Today we returned to Bacolod from Hinoba-an, a small village in the south of Negros Occidental. We arrived at a cousin's beachfront house on two days ago just outside the village with Maitri's extended family for a sort of reunion. The drive was very beautiful through the circumferential island road and Hinobaan itself is situated in an area where the limestone hills meet the sea. The beaches are very rocky, having an almost volcanic appearance, and are inhabited by strange sea creatures I had never seen before, such as: starfish that move as fast as crabs, slithery creatures that appear to be scouring the sea floor for food, and long stringy starfish like things that look like worms at the tips.
Our journey from Boracay started the day after the last entry. We proceeded south along the western coat of Panay through San Jose Antique, then across the island to Iloilo City where we stayed overnight with Maitri's niece Tanya and her son Mikko. The next day we hung out at her place, then lunched at the mall and saw a movie at the local cinema, next to Tanya's work place. Finally, we all took the ferry to Bacolod to join Maitri's sister Becky and her family. We stayed two nights here. Saturday afternoon we visited the downtown market area, changed money, and went to the Sian Tian temple for a Buddhist lunch. But the highlight of our stay was the Maskara festival, an orgy of drumming, beer and alcohol drinking, meat BBQs, and overly loud music.
On Satuday night we decided Shanti, Kamala and I would return to Manila, then head north for the Mountain Province. We purchased tickets. Meanwhile, Maitri will go to Mindanao where she used to work in a lumber camp, and where we met. She is joining colleagues, including her sister Ligaya, for a work reunion.
Sunday morning, on the way to Hinobaan, Becky asked me if I had heard about the typhoon bearing down on north Luzon -- exactly where we were planning to go after leaving here. So the last couple days I have been scanning news reports of super typhoon Megi which just left the country after wreaking havoc in the area we plan to visit. We had heavy rainfall both at the beach yesterday and on the way back today.
One fun project we did at the reunion was to create a Verdun Soberano family tree complete with photos of all the participants who were staying with us. We discovered some family secrets, such as that Maitri's brother Shant appears to have a son no one had ever heard about. We are still awaiting details of this.
Tomorrow evening we will be leaving for Manila. We will be staying at Friendly's, a backpacker haven in Ermita, Manila at least one day, maybe more due to the bad weather in the north.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Boracay
We arrived in Boracay Sunday afternoon after a brief flight from Manila to Caticlan, on Panay Island. A quick banca and motorized tricycle ride got us to our destination, and we quickly checked into the Frendz guesthouse, recommended by Lonely Planet. However, despite the bright, sunny weather, we found it a little dark and hot and set way back from the beach so we decided to move the next day. An air con room is essential for the hot and humid weather we are experiencing. We dined right off the Main Road at an Indian restaurant, enjoying veg curry, aloo gobi, rice, and samosas.
Since our last trip in 1994 the place has changed dramatically. What was once a laid back, sleepy place now has development all over the island. Most of the development is concrete buildings, many 4 stories or higher. The hilly areas have big tourist resorts cascading down the slopes. Compared with my first trip here in 1982 it is of course like night and day. Back then, there were just a few nipa huts on the beach. Alan and I stayed almost a month before leaving for Kalibo and the AtiAtian festival. We stayed in our own private hut right in the middle of the beach. Our entire bill (food, lodging, and a couple souvenir T shirts) was well less than a thousand pesos. We spend almost twice that per night for our current lodging!
Monday we moved to Ban's guesthouse right on White Beach. It was dry all day and we were able to walk to the north end of the beach and visit the beachside Catholic sanctuary. We dined (veg fried rice, veg curry, rice and fruit shakes) at a nearby beach side eatery. We returned later in the evening for happy hour and enjoyed pina coladas, mango and pineapple daquiris, and other tropical drinks.
Tuesday we went to Bulabog beach on the north side of the island to see sunrise. Because it was cloudy we were not able to see the sun well, however. From there we walked north around the wider and higher elevation part of the island, returning to White Beach from the north. We also walked to the south end of White Beach to see more shops and resorts. There we took a pizza lunch. It was rainy most of the day so we hung out in the cottage move than we expected.
This morning Maitri and I walked again to Bulabog beach and then headed south to walk most of the beach area. Then we turned inland and returned to the main road thru a rather slummy area in the center of the island. Today we will continue to walk around the island.
