A Ferry Ride

As ever, my email is full of travel deal offers. Nowadays, very unlikely of me, I proceed to deleting them instead of rummaging over them in search of a fitted deal for my frequent family trips. A huge change  has gone over my family this year, which technically glued my feet inside our home to solely take care of my girls. I'm parenting 24/7. Alright, not fair to claim the credit all by myself. Husband actually, has never gone. He's still very much around. Thu' not so much physical but definitely 100% "around". In all aspect..


 
... virtually.everyday.7/24 during working days and yeah 24/7 on non-working days.

But him not physically around has put limit, if not totally ceased our little family adventures. If before with him around, he had already put limitations to what/where only was allowable, now I don't want to send worries to him by taking the girls on trip without him. If you're a family friend, you should know how oa protected this dad is to us.


 

But malls bored me to death. I don't shop. I mean shopping doesn't amuse me. Buying pricey bags, shoes, clothes would just end my day with heavy heart for slashing my wallet and after all would find no connection at all to these "lonely mom's toys". Long gone are my materialistic years. In my marriage and mom's life , a new matured me has emerged.

Now spot the difference of this photo of me and that of me in the previous one above. short and long hair? erk# haha. Seriously. Nothing has elated me so much as a nature trip. Need I say more?

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But for the meantime, I got to put my favorite activity on hold. While we are still in transition.  
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Meanwhile, traveling through my antiquated photos fill in the gaps.
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Ok, not that old actually. Just a tad over a  year old. Photos I hadn't posted yet but were somehow promised.
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Ready or not, let's go for a boat ride in Mindanao...

I never got bored traveling by water. I hail from a country with 7,107 islands. I practically have no choice but to have fun riding a boat to have reached some of them. # never as  pilot thu', haha. I just took the driver seat while he was still out.

 Mostly, I rode a local version of a boat called a "banca". A passenger boat/ferry  like that in the above photo is a typical boat used to reach a certain island here in our country. You can't simply jump out of an airplane to set foot in an island here. You have to add on a boat ride upon exiting an airport gate.



The interior is usually like this. Open air where passengers could enjoy the view of the sea. This kind is mostly used for short trip to a particular island coming from the mainland. Like a 30minutes to an hour long ride.

Personally, one of my favorite past times while riding a banca is to stare the parts of the boat which are called the "outriggers". I easily get lost in watching them slapping the blue sea water, until it's time to alight.




That.. in the absence of a perfect blue sea and whitish blue cottony sky. This was like less than 30 minutes away from the mainland Davao city.

Passing numerous islets in the middle of the sea  made this boat ride interesting.

More so when we passed near and had  better look of the islets. Look at the slides. It would be fun to make a stop here and swim. I almost forgot, this one wasn't an island hopping ride.I was bound to alight in one of the famous island resorts in the country.

Approaching my destination, resorts here and there were visible already.

However, a sad fact of being a third world country doesn't limit in the streets of the mainlands of our country. Right there in the middle of the sea were the versions of the street children/beggars. Throw a coin and they would swim deep to catch it. I don't know, but instead of getting entertained, my mother heart pitied these kids risking their lives to earn a living. Well, to console myself, I reckoned they must be excellent swimmers anyway.

I knew I was about to alight already when this beautiful facade of the resort appeared right on my very eyes.




How about staying a night or two in one of those pretty stilt cottages..

Well, have I mentioned that it was at The Pearl Farm in Samal Island, Davao? It was. Hop on there.

Butik

I never missed to drop by to the souvenir shops of island resorts. More often than not, just window shopping without buying. It's pricey to buy from these exclusive shops. I only buy when I'm sure I won't find a certain item I like outside. And only, if I could afford it.

Simply tagged as Butik (boutique), I found it in Malipano Island, Samal Islands.

T-shitrs,t-shirts and more t-shirts! Whatelse? 

locally woven clothe covered canisters

native cooking utensils, made of coconut shells

jewelry boxes made of mother of pearl

intricately designed home decor linens, throw pillows, etc.

designer's woven clothes/linens


designer's dolls wearing ethnic dresses by  Alfonso


What did I buy? Nada! The lust was there, but not so much. There wasn't anything there that I wanted so much to break my budget.  hhahaha!

Tribal Sidewalks

In Davao City, I bought my girls' tribal collection from the side walks right beside the People's Park. I'm not sure if it's an everyday thing to find them in the streets but I think it was only because of the current festival being celebrated at the time of my visit.

Although these tribal trinkets were being sold gypsy-cally  in the side walks, the trademarks were imminent _ drumbeats, dread lock hairstyled, tattooed and xl hole ears pierced artists /vendors. Exactly the same characteristics I gathered from other stores which I found some in the beaches or markets of different islands in the country. See other stores here and here.

I reckon, the artists and sellers of these trinkets might be members of one tribe or religion as they manifest the same characteristics.Or is it just another fashion culture in this side of the universe? I'm not sure.






It must be because of the location that goodies here were sold cheaper than the ones in a fixed store. I guess that's given.
My girls were happier that I brought home more when I came from Davao. Ofcourse, it was cheaper so I bought 2x lot more than I usually do.

Pinoy Tricycle 2

Aside from the natural wonders flourishing in my scenic/3rd world country, there's another thing that amuses me everytime I get to go out of town trips. Our Pinoy tricycle ( see part 1 here .).

This one is locally called traysibot (from the word - tricy-boat? just a wild guess) in Davao City. It's amusing how the prototype of a tricycle has been modified in many different ways. Each region has its own design and yes pet name for each.The only thing constant in our provinces is tricycle being the most common means of transportation if not the only one available.

I couldn't remember where I saw this one, but it was in Mindanao too. Not sure if outside Davao or a town in Maguindanao, but somewhere there. This is also a tricycle but has been modified into a 4-6 seater, like a small jeepney.

This one is roaming around Kidapawan City (Mindanao). Thanks for the background sign board, or else I wouldn't remember where. This taught me to shoot next to a street/location sign .

Korean tricycle? Maybe Korean- married owned. This type is seen on the streets of Coron Town. Quite similar to the ones in Kidapawan City (see prev. image)

I've noticed the special (Hawaiian inspired) polo shirts worn by the tricycle drivers in Coron . They were required to wear one for the town's tourism enhancement . Nice!

Lumadnong Tambal

I found out that Eden Nature Park, Davao was not only all about beautiful gardens of exotic flowers, fruit bearing trees, plants that can be harvested as ingredients of fresh garden salad_

The park had also a herbal medicinal garden. Seen were actual herbal plants with general knowledge pertaining to the use of a certain plant. Said that our baylan (the Filipino tribal doctors then) forefathers of century ago had been using those but was branded by the Spaniards as works of devil and sought to eradicate the source which resulted to the lost of the records of the plants.

yahong-yahong - leaves, for respiratory tract infection

makahiya- leaves, for mumps

kataka-taka- leaves, for toothache

pandan- leaves and stem, for urinary difficulties

busikad- leaves, for chicken pox

alugbati-leaves, among many other uses, for laxative

Funny, these plants are not even shall we say exotic or rare. Most of them are in our neighborhood/ backyards sitting as stray grasses or unwanted grasses.
Well, God created everything in this Earth for a reason, right? How about you, have you found your purpose of living or still searching?