Heading north
I loved Dogs Mountain so much I hung around for longer than intended. I still really wanted to see the mountains in the north though, so with 4 or so days left I was going to try and cram in as much as possible. Early in the morning I rolled back up the hill to Baguio, only to wind up in entirely the wrong end of town. Stubborn as I am I decided to just start walking and ended up going in circles a few times before finally making it to the main drag. Luckily, a bus to Sagada was just about to pull out the station as I showed up, so I hopped on!
You can't really tell in this photo but the bus conductor spent a lot of time perched on a tiny fold out seat, feet up on the dash, next to the open door leading straight down a mountainside. Casual like.
I spent most of my journey fighting for space next to a lady who seemed to want to leave half a foot of space between herself and the window so she protruded on to my seat instead. I would have moved but there was no space until about 4 hours in, but at least it was 4 hours worth of spectacular views.
Sagada turned out to be a sleepy place and there was not a lot to do when I arrived there in the evening, so I checked into the first inn I saw, and then put a book in my bag and headed down the road where I found yet another nice looking reggae themed bar. I'd been there 2 minutes when a group of strangers invited me to drink with them and I ended up spending an evening hanging out with 2 expat teachers based in Vietnam and a filipino guy (also incidentally a teacher) who were all travelling together. It was a good evening, the hangover and early start the next day, not so much.