Since our last trip in 1994 the place has changed dramatically. What was once a laid back, sleepy place now has development all over the island. Most of the development is concrete buildings, many 4 stories or higher. The hilly areas have big tourist resorts cascading down the slopes. Compared with my first trip here in 1982 it is of course like night and day. Back then, there were just a few nipa huts on the beach. Alan and I stayed almost a month before leaving for Kalibo and the AtiAtian festival. We stayed in our own private hut right in the middle of the beach. Our entire bill (food, lodging, and a couple souvenir T shirts) was well less than a thousand pesos. We spend almost twice that per night for our current lodging!
Monday we moved to Ban's guesthouse right on White Beach. It was dry all day and we were able to walk to the north end of the beach and visit the beachside Catholic sanctuary. We dined (veg fried rice, veg curry, rice and fruit shakes) at a nearby beach side eatery. We returned later in the evening for happy hour and enjoyed pina coladas, mango and pineapple daquiris, and other tropical drinks.
Tuesday we went to Bulabog beach on the north side of the island to see sunrise. Because it was cloudy we were not able to see the sun well, however. From there we walked north around the wider and higher elevation part of the island, returning to White Beach from the north. We also walked to the south end of White Beach to see more shops and resorts. There we took a pizza lunch. It was rainy most of the day so we hung out in the cottage move than we expected.
This morning Maitri and I walked again to Bulabog beach and then headed south to walk most of the beach area. Then we turned inland and returned to the main road thru a rather slummy area in the center of the island. Today we will continue to walk around the island.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Manila
We arrived in Manila early Thursday morning on a new trip to the Philippines to participate in a family reunion with Maitri's clan in Negros and her old work buddies in Mindanao.
We quickly settled into the Pension Natividad, where we had stayed on a prior visit to Manila. Maitri's brother Shant met us later in the day and we lunched at Bodhi's in the nearby SM City Hall mall. We had brought him hardware to make music for some projects he is working on in Baguio. Before leaving the mall, we purchased an internet device that enables web connection anywhere in the cell phone area of service. This will allow us to stay connected when we are outside cities, as most populated areas in the country have cell phone coverage.
Later in the evening we met our daughters Shanti and Kamala who were arriving from Hong Kong. They had been staying there several days on the start of their SE Asian travel adventure. After resting overnight we spent the day showing them around nearby markets, malls, and some tourist sites.
Today, our last day in Manila before leaving for the beaches of Boracay, we plan to visit the Divisoria Market, Chinatown, and a nearby mall.
We quickly settled into the Pension Natividad, where we had stayed on a prior visit to Manila. Maitri's brother Shant met us later in the day and we lunched at Bodhi's in the nearby SM City Hall mall. We had brought him hardware to make music for some projects he is working on in Baguio. Before leaving the mall, we purchased an internet device that enables web connection anywhere in the cell phone area of service. This will allow us to stay connected when we are outside cities, as most populated areas in the country have cell phone coverage.
Later in the evening we met our daughters Shanti and Kamala who were arriving from Hong Kong. They had been staying there several days on the start of their SE Asian travel adventure. After resting overnight we spent the day showing them around nearby markets, malls, and some tourist sites.
Today, our last day in Manila before leaving for the beaches of Boracay, we plan to visit the Divisoria Market, Chinatown, and a nearby mall.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Today we met with Joe, Pam, and the owners of the apartment complex in NE Portland we are considering converting to a permaculturally oriented cohousing community or ecovillage. We got good news. The current owners are willing to sell to the four of us as partners in the project! So over the next month or so we will be finalizing the details of the transaction.
This means we will be moving to NE Portland by this fall to reside in the complex as we work on its conversion to a more sustainable community. We are naturally quite excited by this turn of events and are looking forward to the project. We have been dreaming of living with other permaculturists for several years -- we will finally have our opportunity.
Afterwards the four of us met and discussed details of how we will go about the process. There is much to be done as we have quite ambitious goals: reclaiming much of the paved area for conversion into gardens, setting up community garden, composting, and recycling areas, weatherization of the dwellings characterized by seventies era construction, addition of new green features like solar water heaters, construction of a common house, and more.
We hope to use our blog to document some of what we are doing and to convey the excitement of a nascent ecoloigcally minded community in NE Portland.
