8/8/2019 "Of The Earth and Sky" / The Australian / May 1-2, 2010

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4 TRAVEL & INDULGENCE THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN, MAY 1-2, 2010 www.theaustralian.com.au

{ JOURNEYS: THE SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY }

Of the earth and sky

PICTURES:MATTHEW CROMPTON

Banaues riceterraces wereconstructedby handabout 2000years agoand havebeen farmed since

FirstlightonMt Napulauanbreaksin warm pastels acrossa solid carpetofcloudstretchingto thehorizon

A climb ofMtNapulauanin ThePhilippines is atransformingexperience

MATTHEWCROMPTON

SOUTH CHINA

SE A

PHILIPPINESE A

Manila

Banaue

LUZON

C o r d

i l l e r a

C e n t r a

l

Mt Napulauan

A LEECH bite bleeds freely forhours. Hematophagic leeches belong to the phylum Annelida,like their less-feared cousin, thecommonearthworm.

Leechsaliva, however,containsa powerful anti-clotting enzymeknown as hirudin, which is sec-reted into the wound, causing bloodtopourfromacutthesizeof ashavingnick.

Dont worry, you wont losetoo much blood, my friendassures me. It is my first morninginThePhilippines,breakfastingatahotelinManila.Inaweekwewilltravel north into Ifugao provincetoclimbthefamedMtNapulauan,andmyfriend,a fellowmountain-eer, is graciously reassuring me intypical Filipino fashion. Theleeches are small, he insists.They suck for maybe 20 minutesandthentheyjustfalloff.Nothing

toworryabout.Other visitors have not beensimilarlysanguine.Anarticlepub-lished in The New York Times onSeptember28,1902,duringtheUSoccupation of The Philippines,made reference to the terriblePhilippine land leech, which thesoldiers dreaded vastly morethantheydidthe Filipinos.Ihavetrekked widely in Asia and neverencountered anything morephlebotomologically aggressivethan mosquitoes, but Mt Nap-ulauanhas asternreputation.

Deep in the Cordilleras Moun-tains of northern Luzon Island,the 2642m peak is covered indense, mossy, leech-infested for-est. It was the last refuge of Japa-nese general Tomoyuki Yama-shita, the so-called Tiger of Malaya,whochoseit ashis citadelin the closing days of WorldWar II.

Through years of trekking andtravelling, I have often imagined what each place must have beenlikebeforeitbecameanadventuredestination:ChinasTigerLeaping

Gorge without the garbage, Nep-als Annapurna Circuit withoutthecrowdsandapplepie.

Ifugao province, with its leech-es, single-lane mud roads andfearsome history of headhuntingtribes, seems the perfect place toinvestigatethe question.

Ientertheregionat thetownof Banaue, where the paved roadends.Securingour luggageon theroof,our groupboards a colourfullong-wheelbase Filipino jeepneyto Hungduan, a small munici-pality deep in the mountains where we are to begin our trekearlythenextmorning.I ridewiththree others on the roof of the Jeep, gripping on to the roof rack beside the luggage, the gorgeoussteps of the Banaue rice terracesopeninginintricateflys-wingpat-ternsallaroundus.

Constructed by hand about2000 years ago and farmed con-tinuously since, the complexityandlogisticsof theancientterracesystem seems dizzying. Thou-sands of plots stretch over thou-sands of hectares, divided amonghundreds of families scatteredacrossthe valleyand hillside.Our28-year-old guide Wes, fromBanaue, grips the luggage rack

beside me. Isnt it hard keepingtrack of who farms what here? Ishoutoverthegroanoftheengine.Oh,itsnotso difficult,heshouts back. These families, they havetheplotfor manygenerations.

So its like one plot per fam-ily,then?

No, each family, maybe threeto four terraces. There are eldersfor each village who know whichplot goes to which family, whichfamilyhasalwaysheldthoseplots.

There are no deeds, just theelders. The government wantspeople to register them now sotheycanpay taxes,butmostlytheland just goes to the first child . . .the first son or daughter is thelucky one because they get themostfamilylands.

