A Pinoy in the Turban-ned world

Nots and Wico brought me to the Dubai desert, already 20 min to Oman. It is my first desert, with very fine orange-red sand. I really am fascinated by the patterns, different kinds!

Start of our roller coaster ride patterns, patterns and patterns

And after sunset everybody went to the camps, "there are more than 20 camps", said our Pinoy driver. Dinner in the camp is included in the package price, as well as the traditional Arab night show, belly-dancing.

Basins of food, but i can't eat ruminants! Carpets on desert sand! What a sight!

The Snowdrop Festival

  was really lucky as the invitation for the Snowdrops Festival was only announced in the session i was in that time on Thursday pm. It turned out that Dr Mustafa was the guest speaker in the affair. Ibradi place is more than 1,600m ASL, inside the Taurus mountain at the foot of the snowcapped mountain seen at the hotel. The road was literally build in the rocks. These rocks are already the exposed parent materials, because it is already an ancient country that erosion already took most of the topsoil, extremely difficult and looks very unwelcoming to living things. The vegetation is mostly of bonsai-like trees and those that gets bigger might be extremely old.

The program was held in open hot-noon sun, just below the snowcaps. It was really hot that i covered my head with jacket, although i was the only one doing that. The Turkish people liked the sun and the kids had their cheeks already flaming red. It was amazing that water flows freely from springs coming from the rock crevices. Presence of little amount of soil allows them to plant some crops especially vegetables.

Snowdrops signal the start of spring, and they come in many colors.

Rocks with little soils optimized for crops

Old ladies making wrapper and Borekler (pastry)

Yogurt making inside goatskin.... and cooking wrapper for Borekler

The Borekler and food for lunch (beans, rice with sheep meat, bread, soup, dessert

Bohol Revisit

We stayed in a seaside resort in Panggangan Island, Calape. It was owned by an Ilocano wife and a British husband. This is a very common partnership in most resort establishments in Bohol.

The cottages look simple outside but clean and great inside the rooms. We enjoyed the big bathrooms. Here i am contemplating on my photos on a convenient hammock under big trees.

My travel buddy at work

idyllic scenes from the viewdeck

While Marlowe was contemplating on his lecture on social science researches and community development, i was contemplating on the smell of this squid delicacy, hmmm!

We also visited the broodstock fish culture in cages. We have to ride a small boat to the cages in the open sea. At the first cage are milkfish broodstocks. At the right is Marlowe's photo of me looking closely at the big mouths of meter-long groupers (lapu-lapu). I love seafood and lapu-lapu is my favorite fish. I wonder what happens when one accidentally plunge into the cages of these voracious cannibals. I asked the caretaker if i was the only one who looked at them in this position, he said 'yes'. hehe.

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To Isabela Province

The Intellectual Property (IP) Management Training Workshop for the Cagayan Valley Agriculture Resources Research and Development (CVARRD) Consortium is the first joint IP Activity of BAR and PCARRD. Our trip to Echague, Isabela took us 12 hours, lower back pain and really tired body. We stayed in the only hotel in Alicia for 2 nights and decided to leave on the 3rd night for a better place in Nueva Viscaya State University.

A videoke night capped the 1st night, tired body and minds did not hinder the desires to sing their hearts out.

Cordillera Mountains viewed at the opposite end

Triangular 'suman' at the boundary of Nueva Ecija and Nueva Viscaya

Tugui root crops and turmeric or 'luyang dilaw' sold in that store-restaurant at the boundary

Rattan fruits and the very blue sky on the way back to Manila

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More pictures from Saigon

The first tour we explored in Saigon is Benh Than Market. It is a big market where you can find anything, 'parang malaking tiangge'. It is clean and organized. We went there at 11 am and went home at 3pm. Our lunch is at Pho 24, recommended by most of the sales ladies at Benh Than. I realized maybe pho means noodles, because they only offer noodles and spring rolls. But the food is great. Actually we ended again there on Friday when we returned to Behn Than, as highly requested by Mommy Josie, Joyce's Mom. The first day Dennis bought a Vietnamese man's formal shirt so i bought one for Marlowe too. I hope his disappointment will be eased by this shirt. Dennis said they can use this when we go view concerts at the CCP. I just hope they will not use them at the same time. On Fri i bought a Vietnam dress and a blouse for Leony, and a lot of T-shirts for my friends because Mom Josie bought a lot too. My interesting finds are the art sketches, which actually are more expensive than the long formal dresses. I found them expensive, but eventually decided i really like them. The typical ladies in traditional dress with 'salakot' on bicycles is a common subject for these sketches. I got 5 for my closest friends and 1 for myself.

Entrance to the Benh Than Market


Colorful dried fruit and vegetable preserves
Colorful layers of bags

This are mounds of different colors of sugar. I dont know the differences. I actually smell them and these are really sugar-smelling crystals.

Do you know what these are? Dried sea cucumber or 'trepang' for Chinese (yata).

I love this one, a finely sculpted young coconut for the juice (buko). I wonder why their buko juice is really sweeter than ours, even if ours is really very freshly harvested. It could be the variety. I remember Vietnamese buko is as sweet as the Thailand buko. However, the Vietnamese is more nicely sculpted. Both remains white and not oxidized for long periods. The postharvest people knows what they do to let it stand white for a long time, but i will not tell you how. Secret!