TravelLeisureSoutheastAsia-April2018

34 APRIL 2018 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM

/ travel diary /

SPOTTING A

PHILIPPINE

COCKATOO

Once common

across the

archipelago, a

combination of

habitat loss and

poaching over the

last 30 years has

seen the Philippine

Cockatoo brought

SAGADA’S

HANGING

COFFINS

Inhabitants of the

mountainous town

of Sagada in

northern Luzon

have a rather

unconventional way

of honoring their

dead. Rather than

burial or cremation,

some departed

members of the

Igorot community

have chosen for

their coffins to be

suspended halfway

up a sheer cliff. Only

when placed at

such a lofty location

will they then be

closer to their

ancestral spirits.

— M.D.

MEETING THE
BATAK TRIBE
With few signs of
modernity, it is a
simple and yet
demanding life
played out by the
Batak people, the
country’s oldest
indigenous tribe, in
the shadow of
Cleopatra’s
Needle—one of
Palawan’s most
distinctive mountain
summits. Living a
subsistence
lifestyle on the edge
of the forest, the
tribe survives by
tapping resin from
the almaciga tree.
— M.D.

to the verge of

extinction. However,

with the help of

local support from

communities on

Palawan, the future

of this stunning,

sociable and noisy

bird may just be

starting to get a

touch brighter.

— M.D.