Rice Terrace Clusters of Banaue: Bangaan and Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
512 km
Riding-time estimate
9 h 08
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 512 km round trip from Barlig - roughly 9 h 08 in the saddle. On the way it passes Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao, Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion and back through Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Rice Terrace Clusters of Banaue: Bangaan
The terraces of Banaue are carved into the Cordillera mountains of northern Luzon, and the cluster at Bangaan is one of the most photographed, a tight village of thatched huts at the bottom of a steep amphitheatre of stone-walled paddies. The Ifugao people built these terraces over centuries, shaping the mountainsides with walls of stone and earth, and channelling mountain springs through bamboo pipes and canals so that water flows from one paddy to the next. Popular accounts say they are two thousand years old, but archaeologists now think most of what we see grew over the past four or five centuries. Either way, it is a monument of patient labour with hand tools, and it is a living landscape, still planted and harvested by hand.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Rice Terrace Clusters of Banaue: Bangaan is where the day begins. Next is Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao.
2. Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao
High in the mountains of northern Luzon, the hillsides are carved into thousands of rice terraces, rising in curved steps from the river to the ridge, and the Mayoyao cluster is one of five inscribed by UNESCO in 1995 as the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras. The cluster is in Ifugao province, about seven kilometres from the town of Lagawe, and the terraces here feel more intimate than those of the better-known Banaue, with the houses of the villages set among the paddies and the forest above.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao comes up about 80 km into the recorded legs. Next is Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion.
3. Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion
Santa Maria is the church that makes you earn the view. It stands on a hill above the town of the same name in Ilocos Sur, and reaching it means climbing an imposing stone staircase of about eighty steps, flanked by walls, which opens onto a broad, open terrace. The church was built in the eighteenth century by Augustinian friars, and it looks more like a fortress than a house of prayer, with a long, plain, buttressed brick facade and a separate bell tower standing on the hill's edge. Walls surround the whole complex, because during the colonial period a church could also be a refuge and a stronghold. It is one of the four Philippine churches in the UNESCO group of Baroque Churches.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 255 km into the recorded legs you reach Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion. Next is back through Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao.
4. back through Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Rice Terrace Clusters of Banaue: Bangaan. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Rice Terrace Clusters of Banaue: Bangaan to Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao
Rice Terrace Clusters of Banaue: Bangaan → Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao is 80 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao to Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion
Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao → Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion is 175 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion to back through Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao
Church of La Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion → back through Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao is 177 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao to Rice Terrace Clusters of Banaue: Bangaan
back through Rice Terrace Clusters of Mayoyao: Mayoyao → Rice Terrace Clusters of Banaue: Bangaan is 80 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.