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Bushman In The Philippines: Santo Nino

 

We traveled from Tuguegarao City to the village of Santo Nino.  My guide, Sonny is from that village and I wanted to visit his family and friends there.  Please note that many of these photos were taken from a moving jeep without looking through the viewfinder, due to circumstances.

This is our Jeepney driver, who spoke excellent English and was very polite, calling me “sir” throughout the entire trip, lol.

We made our way out of the city and headed to the village.

We stopped at this grain warehouse to pick up some bags for the village.  I snapped this guy spreading out some kind of grain for it to dry in the sun.  We’ll see more of this later, so follow along with me while I figure out what this stuff is.

This is the local chicken store.

They bind the feet of the chickens and you simply grab them and throw them up onto the Jeepney.  It doesn’t get any fresher than still alive.

Some of the road sections are in bad shape because of the big truck traffic.

I saw these bags alongside the road.  At this time I didn’t know what they were for.

Notice that the road has this golden hue to it.

It was only after we got really close that I realized this was corn placed on the road surface to dry!

Then I saw these farmers sweeping up the dried corn and bagging it up, leaving the bags at the roadside to be picked up later.

No one drives on the corn.  Most of the local people are farmers themselves and they respect the crop of the other farmers, too.

This might seem like an unsanitary method of drying corn, but honestly, what else can the farmer use?  The road is the only flat surface that’s relatively free of debris and has the vast area required to dry a large crop.

No corn can be dried on this gravel part of the road, however.

Soon we approached a body of water.

It turned out to be a large river.

What is this thing out on the water?  Believe it or not, it’s a locally fabricated ferry boat made from 3 boat hulls!

This ferry was carrying a fully-loaded Jeepney and it’s passengers across the river!

I walked around to the other side to get a better look at the loading procedure.  The shack-like structure is for passengers to get out of the hot sun while they cross the river.

The Jeepney is going to board the ferry.  I’m glad that I took the driver’s suggestion and got out of the Jeepney for this procedure!

I walked aboard following Sonny, in the black shirt and ball cap.  Notice the wide gaps in the deck planking!

This is the car engine that drives the beast.

This small gasoline powered pump keeps the bilge water at a manageable level.

This is the “captain” steering the boat with a home-brew tiller arrangement.

Yikes!

I shot a short video of the ferry ride with my Samsung Galaxy S phone:

Even in this remote area, there is cellular telephone service.

Sonny told me that the river’s peak depth is about 25 meters!  Considerable in volume, this river often floods its banks inland to a distance of more than 1 KM and that it washed out the bridge (which is why there is a ferry).  The government isn’t going to rebuild the bridge because the river will wash it out again.

This is our destination dock up ahead.

Notice the cut log sections.  These are used to manage the height of the planks to match the ferry as it docks.

This guy man-handled the ferry into position with a rope and his back.

As soon as the ferry was tied up, we disembarked.

The people came across first and then the Jeepney.

I asked one of the men if there had ever been any accidents, and he told me that recently (a “few months ago”) a Jeepney had fallen off the ferry.  He didn’t go into detail, but it sounded bad.  I didn’t ask any more questions.

Once back on dry land we headed to the village.

This area has some of the finest corn I’ve ever seen, or eaten!

Soon, we turned down the main road of the village.

I got off the Jeepney and went around the back to say goodbye to my fellow passengers.

Alas, our destination – Sonny’s store.  His home is behind the store.

Traveling to the Philippines: Tuguegarao City

My trip to the Philippines, and my visit to Tuguegarao City.  I was fortunate to be able to visit this city 2 times.  Once when passing though on my way to the Cayagan Valley, and then on my way back, so this article will be a composite of both visits.    Here is what it’s like to visit Tuguegarao City:

This hastily framed photograph is of the terminal building at Tuguegarao Airport.  This is one of the smallest airports I’ve been to, but perhaps not the smallest.

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This was our plane.  Notice the figures surrounding it. There were Philippine military guards placed around the plane because apparently our passenger plane was also carrying a lot of Philippine currency that was being transferred.

 

Here is the armored truck that was being loaded.  The boxes are currency.

