Lakad Pilipinas

There’s really nothing better to do on cold dreary mornings than to be curled up in bed, covered in warm blanket, and a good book in hand. Baguio, it seems, always has this perfect climate for reading books.

I guess it’d be but natural that Baguio and bookshops go well together. Unfortunately, I haven’t really seen any good bookstores in the city besides those found in the mall.

That is until I stumbled upon a poster at Tam-Awan Village about a new bookstore somewhere along the upper side of Session Road. Mt Cloud it says, and piqued my curiosity it did.

A chance to visit this bookshop presented itself right after our jaunt through Camp John Hay. It was late in the afternoon; it was still too early for dinner but was too late for another cup of coffee. We decided to browse thru some books instead.

Having no idea where the bookstore was located, we just asked our cab driver to cruise along Upper Session Road. We almost went past it, its signboard literally just a small signboard propped on stilts.

The bookstore shares house with a spa, and to get there we passed a dark corridor lined with candles, very mysterious entrada for a bookstore.

I was hoping for a dark library-type full of heavy and dusty leather bound books, laddered ceiling-high wooden shelves, comfy leather cushioned seats arranged over a medieval looking fireplace, and maybe some gargoyles standing guard over colorful stained glass windows.

Mt. Cloud is nothing of the sort, but it does resemble a library, only brighter than what I had in mind. Stacks of books abound through shelves, high up, a mezzanine with more books, sofas filled with books on its back and sides, clean white walls, unvarnished wooden floors, and scattered about, Japanese inspired paper lamps. A bit cramped but not bad at all.

Their book selection consists of almost everything; popular novels, unpopular novels, children’s books, local books, cookbooks, fiction, non-fiction and their specialty, Cordillera books. These are books written about the region and books written by its dwellers.

One thing that differentiates this bookstore from all the others I’ve been to is their purchasing system. You can actually buy a book from them, read it, and then sell it back to them afterwards (at a lower price). They also buy used books from their patrons and those are of course resold at a much affordable prices. Neat eh?

And oh before I forget, you can also read their books inside the bookstore while having beer, or coffee if you prefer. How cool is that?

I did get a chance to have a quick chat with its owner after asking for a copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (which I have been looking for for the longest time).
 
I asked her about the concept of Mt. Cloud. Well, there’s really no concept she says, we just like books, especially local and Asian ones. She’s quite nice and we talked some bit more. When I finally asked her for Jack Kerouac’s book, she said they were out of stock but she does have a copy, (alrighty!) unfortunately she’s unwilling to part with it haha.

Oh well, I guess I’ll stack it as another good excuse to revisit the city beyond clouds next time.

Mt. Cloud Bookshop
Casa Vallejo, Upper Session Road, Baguio City
(074) 424-4437 | queries@mtcloudbookshop.com
http://mtcloudbookshop.com/ | Open Everyday 12pm - 8pm