Talking your way into the rice house

When my companion and I travel, it’s the personal experiences that we remember most, the chances to talk to or share time with locals and to bring out kids’ smiles. How can you find these people-to-people moments? Ask, and ask again!

In March 2015 we were in Banaue, in the province of Ifugao on the island of Luzon in the northern Philippines. We had a half day free and wanted to see the awesome rice terraces, but we wanted a “real” activity, not something just for tourists.

At our hotel, my companion asked several young staff members at the kitchen service window for suggestions. Nothing. She then chatted with them for a few minutes, telling them about us and our interests in the Ifugao rice-farming families. She told them how amazing we thought the terraces were and how wonderful the traditional way of life was there. Then she asked again.

This time, a young server volunteered that her mother had taken an English guest into their paddies a year before. Perhaps she would do it again. A quick text, and in five minutes we had a lunch invitation! This came from the friendly hearts of a server and her mother — a completely personal invitation and not hotel-related in any way.

Lunch started with a 10-minute cycle ride to the server’s home. Mom, who spoke excellent English (typical in the Philippines), greeted us with a smile. In moments, accompanied by her 12-year-old daughter, we were off to the stairs. And what stairs! There were about 200 big steps leading straight down to the paddies. No sissy handrails here. We went slowly.

We ended up in their rice house, which was on stilts and five feet off the ground, with walls and roof of corrugated steel sheets. (The more beautiful traditional rice houses each have wooden walls and a thatched roof.) 

Mom got a fat sheaf of rice from the loft. This was as-picked rice, stems attached.

Lunch required that we thresh the rice. The daughter showed us how to pound it with a heavy wooden ram in a hollow tree trunk. And pound we did. It took 10 minutes of sweat-inducing pounding to hull a pound of rice. Mom tossed the rice high from a flat basket to allow the last of the chaff to blow away. 

Then a small fire was started on the floor of the rice house. That’s where they always cooked, to avoid the rain.

As the rice cooked in a large black pot, we peeled potatoes, which were cooked with eggs and paddy greens over the fire. Mom spread the rice on a large dish, spooning the potatoes and eggs on top. Lunch! We ate with our hands from the common plate and drank icy stream water. JOY!

The talk was of the old times when the plate was a banana leaf. And of the future. The woman’s older daughter, whom we had met at our hotel, was studying law enforcement at a college out of town. The woman’s two sons were working. Who would be the next generation of rice farmers?

After lunch, we walked back up those 200 stairs. Reaching the top, I was winded and soaked with sweat but happy. We had had a real adventure.

We parted with warm hugs and ‘Thanks,’ and we now have Ifugao rice-fanner friends.

So remember to ask and ask again. If more travelers did this, asking several times, more would escape the tourist bubble and discover real experiences.

ED GRAPER

Goleta, CA