Editor Pick
Tam-awan Village
- March 18, 2007
- Rated 4 of 5 by
marseilles from Metro Manila, Philippines
On Day 2 of our Baguio trip, after a simple homemade breakfast, we headed out to Tam-awan Village. We drove to Quezon Hill then asked around for directions to Tam-awan Village until we finally found it.
It's hard to explain what Tam-awan Village is. When you enter the sloping property (like most properties in Baguio, this one is built on the slope of the mountain), you find a little path that snakes through the grass up to the rest of the property. A giant installation sculpture of a man on a carabao greets you. Up some steps, and you pay an entrance fee (P20, if I recall correctly) and then up the path some more until you see a cluster of indigenous huts. Each of these huts is an authentic house that once belonged to indigenous people who live in these Cordillera mountains; the huts were transported here by truck. Guests can actually rent these huts as accommodation; each hut has been modernized somewhat with an electric lightbulb in each hut and a bathroom either under or behind it. On the door of each hut is a brief explanation either of the function of the hut itself or of the tribe whose architecture is showcased in each hut.
I'd stayed in an indigenous hut in the mountains before during an immersion in college, so indigenous huts weren't entirely new to me, although I was amazed at how small these particular huts were, and I was reminded how little people really need to survive and how much excess and waste our urbanized lifestyles produce.
Throughout the property installation art pieces greet the visitor as well. This entire property is a hang-out of Baguio-based artists (Baguio has a thriving arts community), and the idea behind the construction of Tam-awan Village was Ben Cabrera's, one of the country's most famous artists.
At the end of the winding path is a little restaurant/souvenir shop, another hut which has been converted into an artist's gallery, a concrete structure which houses another gallery, and a hut where visitors can sit and be sketched by Tam-awan's resident artists for a voluntary donation.
To get to Tam-awan Village, look at the location map here: www.tamawanvillage.com.
From journal Gastronomical Delights in Baguio, City of Pines