Finding bliss on a bicycle in Baguio

If you like to travel and you like to bike, there's no better partner in crime than a folding bicycle. It's incredibly liberating to be able to throw your bike into a taxi, bus, tricycle, or kalesa and then hit the ground with two wheels as soon as you reach your destination. Since I bought my folding bike more than a month ago, suddenly so many destinations within bus-riding distance from Metro Manila seem new and uncharted once again.

Baguio City is one of those places that I've visited, literally, dozens of times before, so I was intrigued at the prospect of rediscovering the city's many familiar and beloved sights by bicycle. I hopped on a Friday night bus from the Pasay station of Victory Liner and the following morning, I found myself looking at the Cordillera mountains. My base of operations for the weekend would be Bliss Homestay, a transient apartment owned by a Baguio couple who decided to open the basement of their home to travellers. For a modest fee of P400 per head per night, visitors get their own mattress, blankets, pillows, and towels. There's also a hot shower and fireplace that guests can use as long as they cover the P75 cost of the firewood. The aparment is cozy and decorated with ethnic artifacts and art posters collected by the owners over the years. It's big enough to accommodate eight people at once, but even lone travellers are welcome. What sets Bliss Homestay apart from ordinary hotels or inns is that visitors can expect to be treated like true houseguests by the friendly owners, Jim and Shanti Ward, a Buddhist couple who not only run the homestay but also Bliss Cafe, a vegetarian restaurant and art space that has been a staple of the Baguio arts scene since 2004. Jim Ward is an 50-something American expat who has lived in Asia for the past several decades. He converted to Buddhism after living in China and Japan. In 2004, he left behind a lucrative career in the international shipping business to move to Baguio with his Filipina wife, Shanti, a special education teacher and practitioner of yoga meditation. There must be something about the cold, meditative isolation of the mountains that attracts those seeking enlightenment. It's what Jim and Shanti were after when they decided to relocate to Baguio, and it's what they seek to share with visitors who stay in their home. "On purpose, we don't really want an internet connection or a TV down there," says Jim, referring to his own basement where the homestay is located. “It's not a party-party kind of place. It's a place to reflect." Just a couple of kilometers away from the homestay is Bliss Cafe, the restaurant that Jim and Shanti run out of Hotel Elizabeth on Gibraltar Road. Bliss Cafe is one of those places where the furniture and décor don't really “match," but somehow everything blends into an exuberant mishmash of color and texture. Scattered throughout the room and all over the walls are ethnic artifacts, posters, and artworks that Jim has collected throughout his years in Asia. On one end of the restaurant, books on meditation and Buddhism fill up a ceiling-high shelf, while the other end of the room opens up into garden area with a water fountain. The vegetarian menu is as colorful as the room itself. Shanti has been a Buddhist and vegetarian practically her entire life. Over the years, she has developed an eclectic repertoire of Filipino, Indian, Mexican, and Mediterranean vegetarian dishes that populate Bliss' menu. Non-vegetarians can try Shanti's veggie versions of sisig and adobo, which don't quite replicate the texture of real meat but do pretty well to mimic the flavor and are delicious in their own right. After lunch, Jim offered to take another cyclist and me on a biking tour around Baguio. Apparently, Jim has been an avid biker for years and he even helped found “The Daily Cycle," a group of cycling enthusiasts that's trying to make Baguio more bike-friendly. Jim said that he's planning to organize biking tours of Baguio for Manila tourists one day and told us that we would be the “guinea pigs" for his proposed itinerary. While it wasn't easy to climb Baguio's mountainous terrain using my small-wheeled road bike, I was surprised at how much fun I actually had doing so. Pedaling up every hill made my leg muscles feel like hot rubber, but the thrill of speeding down the opposite side, with the cold, pine-infused wind in my face provided instant payoff every time. And of course, the satisfaction of arriving at your destination is doubled by the fact that you burned your breakfast's worth in calories to get there. The first stop on Jim's bike tour was the Saint Louis University (SLU) Museum, which holds hundreds of cultural artifacts from the different tribes of