- There are bones
(water dripping)
everywhere down here.
(intense music builds)
(eerie vibrations)
Good morning from Sagada.
It is Saturday morning,
which means it's market morning
in the city and I'm with my two guys.
Angdung and also Chris
and we're gonna find some breakfast,
some street food breakfast, right?
I have no idea what's on
the menu this early in the morning
for street food, but that's how we're
gonna start our day before we head
into the woods to look for some coffins.
Yeah man, so many vegetables.
Cabbage, beans, eggplant.
And what do you call this here?
- Sayote. - Sayote.
In Mexico, it's chayote.
- Chayote. - Chayote.
(woman speaking in foreign language)
It's almost like congee then.
This is rice?
- [Woman] Yes.
100.
- [Mike] Arroz caldo.
Is that lemon juice?
- [Woman] Yes, yes.
- Alright, the plan today is a bit
of an interesting one.
We're meeting an older man.
I think he's 80 or 90
who has been around for a, obviously,
a very long time and seen
the old ways of doing things
with the coffins, with the mummies.
There are places here where you
can see coffins very easily.
A lot of tourists come through here,
but we're gonna find an area
by bush whacking where we're not
gonna see anybody else.
(man speaking in foreign language)
(woman speaking in foreign language)
Before we visit the cliffs
to try and find the coffins, we
have to ask permission from
an old man and here the term old man
is a little bit more elaborate
than just an old guy.
He is a village elder, I guess
would be a better way to say it.
And his ancestors are the ones
that are put in the cliffs,
so we're gonna visit him,
have a quick chat and ask him
if we can have permission to
go meet his grandfather, his great grandfather.
Everybody he's related to who
were put in these coffins.
Let's go.
Nice to meet you.
(ethereal music)
(man comments in foreign language)
Alright, we are going to ask him
for permission to visit his ancestors, yeah?
Have we done that already?
- [Man] Yeah
- It's okay?
- [Man] Yeah.
- And thank you for letting us
and for giving us permission
to visit your ancestors in the cliffs.
We are going there now to see
if we can find some of them.
So, thank you.
(laughs)
- So, we will find a good spot,
a good rock that,
to wipe your ass because before, we
don't have comfort to.
(laughing)
So, we do shitting over there
and sometimes the pigs will lick your ass
and will be the one who will wipe it.
And you'll be lucky if you'll be one
also who have like, shit in the first,
first in the morning.
If you're the second one, you'll
be out of luck.
- That story took a crazy turn.
So hold on, let me recap.
This is used to be a pig pen.
It used to, but now, - Yeah.
- now it's a bit dirty.
Pigs used to be kept here
and you used to have a toilet
in the pig pen.
- Yes, yes. - And you'd shit
in the hole and they'd have
a special rock that you'd wipe your butt
on instead of toilet paper,
- Yes. - and then you're saying
it's best to go first in the day
because the end of the day
gets really dirty. - Yeah.
(laughing)
- Can we try that?
Is there some place we can try that?
- Not for now.
(chanting music)
- [Mike] Here we are, our first set of coffins.
- When you are in that area,
that's where what I remember when I
was a kid that we brought my grandfather
in those graveyards in that area.
- So, your grandfather is still
in the cliffs. - Yeah.
- Are many of your ancestors
still here in the cliffs?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
When you die, do you want to be
put in the cliffs?
- Yes, yes.
- Really. - It would be really cool
for I would still be allowed
to be honored or to be in the caves.
- But you said still allowed
because these days they're not putting
very many people in the cliffs anymore.
- Now we still exist, yeah.
- But it's not very common. - Yeah.
It depends on the guy that they're gonna bring.
Like, Lakay Wa-ow, that would be one guy
to be hung.
Supposedly to be hung.
- Because Lakay Wa-ow still believes
in animism, he still believes in
this way of doing things.
- Yeah and he knows the rituals.
He knows how animism, what they are doing
or what they--
- And most people these days,
what, have Christian beliefs
and a Christian, someone who believes
in God and Jesus would not want
to be put in the cliffs,
- Yeah, yeah. - because then they
wouldn't go to heaven.
- Yeah and now we have now cemetery
- You have a cemetery.
But it's still mix, mix.
- Mix, mix.
Wow, Chris, you can really, you
can really see how there's a lot of caves.
A lot of cracks.
A lot of places to put things, to hide.
This really is a special place.
(ethereal music)
(tapping)
And it's very disrespectful to touch the bones, right?
- [Angdung] Yes, yes.
This is their final rest.
- [Mike] It's their final rest.
- Let them rest.
Wow.
There's a lot.
One, two, three,
four, five, six, seven
eighth, nine, ten.
Maybe 12, 15?
Even more up top.
Do you remember where your grandfather is?
- I think somewhere over here, yeah.
- And how many years ago was that?
- I don't know.
I was just like maybe 11, 12 years old at the time.
See the mixture of animist and Christianity.
Now, they have a cross.
Not like before, that.
And before, how they make, like that one.
The short one.
Or these ones over here.
These are more.
These are the really old, older ones,
because they are put in fetal position.
But when the American missionaries
came here to introduce Christianity,
they introduced how to make coffins also,
so they are lying down.
They are not in fetal position anymore.
They're gonna put the coffins there
and then after, the dead body.
What they're gonna do to the dead body,
they're gonna roll it into a blanket
in fetal position and tie it in a rope
or something and then they will pass
it to each other one by one,
like playing rugby or something.
But be careful not to drop it
because it's taboo.
The clotted blood of the dead body
or the juice of the dead body
will melt and come out from every part
of the body that has holes
and the belief that one is the more blood
that they will spill to you,
the more juice that they will spill
to your body, the more lucky you are some day.
