Riverbend Journal

Thanks for everyone who was concerned about my safety while I was away in the Philippines. Evidently there was an big earthquake while I was there though I knew nothing about it until I started receiving text and emails from concerned friends. It happened the day I was leaving the mountains of northern Philippines and heading to the nearest airport for a flight to islands off the west coast of the central Philippines. The earthquake in question was in the very southern part of the Philippines and thus far from me feeling it. The entire archipelago of islands however is on the Ring of Fire so earthquakes can happen anywhere in the chain and indeed a really large one occurred in the area I spent most of my time back in 1990 so not ancient history. I was just fortunate to be in a different part of the country when the earthquake struck. I had a great time in the Philippines. I visited some new territories to me as well as visited some that I visited back 23 years ago and even reposted som...

While I am likely still sleeping, jetlagged from my return yesterday from the Philippines, I will post one more old blog post from a prior trip. Here is one from from a trip back in 2003.   Going Back Home Typhoon Harurot was the worst typhoon to hit the Philippines in the last five years and the outer bands of it as it departed for Hong Kong were still lashing out at us as I made my way to the airport. Huge rollers coming in from the South China Sea would hit the barrier wall separating the ocean from the van I was riding in not twenty feet away. The resulting twenty-foot wave carried on heavy winds would engulf the road, our van and all other traffic even just a few feet away, giving the illusion that we were just a bubble in a washing machine. Though we were underwater about once every ten seconds, are driver kept going and only turned the windshield wipers up to medium speed as if it were all a mere annoyance. Such is life on a typhoon prone island.   I felt lucky to even ...

While I am away in the Philippines for the month, I will continue to have my blog publish some old posts from previous trips. Here is one from from a trip back in 2018.   One of the reasons we went back home was for the wedding of my brother-in-law. I was named as a Godfather by the couple, one of many so honored. In the Philippines, it is tradition not only to have godparents of children but of married couples too. It was held in a very old church in the old part of Manila and apparently has quite the revolving door for the marriage industry. Just as we were arriving at the church, another bride ahead of us was just entering the doors and getting walked down the aisle. Less than five minutes after she walked out of the church, my brother-in-law's bride was walking down the aisle. Five minutes after they exited the church as husband and wife, another bride was lined up to walk down the aisle. My brother-in-law looks to be 16 years old but is 30 and is a very successful CPA in Manil...

While I am away in the Philippines for the month, I will continue to have my blog publish some old posts from previous trips. Here is one from from a trip back in 2018.   The tradition in my wife's family is to have a New Year's Eve celebration with all her mom's brothers and sisters (there are five siblings total) and all their descendants. On New Year's Day, the tradition is a family reunion that includes the brothers and sisters and descendants of my wife's grandparents. This year that amounted to about 150 to 175 people. On more lightly attended years, we hold it at the same place as the New Year's Eve celebration in the courtyard of my wife's uncle's house. But it just wasn't big enough for 175 people so a first cousin of my wife who works in Saudi Arabia, let us use his farm. He bought the farm only about four years ago with absolutely no improvements made on it and has since put a lot of work and money into it. Above is the house he is having ...

While I am away in the Philippines for the month, I will continue to have my blog publish some old posts from previous trips. Here is one from from a trip back in 2018.   Christmas in the Philippines is a much different experience than here in the States. In prior trips at this time, the air has been full of sulfur fumes as millions of pounds of fireworks were set off in a non-stop stream from sometime in the week before Christmas to the day after New Years. I have always struggled to explain but it is like being in the middle of the fireworks display for the fourth of July at any major city on the east coast and by middle, I mean the middle of where they shoot them off. Riding through a city on New Year's Eve in a motorized tricycle, I could hear the cherry bombs bouncing off the metal enclosure around me a second or two before they exploded. It was spooky and dangerous for sure but that was the Philippines where the birth rate far exceeds the death rate. This time was different a...

While I am away in the Philippines for the month, I will continue to have my blog publish some old posts from previous trips. Here is one from from a trip back in 2018.   Itsy Bitsy Spider For the most part, bathrooms in the Philippines are stripped down versions of the ones here in the States. Many of them contain only a toilet and a sink. They are fully tiled with a drain in the floor and if you shower, you do so with a tabo or dipper which you use to poor water over you. As the country becomes more affluent, houses are starting to install at least one actual shower in the house but these are plumbed up to inline heaters with lots of dials, switches and scary looking electrical plugs plugged into sockets right in the shower with you. All this is leading me away from my main point which is that most bathrooms are very tiny compared to those here in the States.   The one where the above picture is taken was about three feet wide by about five feet deep. In order for me to use ...