On another note, Vlad and Luke helped me this morning almost double our composting capacity. Due to the large volume of compost we have from Food Not Bombs and New Day School, our existing four compost chambers are full. The three new chambers built from discarded pallets will allow us to take advantage of this valuable resource to more quickly build the soil fertility of our SE Portland permaculture site.
This means we will be moving to NE Portland by this fall to reside in the complex as we work on its conversion to a more sustainable community. We are naturally quite excited by this turn of events and are looking forward to the project. We have been dreaming of living with other permaculturists for several years -- we will finally have our opportunity.
Afterwards the four of us met and discussed details of how we will go about the process. There is much to be done as we have quite ambitious goals: reclaiming much of the paved area for conversion into gardens, setting up community garden, composting, and recycling areas, weatherization of the dwellings characterized by seventies era construction, addition of new green features like solar water heaters, construction of a common house, and more.
We hope to use our blog to document some of what we are doing and to convey the excitement of a nascent ecoloigcally minded community in NE Portland.
On another note, Vlad and Luke helped me this morning almost double our composting capacity. Due to the large volume of compost we have from Food Not Bombs and New Day School, our existing four compost chambers are full. The three new chambers built from discarded pallets will allow us to take advantage of this valuable resource to more quickly build the soil fertility of our SE Portland permaculture site.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
We've been back in Portland a little over 24 hours and are getting re-acclimatized to Oregon. Still having some jet lag due to the 16 hour time difference between here and Philippines. It was raining when we arrived but things dried out enough to see last night's lunar eclipse.
We're already resuming our Portland projects. We've got plenty to do in our permaculture garden, called Amrita for "nectar", located here in SE Portland.
We have been working with the Food Not Bombs vegan mass feeding program and accepting all their excess organic produce and food scraps in our large, and expanding, compost area. We have already filled 4 compost chambers, each probably 2 cubic yards, from their abundance. So we will be working with Vlad, one of the group's leading and most energetic members, to construct 3 more chambers. Our compensation for this, besides the satisfaction of working with such a worthy group and great, idealistic folk, is that virtually all our own organic produce needs are met. Yesterday afternoon I spent several hours processing asparagus, apples, pears, oranges, potatoes, tomatoes, purple and green kale, lettuce, leeks, and peppers. All these organic vegetables would have ended in the compost pile had I not gleaned them! When we arrived our fridge was bare. Now it is filled with many dishes.
We will be planting several more fruit trees on the property in the next few weeks. Already we have 5 apple trees. We have pear, prune, and cherry trees waiting to plant. The grapes need pruning, and we plan also to move the large rainwater collection swale to a different location in the yard. We will be adding more rain chains and have already obtained a thousand gallon scrap iron water tank from craigslist for rainwater collection that needs installation. Last fall we replaced the dysfunctional wide driveway with a much narrower strip driveway and its landscaping needs to be completed. We plan to plant strawberries in the center strip.
Our community garden plot at Clinton Community Garden needs some preparation for spring. Its kale garden has been supplying fresh greens through the Fall and Winter to the neighboring New Day Ananda Marga School.
This afternoon we are meeting with our partners Joe and Pam Leach to continue work on a thirty plus unit cohousing/ecovillage concept we would like to implement in inner NE Portland.
The idea is to take an existing apartment complex with many typically American environmentally unfriendly attributes and turn it into a showcase of green building and sustainability concepts.
For example, the existing parking area is right in the middle of the property, dominating the site in an automobile-oriented but pedestrian (and especially children) unfriendly manner. Our plan is to move this parking to the (ideally, street side) perimeter. This will drastically reduce the site's impermeable surface and get cars out of the main site. Additionally, it will allow us to channel all pedestrian traffic into one common entrance area, facilitating social interaction among the residents. The center of the site can then be reclaimed for an organic community garden and other community space. We are contemplating other uses, such as a children's playground and a greenhouse.
In cohousing fashion, we would like to expand the inside common areas to include a dining and meeting area, laundry center, and workshop space.
We're already resuming our Portland projects. We've got plenty to do in our permaculture garden, called Amrita for "nectar", located here in SE Portland.
