Sadanga's communal bath

It was an experience nowhere else can be tried. With breasts of all sizes, mostly of those tried by years of nurturing and less of the virgin untried ones, and with everyone’s nudity exposed, each one would sit down with a dipper and tell stories or listen to the others. Sometimes, guffaws could be heard followed by loud uncaring laughter as the gathered crowd share jokes, stories, laughter, soap, stone scrubs and sometimes even the dippers. These they did while dipping their containers on a rectangular cistern of collected hot spring water that seems to be boiling but actually can be tolerated at about 30 degrees centigrade or more. This is the usual scene at the Maatong Hotspring in Poblacion, Sadanga, Mountain Province in the late afternoons till late at night and from dawn till about 8:00 AM.

The men are separated from the women. Each has his/her own place based on his/her gender. Visitors and the local people would share the hot spring water, the view of each others’ body, the soap that one may have brought, the stone body scrubs, the latest news and gossips in town, the wisdom of the olds as they talk to the young, the guffaws, the laughter and all others. In fact, even the joy of asking somebody to scrub your back is easily and readily accepted and done.

It was a center for socialization for the young and old alike. In this place had pregnancies been diagnosed by the peering eyes of the wisdom brought about by age. Older women could tell if one is pregnant just with the looks of the breasts and other body parts. And, wonder of wonders, they were always correct, even more accurate than pregnancy test kits.

Though there are other hot springs in Mountain province, like that in Mainit, Bontoc, Sadanga’s set-up is unique. Even before the cisterns were built and enclosed, the males were already separated from the females – each has their own place to take their baths though these places are near each other. Though it was a common sight to see naked person of the opposite sex taking a bath, no records of malice or rape was ever done. But, decency took place and the bathing cisterns were enclosed. Yet, inside the enclosed bathrooms, all young and old females, take their clothes off, sit down and start splashing themselves with the hot spring water – splashes which very soon become pours.

The Maatong Hot Spring, with its sulfuring content helps keep the people of Sadanga spick and span and healthy. The water cleans and heals wounds. Women who recently give birth are brought to the hotspring to take a bath to soothe their muscles and to heal their wounds. And, as experienced by the locals who already gave birth, the women confirms that really, the water has contents that made their wounds easily dry and heal.

A proposal rejected by the local people was that this public bathing place be developed and enclosed so those who’ll come will enter for a fee. Such a proposal was taken as something absurd but the local people clearly understand that once that happens, they, the locals, cannot freely enter the place. And, so it was rejected.

But Sadanga does not only boast of its Maatong Hot Spring. It also has its rice terraces mostly hidden at the other side of the mountains. Somewhere up above Barangay Belwang is a cave with several entrances known as Angoten Cave. It was names as such because, according to stories passed for some generations, Angoten entered the cave on the pursuit of a hunting prey. But, inside the cave, he got lost among the many “doorways.” For nine days, he ventured inside the cave until he came out of an opening only to find himself in Sagada. If this be true, then adventurous spelunkers have some real place to explore.

(published in the Mountain Province Exponent, dated March 7-13)