wonder around more of Sagada’s beautiful countryside. We passed the very popular caves which had lots of tourists outside ready to squeeze through the pitch black cave and swim in underground pools, it sounded horrible.

 

  

 Stunning rice terraces lay in the valley below us and were all being planted, not long till they’ll be fluorescent green. We attempted a long loop walk back to Sagada via the terraces and were destined for failure as everyone we passed asked if we had a guide which we were supposed to. When we got to a rustic village with a maze of alleys more questions came our way and the direction wasn’t clear so we ended up having to go back the same way we’d come which was brutal in the peak heat. We could feel ourselves cooking in the sunshine so Craig got a piece of newspaper from a local shop and made a hat with neck cover. Very practical…but by crikey did he look like a dick. Worst of all he actually resembled someone from the Ku Klux Klan. 
   
    
 
  
We passed a cool area of sharp jaggered rocks like a stone forest, inside a little cave section was a stack of coffins. Craig took a zoomed in photo and we saw a human skull was laying atop one of the coffins!

  

The afternoon was spent watching the world go by from a cafe and eating some delicious local made yogurt with honey.