Apparently Filipino people are so used to security guards that having soldiers around, carrying fully automatic weapons didn’t bother anyone.

More currency coming down the conveyor.

 

Finally, after about 45 minutes (where nothing was explained, at least in English) I see my bag coming down the conveyor (the blue one).

Now it’s time to leave!  But how will we be getting to our destination?

By the standard mode of transportation in the Philippines – Jeepney!

This is Sonny (my guide in the Philippines) and his wife making their way to the Jeepney that will take us to their village (another article).

Each Jeepney runs on a fixed route (but not necessarily on a fixed time).  Written on the side and front of each Jeepney is the route it will take.

Horse drawn carriage is a common way to get around Tuguegarao City.

Unlike some places we’ve been before, water buffalo in the Philippines are tame and friendly.

We’re heading into the main city (on our way back from the village).

We visited a newly-built mall area.  Gotta love the green color!

Sonny took me on a walking tour around to check the place out and do some shopping.

This is a fairly typical Southeast Asian street scene.  Tuguegarao City reminded me of places in Thailand and Laos, but the signs were in English!

Photo by Salvador Rivera

The people that I met on the street were exceedingly nice.  These girls came over to Sonny and asked if they could have a photo with me.  Sonny said “sure” and he took this photo.

The number of tricycles is amazing.

 

We went to this store to buy something for my wife.

Back on the street, we continued walking around, checking out the place until it was time for my flight back to Manila.

I didn’t try the horse-drawn carriage, but perhaps next time.

Some overhead shots taken from the second floor of that green mall building.

Overall, I had a great time in Tuguegarao City, and I want to go back there.  The people there are fantastic, so warm and friendly.  The shopping is a lot cheaper there than in Manila and if you want to buy a watch or have one repaired, or buy some good shoes, I can recommend going to the City. Thanks for reading!  You may leave us your comments below, and please use the icons below for social media sharing.

Photos by MJ Klein, except where noted

Titty Tea Has Cookout for Regular Customers

 

A few weeks ago, Titty Tea hosted a cookout for their regular customers.  Here’s a taste of what we cooked.

Now you know that anything that begins with charcoal and a torch is going to be good! Notice the round aluminum grill.  I’ve been wanting to get one of these to use with the Dutch oven, and finally I did.  This one fits my 12″ Dutch oven like it was made for it.  Using this grill meant that I didn’t have to build the fire on the ground and I didn’t lose much heat.

Most good meals begin with garlic….

To which I added the meat – in this case Australian shin muscle.

Next to me, Marcus had a grill set up and was doing various kinds of meat, these bratwurst being some of what he was grilling.

Once the meat was browned nicely, it was time to add more ingredients to the pot.

Sliced white onions went in next.

Followed by potatoes and carrots.

Regular readers of this blog know that I like to cook with oyster sauce.  It adds a great flavor element and also negates the need to add additional salt to the dish.

Our friend Marcus brought some rosemary that he had grown in his herb garden, and it made a very nice contribution to our pot.

This is the scene beside where Hui-chen and I were set up.  The closest 2 grills are for cooking vegetarian food items.

Once the 12″ Dutch oven was going, I started another dish in the 8″.  Here we see bacon and sliced onions being sauteed.

A quick check on the contents of the 12″ and we’re back to the 8″.

In a local baking goods store, I found several varieties of beans, which I added to the bacon and onions.

This slightly-out-of-focus shot shows the 2 kinds of beans in the pot, stacked on the 12″.

This is the second type of bean I used.

And this is the brown sugar that went into the dish also.

In the meantime, Hui-chen had our other grill going, with these ribs (and something else in foil that was cooking for someone else).

That’s Bootsy BBQ Sauce that Hui-chen is brushing on the ribs.  They were very popular with everyone.

Now it’s time for grilled corn!

This type of grilled corn is virtually unknown to local people in Taiwan.  But once our Taiwanese friends tried it, they agreed that it is much better than the dried-out-to-death grilled corn that is served in night markets all around Taiwan.

Marcus surprised everyone with some of his home-baked sourdough bread.

