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HISTORY OF BIG SUR COAST

  A new dawn:              Locals had long called for a road along the coast to aid shipwreck victims and improve access to isolated communities.  Construction started in 1919, and 18 years, 32 tonnes of dynamite and 33 bridges later, the Big Sur stretch of California Highway One was complete.               The implausible route, with its myriad twists and turns and dramatic drop-offs, became an instant classic.  The author and painter Henry Miller fled to Big Sur in 1944 and stayed for nearly two decades.  Photographer Edward Weston and Beat Generation bard Jack Kerouac fell under its spell.  By the late 1960’s San Francisco’s counterculture revolution had swept down to Big Sur, and the likes of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell performed on the cliff tops.              ...
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BANAUE RICE FIELDS - PHILIPPINES

 Banaue Rice Fields:

Banaue Rice Fields

             Thousands of neatly manicured rice terraces, created more than 2,000 years ago, hug the hillsides of central Luzon, giving a serene, sculptural beauty to an otherwise densely wooded region.

               From hilltop vantage points above the towns and villages, it is clear that whole hillsides have been carved into flights of terraces as far as the eye can see.  The low stone or mud walls that contain the terraces follow the natural contours of the landscape: this is a contour map made physical reality, each level crisply delineated.  The terraces are filled with water, so their surfaces are uniformly, spirit-level flat.  In places, summits of ridges are ringed by walls to create a top as flat as a wedding cake.

               Nowhere else on Earth has a landscape been so intricately sculpted on such a scale – 4,000 sq miles ( 10,000 sq km) carved out of the forested hills by countless generations of Ifugoa farmers.  The region has been recognised by UNESCO and enshrined as a World Heritage Site embracing five traditional rice-growing communities and towns, the most famous of which is Banaue.

The Ifugoa people are the original inhabitants of this rugged region at the heart of the Cordillera Central mountain range.  Remote, independent and with a fearsome reputation for headhunting in the distant past, they were largely bypassed by the Philippines’ colonial rulers.  Such was the region’s inaccessibility at the end of World War Two, the Japanese forces made their last stand here, at Mount Napulawan.

Where on Earth?

              Luzon is the main northern island of the Philippines and Banaue is 220 miles (350 km) north of the capital city, Manila.  The best time to see the terraces is in the two months leading up to the rice harvest in late June or July when the crops are fully grown.  Visitors usually arrived by road.
Location: Nueva Vizcaya - Ifugao - Mountain Province Rd, Banaue, Ifugao, Philippines

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