So were you the lucky one? Iask. No, he says with a chuckle,shakinghishead,I amyoungest.

We camp that night in tra-ditional square Ifugao thatch-

roofedhutsstandingonstilts onasmall rise near the Hungduanmunicipalmeetinghall.At sunset,I stand in the cool air with Wes asthe light sets pink and mauve onthemountains allaround.Ifugaois rich in beauty, poor in all theother ways, he muses, lookingdown atthe terraceson the valleyfloor.Notmanyjobs.Peoplehereonly crop once a year, so they eatalmost all of what they grow,nothing left to sell. Young peoplemostlyleaveforthe cities.

So what about tourism formoney?I ask.Heshrugs.

Some people come to look attheterraces,mostlyFilipinos.Thelast group to climb the mountaincameinAprillast year.

Itis nowmid-January;downinthe valley long shadows swallowthe fields in darkness. We sleepearly and wake before dawn to beginthe1580mclimbto thesum-mitfromthe valleyfloor.

We ascend steeply throughopen fields of razor grasses, leav-ing our hands and arms crisscros-sedwithtinycuts,thenintoacloseovergrowth of ferns and grassesreaching higher than our heads.An hour later we pass out of thegrasses in to a deep, close, mossyforest of the kind that swallows waywardchildren infairytales.

Then the leeches limatik inTagalog begin to appear. Theyclimb upwards from the groundand off low-lying bushes, inchingalong our pant legs and sleevestowardsexposedskin.Thegroupsporter, Julius, is wearing a sleeve-lessjerseyanda pairofCaterpillar workboots, his mouth stained redfrom nga nga , the local prep-aration of the mildly stimulatingareca nut. Its good its not rain-ing, he says to me as I pluck thecreepy-crawlies from my legs.When it rains, they fall from thetrees and you find them in your

ear.Ishuddera littleandtuckmypantsintomysocks.

As the trail winds into theclouds, it becomes steep andmuddy, frequently disappearing beneath vegetation and con-stantly blocked by fallen trees.About 4.30pm we finally arrive,filthy and exhausted, to the tinyclear space on the summit, just wide enough for our tents, andcamp through an interminablenightofcold anddiscomfort.

Travel, as Paul Theroux wrote,isusuallyglamorousonlyin retro-spect. But as I crawl from my tentthe next morning, cursing myexistence and feeling like a lizardinthe icypre-dawn,a friendoffersa cup of hot tea. Look, he says,smilingandpointingtotheedgeof the summit. As I totter over, I amsuddenly floored. There, hun-dreds of metres below, lies anenormouscloudsea.Thefirstlightof the morning breaks in warmpastels across a solid carpetstretchingto theeasternhorizon.

This is the pulaw of Nap-ulauan, he tells me happily. Itmeanswhitened.

Because of the clouds, you canalmostneverseethesummitfrom below. The only way to see it is tomaketheclimb.EvenEverestbasecamp gets thousands of people ayear, but no one else has been up

here for almost 10 months. Tenmonths: that says it all. The roadshave been terrible and the trail anightmareofmud andleechesbutsuch difficulties have ensured themountain has remained a moun-tain, not a tourist destination, butapartoftheearth.

Ifugao, I later learn, actuallymeans people of the earth, a per-fectexpressionofthatparadoxicalsearchtofindalandthatisstilljustland,a placethat,whileadmittingus,doesnot yetreflectourselves.

That afternoon on the trail Ipluck a leech from my left ankle, watching blood stream from the wound, soaking my sock. Juliusgives me the local remedy, a little bit of Vicks Vaporub. I ask himhow he would feel about Ifugao becoming a tourist destination, aconstant stream of foreigners inand out, 365 days a year, like thehillsofnorthernThailand.

He cant really understand themagnitudeof whatit wouldmeanfor this place, his home. I dontknow, he says. Im not really ingood shape. I cant climb themountainevery day.

Ismilebutdonttrytoexplainitfurther. We just sit by the road atthetrailsend,waitingfora Jeeptopassby.