We have been working with the Food Not Bombs vegan mass feeding program and accepting all their excess organic produce and food scraps in our large, and expanding, compost area. We have already filled 4 compost chambers, each probably 2 cubic yards, from their abundance. So we will be working with Vlad, one of the group's leading and most energetic members, to construct 3 more chambers. Our compensation for this, besides the satisfaction of working with such a worthy group and great, idealistic folk, is that virtually all our own organic produce needs are met. Yesterday afternoon I spent several hours processing asparagus, apples, pears, oranges, potatoes, tomatoes, purple and green kale, lettuce, leeks, and peppers. All these organic vegetables would have ended in the compost pile had I not gleaned them! When we arrived our fridge was bare. Now it is filled with many dishes.
We will be planting several more fruit trees on the property in the next few weeks. Already we have 5 apple trees. We have pear, prune, and cherry trees waiting to plant. The grapes need pruning, and we plan also to move the large rainwater collection swale to a different location in the yard. We will be adding more rain chains and have already obtained a thousand gallon scrap iron water tank from craigslist for rainwater collection that needs installation. Last fall we replaced the dysfunctional wide driveway with a much narrower strip driveway and its landscaping needs to be completed. We plan to plant strawberries in the center strip.
Our community garden plot at Clinton Community Garden needs some preparation for spring. Its kale garden has been supplying fresh greens through the Fall and Winter to the neighboring New Day Ananda Marga School.
This afternoon we are meeting with our partners Joe and Pam Leach to continue work on a thirty plus unit cohousing/ecovillage concept we would like to implement in inner NE Portland.
The idea is to take an existing apartment complex with many typically American environmentally unfriendly attributes and turn it into a showcase of green building and sustainability concepts.
For example, the existing parking area is right in the middle of the property, dominating the site in an automobile-oriented but pedestrian (and especially children) unfriendly manner. Our plan is to move this parking to the (ideally, street side) perimeter. This will drastically reduce the site's impermeable surface and get cars out of the main site. Additionally, it will allow us to channel all pedestrian traffic into one common entrance area, facilitating social interaction among the residents. The center of the site can then be reclaimed for an organic community garden and other community space. We are contemplating other uses, such as a children's playground and a greenhouse.
In cohousing fashion, we would like to expand the inside common areas to include a dining and meeting area, laundry center, and workshop space.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Today is our last day in Manila and we have been working on updating our blog and web photo albums and posting restaurant reviews for places we have visited. Also, doing our last emails. We also plan to go out for lunch and try to visit some places with soy soft serve ice cream.
Yesterday we did our last grocery shopping, and then went to a spa for a one hour full body massage for each of us.
We also finished watching some DVDs we had available. They were apparently pirated versions of current first run US movies copied, reportedly, in China. We should have guessed, since the latest James Bond movie, which just recently appeared in theaters, only cost one dollar. The packaging made them look like official copies. Although the image was decent, the English subtitles, apparently supplied in China, were outrageous (and non-sensical) and the sound also very poor! It just goes to show you get what you pay for.
Tonight is our flight back to San Francisco. We are looking forward to Spring in Oregon, gardening, and resuming work on our multiple Portland projects!
Yesterday we did our last grocery shopping, and then went to a spa for a one hour full body massage for each of us.
We also finished watching some DVDs we had available. They were apparently pirated versions of current first run US movies copied, reportedly, in China. We should have guessed, since the latest James Bond movie, which just recently appeared in theaters, only cost one dollar. The packaging made them look like official copies. Although the image was decent, the English subtitles, apparently supplied in China, were outrageous (and non-sensical) and the sound also very poor! It just goes to show you get what you pay for.
Tonight is our flight back to San Francisco. We are looking forward to Spring in Oregon, gardening, and resuming work on our multiple Portland projects!
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Tomorrow is our last day in the Philippines, so we are wrapping up all the projects we want to complete before our departure. We want to finish seeing the DVDs we purchased here. We want to go to a nearby spa for massage. We will have one last trip to Chinatown and the local malls to do final shopping.
This morning we are bringing our diary up to date and processing our most recent batch of photos. The latter includes editing out poor shots and duplicates, naming and captioning the good photos, and stitching together multiple shots into panoramas. Once this is done we will update our on-line blog and photo albums.
This morning we are bringing our diary up to date and processing our most recent batch of photos. The latter includes editing out poor shots and duplicates, naming and captioning the good photos, and stitching together multiple shots into panoramas. Once this is done we will update our on-line blog and photo albums.
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