---
type: Place
title: Buscalan
description: Mountain village in Kalinga, northern Luzon, reached by zip line and a hillside hike — home of Apo Whang-Od and the hand-tapped batok tattoo tradition.
tags: [buscalan, kalinga, philippines, northern-luzon, tattoo, tradition, village]
coordinates: {lat: 17.2301, lng: 121.0858}
timestamp: 2026-08-04T12:00:00Z
---

# Buscalan

A village in the mountains of northern Luzon in the
[Philippines](/countries/philippines.md), and the home of
[Apo Whang-Od](/people/apo-whang-od.md) and the batok tattoo tradition. The
houses are built stacked on top of one another up the hillside — Harry compares
the layout to a favela — and the whole place now runs on tattoo pilgrimage:
several hundred visitors a day, overwhelmingly Filipino rather than foreign,
queuing to be tattooed by Whang-Od or her granddaughters.

These mountains isolated tribes from each other for centuries, which is why so
many distinct local languages emerged here, and head-hunting was practised —
rival tribes were killed and their heads displayed as a warning. The tattoos
originate from that: for the men they marked heroism.

## Getting there

A two-day trip from Manila rather than a day trip. Harry's route ran roughly
ten hours' drive north on the first day, overnighting near Baguio City — the
summer capital, and home to a giant lion statue nobody could explain to him —
then on through Sagada the next morning, where the ancient rice terraces are
irrigation systems built to farm the mountainsides.

The last stretch is the memorable part. The village is entered by zip line,
which is not a tourist attraction but public infrastructure — free, used one
person at a time, and taken by locals several times a day. From there it's a
forty-minute hike up, exposed to the weather.

## What Harry did

Reached the village with a translator, a videographer and a driver he'd
recruited the day before, hiked up in the rain without a coat, waited among
around fifty people, and was tattooed by both Whang-Od and her granddaughter
Grace using a pomelo thorn and ink.

## Practical facts

- Allow two days each way from Manila, and expect to be underprepared for the
  cold and rain at altitude if you've come from the coast.
- The hike is around forty minutes on rough ground; local guides do it in flip
  flops, visitors should not.
- Several hundred people can be tattooed in a day — over 300 on the day Harry
  visited — so expect to queue.
- Fees go to the municipality, according to the village guides.
- The tattoo itself takes about two minutes, not the hours most visitors expect.
- Pain is real but brief: Harry rated it seven out of ten, with about one tap
  in ten being sharp. Guides warn that people have fainted, and some leave with
  tattoos unfinished.
- Whang-Od is 106 and does not always tattoo — over the Christmas period she
  was too tired, and her granddaughters worked instead.

## Harry's tips

- Take a translator. Nothing about the village or the queueing system is
  explained in English — see
  [travel with a local guide](/tips/travel-with-a-local-guide.md).
- Don't fix on being tattooed by Whang-Od herself. Harry preferred the outcome
  of being tattooed by both her and her granddaughter, and it's the succession
  that keeps the tradition alive.
- Bring warm and waterproof clothing. He had neither.

## Source

- [I Investigated The World's Oldest Tattoo Artist](/videos/CxwvkZ9OQOw.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxwvkZ9OQOw