Banaue Rice Terraces, Stairway to Heaven-Philippines

This remarkable engineering works done by tribesmen of Ifugao province about 2,000 to 2,500 years ago carved from the hillsides. The tribes people done this with their bare hands, bare feet, stone chisels, wood tools, animal power. The rice terraces located approximately 1,500 meters (5000 ft.) above sea level and cover 10,000 plus square kilometers (about 4000 square miles) of mountainside, the terraces catches water from ancient irrigation system from the rain forest from above grounds.

The Banaue Rice Terraces started at the base of the mountain range and stretch on a thousand feet upward. If put end to end their total length would encircle half of the globe. Built approximately 2,000 years ago, the rice terraces manifest the engineering skill and ingenuity, diligence, perseverance of sturdy Ifugaos tribe people. Tribe people irrigated the terraces by means of mountain brooks, streams, springs connected and channeled into canals that run downward through hill to the terraces.

The Banaue Rice Terraces were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO only 17 years ago (1995) and is nearly part to the future of the tribes people.