- Wow.
And so, that is so interesting for me.
The treatment of the body.
Passing it back and forth
and hoping that the decomposing body leaks fluids
on you because it means good luck
and so, people don't think it's unhygienic.
People don't think it's gross.
People think it's an honor.
- No, we call it gabi.
Gabi means like, it's,
like really a blessing and nobody yet
has encountered, they died because of fluids
with them. - Just like,
- Like the maggots, you know.
- Just like the maggots and the etag smoke pork.
Maggots in there, no one ever died from it
and so they still eat it with maggots sometimes
and no one ever died from getting the fluids
of the dead bodies on them,
so why worry about it, right?
- Yeah. - It's no problem.
That is very different
than where I'm from.
(laughing)
- Welcome to Sagada.
We go over there, there's more coffins.
(ethereal music)
- Alright, after 45 minutes of
basically bouldering and canyoning, we found ourself
in this crevasse.
It looks like water would rush through
here during wet season.
Friendly Chris said that he knows
an elder of the village who told him
there are coffins somewhere down here.
Just trying to find them.
Putting on a GoPro.
(eerie tune)
Did we find some more coffins?
- No, we tried over here.
- [Mike] Not there.
(leaves swiping)
(laughing)
Chris, this is an adventure, man.
I told you take me some place
that no one goes and you.
(laughing)
you're delivering on that promise.
This is beautiful, man.
The GoPro on for me.
(leaves rustling)
Yeah.
(man speaking in foreign language)
- House and a bird.
One baby or and one egg.
That's good.
Hello baby.
That's it, that's it now.
(tapping)
(shouting)
This way.
- Alright, there was a steep slope
going down into the forest and then
it opened up to
this incredible cave.
You can see, we came down right here
on the top of the rocks.
We're walking on a ledge now
and there are bones laying everywhere.
You can see what looks like,
I think it's called radius from the forearm.
There's a coffin up in the crevasse up there.
You can see there's maybe six right here.
I'm gonna climb down.
I'm gonna join Chris and see if we can find
some things, some creatures, some coffins.
Some, what ever is back there.
Sometimes no shoes is safer than slippery shoes.
Here you can see a bunch of the remains.
So this one here, with bones still inside,
is one of the older side, right?
A single piece of pine
and there's something written on the side.
Alay died July 15th, 1939.
120 years old.
It's an 80 year old coffin
for someone who lived to be 120.
Wow.
(birds chirping)
Oh, I see, it's like a tunnel.
Oh, there's nothing
more relaxing than crawling through
a tunnel in an underground cave
filled with human bones.
The temperature drops like 10 degrees
right when you go through.
Oh and the silence down here is deafening.
There are bones everywhere
down here.
(rustling)
We're in the back of the cave.
You can hear the bats chatter every time I begin to talk.
Not many people come back here.
Not many that are still alive anyway.
The caves are really beautiful.
You can see how the water would pour
through the cracks of the cave wall
and sweep through these valleys and canyons.
When the tribes used to put coffins
in these caves, they used to hang them
off to the slides so the water wouldn't touch them
in the wet season,
but after awhile, a hundred years or so,
the coffins decompose enough to fall
and then the bones fall as the coffin falls
and everything gets swept down.
That's why this bottom part of the cave
is filled with bones.
Time returns all to the Earth, right,
and that's where they ended up as well.
(grunts)
So, we've had a little photo shoot.
Snapped some good ones
and Chris is saying that we should probably
do a little prayer because we've been jumping
all around and making noise and taking photos.
- Yeah.
(praying in foreign language)
(ethereal music)
(clicking)
Like we came here
when we do a lot of things, jumping
all over and it would be cool also
if we give them something, a little
bit to smoke, you know, that's it.
- Seriously guys, so the stairs go up, the end.
We walk across some bamboo
and then you have to climb the rocks.
It's a little messed up.
(breathing heavily)
(light music)
So, we walk across this.
Then we climb the rope going up.
Oh my God
(squeaking)
Camera's gotta go away for this.
Angdung has the GoPro.
(man speaking in foreign language)
One minute.
(leaves rustling)
Oh.
Okay.
(shuffling)
- Alright, here we go.
So, don't trust the wood, you say, yeah?
Alright man, wish me luck.
- See you up top. - See you up top.
It good here?
It might break.
This one good?
(exhales heavily)
Alright, so our morning just came to an end.
We trekked through the lesser visited spots
and now we're coming out at Echo Valley
which is the most common and the more touristed areas
to the coffins.
The experience from now on,
it's gonna change a little bit.
(chattering)
Yeah, this is the famous photo,
spot for the famous photo
and everyone's here taking famous photos.
(shouting)
And that ladies and gentlemen concludes
the series of northern Luzon,
visiting Sagada, visiting Kalinga.
It was some of my favorite adventures
in the Philippines and I know you guys liked
it too, because come of the videos
got several million views.
Ah yeah, let's do it.
Insert more hip hop noises here.
Thank you for that.
A couple things before we move on
in the Filipino adventure.
The shirts, Experience Over Possessions
are back on sale on my website.
They're in the top in the shop
as well as I just made a 15 tips video
on how to experience, find and also film
the most amazing things on the planet.
I posted that for free on my Patreon page,
but you can see all the rest
of my behind the scenes content.
Haven't subscribed yet, you can
do that on the bottom as well as
if you missed the last videos
and Amir's birthday party where we eat rotten meat, you
can watch that one as well.
Experience over Possessions,
like the shirt says.
I'll catch you guys in the next videos.
We're going to Coron.