Here is a closeup.  I can’t tell you how good this bread was, but it was some of, if not the best bread I’ve ever eaten.  Honestly!

We settled into evening as I got the last dish ready – a Dutch oven cake that I baked in the 10″.

 

Now, Marcus really outdid himself on this one – a tiramisu that was outstanding!

Hard to see, but this is a close up of the inside of the tiramisu.  I have no idea how he did it, but Marcus managed to balance the flavor elements perfectly, creating the best tiramisu that I have ever tasted! Marcus is some kind of culinary genius!

 

Most of the Dutch oven fare was gone….

Here we see the 10″ with the cake baking.  It came out OK.  The fire was a tad too hot I think but overall it was pretty good.

 

 

 

 

Taiwan’s Pinyin Road Progress: Signs Are a Changin’

 

Driving around in Pinyin recently, we noticed that some names on highway and road signs have changed:

Take a close look and you’ll see the entire name on the left has an overlay, and “Zhu” on the right is overlaid on the sign.

But not just in that one spot – it seems that every sign we saw within a certain radius has been changed too.

“Zhudong” got a makeover too.

But on certain highways, the changes haven’t caught up yet.  In case you’re wondering, “Cyonglin” is the former spelling of the new “Qionglin” seen at the beginning of this article.

Several words on these signs will eventually be changed.  The reason they are changing is because the government of Taiwan has adopted the standard Hanyu Pinyin for all place names in the country (back in 2002).  Now I’m all for standards, but personally I dislike Hanyu Pinyin because it’s hard to tell the actual pronunciation from the looks of the spelling – it’s not instinctive.  Hanyu Pinyin uses the English letter “Q” without the following (and necessary) “u” which violates the rules of English.  Another hair-brainer is the use of “X” for the “sh” sound.  So, instead of using the easy-reading “shiao” (for 小) they use “xiao” which also makes no sense in English.  One may as well learn BoPoMoFo.  I did 3 semesters of Chinese at NCTU in Hsinchu and I’m still not sure how to pronounce certain Hanyu Pinyin spellings.

I do understand the need to adopt a standard, and I also understand the reason behind choosing Hanyu Pinyin.  I just think it gives a “PRC” feel to the island’s names.

Now this just looks weird.  Take a look at the Chinese words in these 2 green signs.  You don’t have to read Chinese to be able to see that the second word in “Hsinchu” is the same as the first word in “Zhubei”  (竹 which means “bamboo”).  Eventually “Hsinchu” will become “Hsinzhu” if the standard is to be held.  Also, the second word “bei” in “Zhubei” (北 “north”) is the exact same word used in “Taipei” (台北) which means that someday Taipei will become “Taibei!”

This is the worst example of Pinyin I have ever seen!  I have no idea what system this is, and it almost looks like Cantonese.

This sign was shot across the street from the previous one and shows the correct Hanyu Pinyin rendering of 中山.

Open Mic Night in Taiwan

We recently held the first in a series of Open Mic nights at Titty Tea in Jhubei.  I was one of the hosts for the event.  Let us take you through the highlights of the evening:

The event was held upstairs in this beautiful room.

Mimi started the show off with a reading of Shakespeare.  Her English is really great and she did a very nice reading for us.

Next, our co-host of the evening, Van Stokes, played some country songs.  The audience loved them!  Hearing those kinds of songs in Taiwan is a rare treat!  Van will be playing more country songs next weekend!

Our good friend Michael Turton told some jokes in Chinese.  He had the audience roaring with laughter!

This is Allie, singing a local favorite.  She was quite good.

Van and I played a few songs together, in-between the other performers.

This is Joe, who decided to play a few tunes for us, without any preparation!  Later his brother joined him, singing a song while reading the lyrics off his iphone!  They said they will be back next week with some songs prepared.  We can’t wait!

Towards the end of the night, Shawn (the owner of Titty Tea) and Van did a cool ditty that everyone enjoyed.

Pauline came in at the end of the night and played several tunes of her own composition.  She sounded great, and she said she’ll be back again, so we’re looking forward to that!

Titty Tea is hosting Open Mic Night, every Saturday in the month of June.  You’re all invited to join us and you’re also invited to perform!

