Philippine Travel Notes

Not your usual "origin-and-destination" pair. Not even mine too. It just happened that I needed to do work-related matters in both towns, in succession (same day), that I had no choice but to quickly run from one place to the other. That is about 250 kilometers far! Well, the most important thing is, I enjoyed the ride! Here's the 'hectic day' story... I set out early morning from Tacloban for an activity in one of the barrio's of Basey - yeah some kilometers beyond the town proper, even already near the jump-off point to the Sohoton Cave and Natural Bridge Park - but I did not go there this time - trabaho muna! Thankfully the activity ended noontime, otherwise they would have to serve me lunch! I made my way to the town center of Basey to look for lunch - there's a default carinderia I usually go to in this town if lunchtime comes and I'm still around. That's at Kuya Tani's. OMG, I found out I did not have enough money in my wallet,

Greetings Gandara #philippines! So I silently said as we crossed the highway walking towards center of town (I think). Happy I was doing this since I did not have any idea what might be worth my while in this town – reason why it is not listed in my itineraries! But as I always say, throw me anywhere in this country and I will surely see something interesting to do or watch or marvel at. First catch, a manong in his habal-habal carrying a big roll of ‘ abaca ’ (yep, Manila Hemp) and a bundle of firewood. Immediate question: was he delivering those or did he just buy them from the Gandara market? I could not of course holler at the man to stop him, only for me to ask a question. But things ran pesky in my head, iike “if they make abaca in this place, where would that be, how do they do it, which plant is it really” and many other similar questions. Interesting to one day stumble upon a place that’ll help me answer those questions, right?! Ah, let’s just hope it will be soon! The firewoo

This is a town, somewhere in (Western) Samar, along the Maharlika Highway between the cities of Calbayog and Catbalogan. I passed by this place many number of times before, but haven't yet got to step on it. So, one of those recent lucky days, a friend on an errand to this town dragged me along, and I did not have to make any second thoughts. I just very immediately said yes, and I went. Yey! I knew even then that this town is the province’s “rice granary”. You’ll see proof of that in the video (taken on our return to Catbalogan). I also know that this is “queseo” country (or kiseyo, or however you want to spell that) – those little white round patties made form carabao milk that most of us know as “white cheese”. And that is pronounced as “ke-se-yo”! Queso = cheese, but I don’t know (yet) what queseo really means in the waray-waray dialect or even in Spanish (if there is even such a word in Spain). Probably “little cheese” or “faux-cheese” or “cheese-like”. Ah, basta, white cheese