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Schloss Ludwigseck,homeof thevonundzu Gilsafamily

Landed gentryopen estates topaying guestsNorthernGermanyscastle ownersarelettingin thelower classes

CATHERINE NIXEY

InsideSchlossLudwigseck

Some of theirancestorswouldbehorrifiedby whattheyare doing

I AM sitting in a snowboundcastle,havingsupperwithalord,alady,aprincessanda goblin.

Will you, says the lady to thegoblin, please pass the gravy?The goblin obliges. Thank you,says the lady. Underneath thetable,a dogsnores.

I have come to Schloss Lud- wigseck in northern Germany,homeofThiloand Tanjavon undzu Gilsa and their four children:Wilhelm, Apollonia, Genoveva(tonight dressed as a princess)and Anastasia (the goblin). Forone weekend only, this castle ismy home too. Because, afterspending five centuries building walls thick enough to keep thepeasantry out, German aristo-crats are now inviting thepeasantsbackin asguests.More venison?asksThilo.

The motivation for such amove is, of course, not so muchMarxism as money. Renting outyour rooms, as many Germannobles are now doing, generatesincome and interest. We havesuch lovely guests, says Tanja,pouringmesome wineaswesit atthe great oak dinner table. Aca-demics, historians, authors, shecontinues, though she admitssome of her husbands ancestors would be horrified by what theyaredoing.

The von und zu Gilsa familyhas occupied this castle in the woods above Gilsa since the 15thcentury, a fact shown, as Thiloexplains,bytheirname.

The von means that we belong to the village of Gilsa, hesays. He pauses a moment. Andthe zu means that the village of Gilsa belongs to us. He smiles.Above his head, a powder-facedancestorsmiles,too.

Back in what I suspect Thilomight privately think of as thegood old days, such ancestors would have had the power of lifeand death over the villagers of Gilsa, putting them to work, warand death as the occasiondemanded. Today, the passing of three reichs, occasional revol-utions and a Human Rights Acthas curbed such powers, thoughthe family might find somecrumbs of consolation for its lossofpowerin itsproperty.

As well as the castle, the vonund zu Gilsas also own a farm,650ha of woodland and (of course) another castle. My brothers castle is much larger,saysThilo,withadmirablelackof rancour.Igot thesmallone.

Small perhaps, but adequate.Built in three wings, Ludwigseckhas everything one could wantfrom a castle, including spiralstone staircases, a secret passageanditsownghost.IaskThilohowmany rooms there are, thenimmediately regret such a bour-geois query. Thilo, ever polite,manages to convey his distressat my question without doinganything so vulgar as conveying

his distress. Im not sure, hesays. Ive never counted.Twenty-five,perhaps?

After supper, Tanja shows methe medieval hall, reputedlyhaunted by the castles WhiteLady. I do believe shes there,says Tanja. I feel her presencesometimes. You feel a chill . . .though that might be the heatingplaying up. One hallway evenhas a little snowdrift in it. Tanjalooks horrified: an interior de-signer, she renovated the castle with great care and authenticity.But snow drifts might be a littletooauthenticfor herliking.

Myroom, however,likeall theinhabited rooms, is toasty warm,and though both it and its furni-ture are ancient, it is definitelycosyratherthancreepy.A vaseis well-stockedwithfreesiasandthe bathroomwithcopiesof Wildund

Hund. The silent, snowy woods beyond are equally well stocked withdeerandwild boar.ArriveinseasonandThilowilltakeyouout withyourveryown hund toshootyour very own deer, for the truearistocraticexperience.

The following morning, Thilo,I and the dogs head out into the woods where he shot last nightssupper. It is a brightly beautifulday, but I am worried. Hypocritethat I am, I dread the thought of killing, but equally, I dread thethoughtof revealingmydread.

This weekend at least I mustswallowmy inconsistentscruples.

As we walk, Thilo points out boar and deer tracks. Suddenly, weglimpseadoe.Foramomentitstands, frozen as a leaf, beforedancing away unharmed downthe hill. The dogs are disap-pointed. I, secretly, am delighted.Surreptitiously, I glance at Thilo.To my surprise, he looks aspleased as I am. Isnt it beauti-ful?heasks.

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