Museum of Cordillera Cultural Heritage

This is worth a visit in Banaue. Especially if you’ve seen sculptures from the Cordilleras in BenCab and Pinto and are interested in more then this is a really impressive collection. 200P

The Museum houses close to a thousand artifacts! From giant wooden statues, lifesize scare-chickens (killows) and miniature woven baskets. The priceless pieces are annotated by its collector Mr George Schenk, an American who lived for twenty years in Banaue. The current owner, Atty Dominador Buhain of Rex Bookstore, has done a good job in preserving the collection. He has built a lovely hostel with modern amenities around the museum so guests can spend a good part of their day marvelling at the artefacts. Guests can also stay at one of the three authentic Ifugao huts. The hostel has parking and a hiking trail for nature lovers!

Now managed by Banaue Heritage Hotel & Museum (formerly DDD Heritage Inn), the entrance fee has doubled to PHP 300 per person, which raises the question whether this museum is still worth a visit. Just for comparison, BenCab Museum, a larger Cordilleran art museum in Baguio City run by National Artist Benedicto Cabrera charges only PHP 150 (as of 2019).

I admit I don't like museums too much but this one was worth visiting. It's much bigger than I expected and you can see tons of different wooden sculptures, scarecrows, ritual objects and basically everything you can create out of wood. The lady there took great care of us and told us just about everything about local and general Philippino culture of the past and of today. Entrance fee P200 - a bit pricey but again - I can't appreciate museums that much :-D

Really nice place with a great view and helpfull lady that tells you lot about history and purpose of the statues and traditions. Great place to visit in Banaue. Not just on rainy day.