the Cordillera. "When we have guests here they're usually on their way to Sagada or Banaue, so we like to encourage them to come here first and learn something about the cultures of the people here," said Jim. We were guided around the museum by Perlin, a 19-year-old student of SLU working part-time as a tour guide. Perlin talked us through the different artifacts on display, which included baskets, wooden carvings, replicas of indigenous houses, household tools, and photographs of different tribal rituals. But the most charming exhibit on display, for me, was the collection of indigenous bamboo instruments and native drums, which museum visitors are allowed to play. I never realized there were so many different ways of coaxing sound out of bamboo. After the museum, we biked over to the Baguio Buddhist Temple, which Jim said was built years ago by a Chinese-Filipino. It was originally intended as a place for Buddhists to use for retreat or for study. The place is several stories high and has a lot of rooms which have since become dormitories for SLU students. Jim showed us how to offer incense to the Buddha and took us to the top of the temple, which has a fantastic top view of the whole city. We finished the day off with a quick ride around Burnham Park. It was a pleasant ride thanks to Baguio's cool temperatures and numerous pine trees, but the traffic in some areas did get pretty bad. At one point we found ourselves sandwiched bumper-to-fender between jeepneys. Thankfully, they weren't moving nearly as fast as they do on Buendia or EDSA, but we still had to endure the same exhaust-in-the-face that bikers have to put up with in Manila. Still, you have to appreciate the fact that Baguio City has a central park at all. The park really does serve its function of providing a green space where people from every part of the city and even tourists can come to relax, interact, walk, and yes, even bike. The following day, Jim invited us to join the monthly critical mass ride of his cycling advocacy group, “The Daily Cycle." Along with a few other local cyclists, we made our way from the University of the Philippines Baguio Campus to Camp John Hay. Though the camp doesn't normally allow cyclists within their grounds, Jim managed to convince them that it would be good for the camp's eco-friendly image if they allowed bikes. I only wish Camp John Hay would let bikers in on a more regular basis. There are far fewer vehicles in Camp John Hay than on Baguio's public roads, and the terrain represents the very best of the city's rolling hills, pine trees, and enchanting mountain views. That evening, I went back to Bliss Cafe where Jim had agreed to give me a lesson in meditation. Buddhists believe meditation helps a person to transcend the automatic way that she reacts to the world, and to channel her thoughts towards compassion and contentment instead. The practice involves sitting very still and learning to focus the mind on a single thought or sensation. Upon Jim's instruction, I sat cross-legged on a pillow in the middle of the restaurant (thankfully there were no other guests at the time) and tried to focus solely on the sensation of my own breathing. Easier said than done--the whole time, my thoughts would automatically wander. You never realize how little control you have over your own thoughts until you literally spend some time alone with them. After the 12-minute session, I felt frustrated. But Jim told me a story about a Buddhist monk who was also frustrated when he first began studying meditation. “The monk's teacher just told him, 'Don't worry, that will pass,'" said Jim. He went on: “After a few weeks, the student felt he was getting better at controlling his own thoughts. The teacher said, 'Don't worry, that'll pass too.'" Before we left Baguio, I asked Jim what's one thing that they want people who visit the cafe and their homestay to take away from the experience. The answer, as it turns out, was literally written on the walls. "It sounds corny, but I always say (I want our guests to find) a sense of bliss. If you look it up in the dictionary, bliss means contentment. That's on a non-spiritual level. But then, bliss to a Buddhist means nirvana. It's a very high attainment of happiness." If you're looking for a bit of bliss, take this bit of advice: buy a bike, and go to Baguio. - GMANews.TV For more information on Baguio bike tours organized through Bliss Cafe, visit http://blissnbaguio.multiply.com or contact Jim Ward at blissnbaguio@yahoo.com or at 09178464729. Bliss Cafe is located at Hotel Elizabeth, Gibraltar St. corner J. Felipe, Baguio City. The art of Palma Tayona will be on exhibit at Bliss Cafe until December 17, 2010. Bliss Homestay is located in the Pacdel area of Baguio City.