This article is geotagged with the location of Titty Tea, so take a look at our Map to find it.

A Photo Experience of Mountainous Neiwan in Taiwan

Last Monday was a holiday in Taiwan, and our friend Xiao-hui (also spelled “Shao hui” in some blog articles) invited us to join her party at Neiwan, a touristy town in the mountain region of Taiwan.

We made our way down under this bridge to a flat area beside the river.

I could hear karaoke music coming from the place beside the far end of the bridge.  Sometimes, there is just no escaping it….

Making my way down to the riverside, this is where all the people are gathered, doing their thing….

These days, Xiao-hui’s staff is Vietnamese, since nearly all the Thai people have gone back home.  These guys (who are with us) were scouting out a good place to camp out.

You can see how crowded it is in this place.  So naturally we were looking for a clearing.

The black hose in this photo comes from the far end of the bridge and brings water to this side.

Beside the automobile bridge is a pedestrian suspension bridge.

We decided to go down a trail to find a place with less people.

Part of the trail involved walking under this trellis.  At my height it wasn’t pleasant.

Then, the trail required us to walk over these boulders.  Not pleasant either.

Finally we reached the river, a few hundred meters upstream from where we began.

That’s Hui-chen with the hat, scoping out the river.

The young Vietnamese guys suggested that we cross the river at this point and end up on the other, less populated, side of the river.  I took a few steps on the very slippery rocks and decided that with a Samsung Galaxy S mobile phone in my pocket, a camera bag on my shoulder, and a wife on my arm, it couldn’t safely be done.  The Vietnam contingent and Xiao-hui pressed on, while Hui-chen and I turned around and went back on the trail.

The plan was for us to cross the pedestrian bridge and somehow catch up with everyone on the other side of the river.

I want you to notice one thing….

The amount of trash that people just left at the bridge (like it’s going to clean itself up) was appalling.  Note to local people:  Do NOT do this unless your Mother is around to clean up after you!

Anyway, here we are on the other side of the river, on the suspension bridge, looking for a way to get down to the water.  There wasn’t one.  So, eventually everyone decided to go back to the place we originally went to.  We wasted about 45 minutes on that exercise.

Here we see some of our group trying to cross the river again, to get back to the original place we started.

Everyone was soaked (except Hui-chen and I) as they made their way back.  The blue cooler is ours.

Finally, the young guys got down to the business of making a fire, which they were very good at.

After the fire got going, they placed a couple of those famous Taiwanese scrap metal grills on top of the rocks.

And, before burning off the plating (which I believe is cad-chromate and therefore, poisonous) they started grilling.

In this shot you can see how shiny the plating is on the grill.  These are made from welded scrap pieces left over from stamping processes.  It’s an ingenious use of scrap material but i wish it wasn’t plated with that stuff.

Xiao-hui had a few pieces of pork, a mountain of beef, followed by goat. I ate mostly beef and it was out-of-this-world!

 

The sun was out and it was hot!  Being under the bridge only helped until the sun moved enough that the shadow was no longer covering us.

The Vietnamese contingient was drinking Heineken, absolutely the Worst Beer Ever!  They were also smoking a lot.

Xiao-hui’s son played in the river, under the watchful eye of one of the young men.

In the late afternoon people were sitting with their feet in the water, trying to cool off.

When it was time to go, we packed our gear and headed up the stairs to the street level.

But not before picking up all the trash.

I acquainted everyone with the American practice of “leaving the place better than we found it” by picking up other people’s trash too. Sometimes I wonder how Taiwanese can be so sophisticated and yet leave their trash all over the place like animals.  It’s baffling.

We hauled our trash out of the area.

We left our cooler and other stuff outside this 7-11.

It sat there for over an hour while we walked down the main street, checking out the shops.  No one even paid attention to it.

We’ve been to Neiwan before and we like this street a lot (but we never blogged on it before).

Photos by MJ Klein & Hui-chen

Bushman in The Philippines: Manila

Recently, I was in the Philippines on business.  I spent a few days in Manila and then I went up north to the Cagayan Valley.  Below are shots of Manila.  Greg was our driver, and Sonny was my guide in the Philippines.  Greg is a former Manila taxi driver and he knows the city like his own backyard.

