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.

T' boli and Mandaya Tribes

Apart from the pulchritudinous colors of flowers in Davao, the resplendent pigments of ethnic fabrics wore and weaved  by the members of different indigenous tribes had fascinated me during the Kadayawan 2010.












We watched a little of the stage show going on at the park and I didn't understand what was going on. But the colorful garments wore by the indigenous tribe participants were interesting.

Even their accessories  from head down to toes are quite eye candy.

We saw these rich colored fabrics on display for sale right beside the souvenir boutique of  Malipano Island.

There was a weaving center where you could watch tribeswomen weaving The old women are from the Mandaya Tribe.

The tribeswomen wore predominantly the color of red and dashes of other primary colors. Those fabrics were also made into bags and wallets. There were also accessories made by them which designs and hues mirrored the woven clothes.

We found another weaving center at the Pearl Farm Hotel/Resort in Davao where we booked our visit to Pearl Farm, Samal Island.

I noticed another distinctive design of the fabrics here. This was because the weaver came from a different tribe, the T'boli.

Some of the designs have evolved into sophisticated  end products designs. I suspected there were professional designers involved here cos they looked so modern and out of the ethnic tribal box.




I saw other ethnic groups having exhibits and cultural shows. The tribe in the photo above I found at Apo Hotel. Indeed, Davao is a melting pot of ethnic tribes where different cultures and colors contribute more interesting characters of the beautiful province.

Isla Malipano, Samal Islands

Another island we visited in Samal which is also owned by Pearl Farm_ Malipano Island floats just right across the Pearl Farm. Only short minutes speedboat ride to reach to/from each island.

See the proximity?  Looks like it's just a walking distance, right? Like it seems possible to extend the rubberized walk bridge from one island to another and then guests would just walk, haha. Ofcourse there's high tide to consider.

Approaching Malipano Island by foot, after the boat ride.









Enjoying full view of Pearl Farm from this island. My cuzin' from Davao who is forever celebrity/star struck (she has gigantic collections of photo-ops with celebrities- from mega stars down to extras she came across with, yes! haha ) spotted right away this guy (in black) she said was Drew Arellano. Who? She said he's her personal favorite cos she watches his travel show on t.v. Idk, haha.

This is the cousin I was talking above, haha, luvya Ate S. Anyway back to Malipano Island which is so beautiful, is actually far expensive than Pearl Farm in terms of accommodation.

There are only seven villas here which as told are also being used by the owners if they came to visit the island.

Tranquility leaves here. Can I live here? ..forever.

A chapel kiosk by the beach.

Water sports facilities.

The island souvenir shop. More of this here.

The rest of the island is consistently well maintained  with manicured green lawns and white sand.

Then it was time to come back to Pearl Farm Island.