Secluded Mainit

Chris squished in

A little girl, 'May' wondering what to make of the ginger man who is taking her photo

The lady wit the stick suspiciously looks a lot like yoda

To get there we had to take a jeepney to Bontoc and then we took another to Mainit. However, there was an annoyingly 4-hour wait between the two but we filled it with a long lunch.

Sophie and I

The Jeepney was planned to leave at 3pm but we got there at 2.15pm, and it was a good job as the Jeepney was pretty full with people and goods. Well at least we thought it was full, but apparently not to Filipino standards as it continued to be loaded up until 3.15pm. Once we finally got the Guinness Book of Records approval for most people, rice, veg, and beer in and on top of a Jeepney, we set off on our hour-long trip up a steep and windy mountain track.

On route, we found out that we were travelling with the owner of the two guesthouses in Mainit, and so we had our rooms sorted before arrival. We got off and carried our bags on a little track through the tin houses until finding our little tin house.

Our guest house

It was basic but had a nice view and a little pool fed from the hot springs.

The view from where we stayed

The pool outside with water fed from the hot springs, aka a bath

Our crazy land-lady Gesto

Geston, our eccentric if not better described as a little crazy host, took us through the village so we could see the hot springs and also all of the pig stys along the way adding that little extra flavour to the spring stream.

The pig stys right by the springs, with waste running down, yuck.

Children playing

You could literally feel the heat

Bubbling Hot springs

Outside our guest house

Hot springs

Mainit village

Children eating sweet potatoes freshly boiled in the hot springs

There was also two communal baths, male and female, where all the locals were happily cleaning themselves.

The women's and baby's bath

The men's bath

We returned to the guesthouse and Geston made us some rice, which we enjoyed with a selection of bread that we had picked up along the way.

Our a-la-carte meal of bread and rice... tasty...

For dessert, we had a lovely piece of Belgium chocolate thanks to Sophie and then retired early before our early start the next day to repeat it all in the opposite direction.

written by  chrischarly on March 22, 2011 from Mainit, Philippines
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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