Everyone I met in the Philippines was exceedingly polite.  In general, the people that I came into contact with were perhaps the nicest people I’ve encountered in all my travels.  This photo is one example of a “Jeepney” vehicle, the main form of public transportation in the Philippines.

We went out to eat and pulled into this area, known for seafood.  Notice the touts running around trying to get our attention.

Very persistent, the touts compete directly against each other for customers.  They are paid by the various places, and I assume it’s on a commission basis but I’m not really sure.  I just know that they are rather annoying when you’re trying to negotiate the street without hitting them.

Like many countries around the world, the Philippines has it’s share of political turmoil.  As a result, there are armed security guards in most places.  Even though at first it seems strange in the presence of people carrying guns (and sometimes automatic weapons) I felt entirely safe while I was visiting.

Everywhere I went, the security personnel were very professional, polite and approachable, unlike security forces I’ve seen in other countries.  The guards held doors open for me on many occasions and always had a nice warm greeting for me, never failing to call me “sir.”  That’s a tactical shotgun this guard is sporting.

As we neared our destination, we saw touts along the way, beckoning us into their establishments.  It wasn’t unlike visiting a fish market in Taiwan, for example.

I’ll be showing you some choice examples of the food I enjoyed in the Philippines in separate articles at the end of this series.

One tout makes a final desperate attempt to get our attention!

We had to visit several companies in the metro Manila area.  So we bought a large map of the area and laid it out on the restaurant table and located the places we wanted to visit so we could set up a logical route.  The greater urban area of Manila is the 5th largest in the world with an estimated population of 20.6 million people!  It was a good thing we had Greg driving as I would never have been able to manage getting around so efficiently without him.

Here we see Sonny, Greg and one of the girls from the restaurant trying to locate a place on the map.

Driving around, we saw lots of Jeepneys.

Just like Thailand, there are lots of street vendors who walk in between the lanes of cars stopped at traffic lights.

At night time, Manila has some great places to eat and hang out.

This is another very common form of local transportation in the Philippines – called the tricycle.  It’s a motorcycle sidecar.  Yes I did ride in one, and no, I did not fit.  I couldn’t raise my head enough to look out the window!

In some places the number of tricycles is considerable.  We’ll see more of them in the next installment.

Some tricycle owners have a sense of humor.

This is our hotel, the Aloha.

Since firearm carry is legal in the Philippines, many places aks you to check your firearms with security upon entering.  Our hotel was no exception.

This is the vehicle we used.  It was very comfortable inside, with sliding doors on both sides.

Our driver, Greg, poses for a shot.

Food in Taiwan: From Ribeye Steaks to Dragon mustache Vegetables

 

Hui-chen and I had dinner at the Rainbow Restaurant in Hukou.  That’s pork/garlic/basil on the right and fried egg Thai salad on the left.

Next up is this ribeye steak at Chubby in Jhuibei.

This is Hui-chen’s chicken salad at Chubby.  They deep-fry the chicken for this salad, which is a first for me!

This is a Toasted Almond (mixed drink) and brownie at Titty Tea, after Chubby.

This is pasta and bacon at Bravo in Jhubei.  Predictable, but quite good actually.  The pasta was not overcooked.

This is an order of sushi from 順億鮪魚專賣店 in Jhubei, one of the best places around for sushi.

This is a grilled tuna chin.  If you haven’t tried one of these, you don’t know what you’re missing!  They are fantastic!

Grilling at Xiao-hui’s!

We had Bootsy BBQ sauce on hand that afternoon.

Our last group of photos is from a nice lunch we had at 餃餃者麵食館 in Hsinchu:

Dragon Mustache vegetable.

Boiled dumplings.  These were better than a lot of places I’ve tried.

Pineapple shrimp, Taiwanese style.

Seafood roll.

We hope you’ve enjoyed these fine dishes and we’ll be sure to bring you some new ones again soon.  Hui-chen and I are in the habit of photographing nearly every meal we eat, just for the blog!

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