While I am away in the Philippines for the month, I will continue to have my blog publish some old posts from previous trips. Here is one from from a trip back in 2005.   Joe Philippines: Part X Going grocery shopping in the Philippines is about as unique of an experience as you can get. Being a westerner, I am used to going into large box like grocery stores full of foods of all kinds stacked neatly on shelves and categorized into aisles. It is the definition of order, which starkly contrasts to the controlled chaos of the Filipino markets. The Filipino market in Baguio is more of a district or several block areas in town. Sidewalks crammed filled with smiling natives standing among a sea of baskets and containers holding a wide array of fruits and vegetables. Some look vaguely familiar to ones that I buy in the United States but most look like they were grown out back behind the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. My wife, mother-in-law and her sister, would walk through the sea of produc...

While I am away in the Philippines for the month, I will continue to have my blog publish some old posts from previous trips. Here is one from from a trip back in 2003.   Joe Philippines: Part VIII With a quiet word spoken in a foreign language that I didn't understand, I was instantly awake and this time the cobwebs hadn't yet taken hold of my brain. Most likely this was because it wasn't yet two in the morning and I hadn't yet fallen into a deep sleep. We were getting up early to begin a long nighttime journey to our destination and as it would turn out it would be the first of several during my stay in the Philippines. With an enormous population crammed into such a small land area and with only a few roads shared not only by vehicles but by bicycles, pedestrians, chickens, dogs, carabao, waterfalls, mudslides and cavernous potholes, Filipinos often get up before they go to sleep to get to where they were going to avoid everyone else who also have the very same idea....

While I am away in the Philippines for the month, I will continue to have my blog publish some old posts from previous trips. Here is one from from a trip back in 2003.   Joe Philippines: Part VII I woke up to the sounds of a hundred half starved dogs barking and one thousand roosters trying to do their best to wake me up. They succeeded but after spending 48 hours flying and driving half way around the world with no sleep, it took me a minute to realize where here was. Finally the cobwebs in my brain started to release their grip and I realized that here, was four stories down in a bunker of a room in Baguio City, Philippines. The partially renovated house where I was staying consisted of five stories tenaciously clinging to the side of an extremely steep ravine wall high up in the mountains of northern Philippines. The main level had just been completed on the roof of the existing structure (to raise it to the same level as the nearby road) along with an attic beneath a steeply p...

While I am away in the Philippines for the month, I will continue to have my blog publish some old posts from previous trips. Here is one from from a trip back in 2003.   Joe Philippines: Part VI We had traveled to the famous Banaue rice terraces, over some of the worst roads I have been over in my lifetime. The driver who looked all of fourteen, didn't inspire a lot of confidence as he made his way between Baguio City and a small village near the rice terraces over some of the most twisting mountain roads that left my stomach in roils. Dust choked the air until you almost needed a spoon to get it inside your lungs and once there, the rough bouncing of the jeepney bounced it right back out, never letting you hang onto even the slightest bit of it. The roaring of the straining engine soon quieted even the most avid chatterbox and I had spent lots of time on the ride, reflecting on my inner quiet and gazing in wonderment at the absolute beauty of northern Luzon. The Filipinos with me...

While I am away in the Philippines for the month, I will continue to have my blog publish some old posts from previous trips. Here is one from from a trip back in 2003.   Joe Philippines: Part V After my butt had been firmly pounded up into the vicinity of my lower neck by the bouncing of the jeepney over several hours, we arrived at the famous Sagada caves in northern Philippines. My then fiancé, her best friend, myself and a local Filipino holding a rusty lantern older than all four of our ages combined, headed down a steep path towards the entrance of the cave. As we entered into the throat, the warm breath of the cave flowed over us as we stopped and waited for the guide to bring the flame of life into the lantern. A small, feeble flame, debated whether to burn bright and decided to just stay small and feeble, guided us as we entered the bowels. Our walk down through the cave boulders quickly turned into something that I liken to trying to walk on greased marbles. I slipped but...

While I am away in the Philippines for the month, I will continue to have my blog publish some old posts from previous trips. Here is one from from a trip back in 2003.   Joe Philippines: Part III What do you get when you cross a Jeep with a mini bus? Although that question had never entered my mind, I discovered the answer while in the Philippines. What you get is called a Jeepney. The front end has the same grill, lights and shape of a Jeep but with wide flared fenders and the back end looks similar to a mini bus. They are everywhere in the Philippines and are a widely used source of public transportation. Most Jeepneys had routes that they followed with a sign listing both end points. Once you found the vehicle going your way you just climbed in and gave them your money, which is really harder than it looks. The entrance to these vehicles is located where an emergency exit door would be on a school bus. Once inside, the distance between the roof and the floor was about four feet...

While I am away in the Philippines for the month, I will continue to have my blog publish some old posts from previous trips. Here is one from from a trip back in 2003.   Joe Philippines: Part II Dawn was slowly starting to arrive as we neared the mountains of the northern Philippines. I had been riding in this mini van for almost six hours at this point and thought I was going to grow roots into the seat. We started up the mountain and the van immediately slowed down to a crawl. I had thoughts of getting out and walking beside the van to stretch my legs but thought it might be insulting to the owner of the van to have me walking beside it while he was pressing the gas pedal to the floor. Off to the left was a shear drop off into the river below and to the right was the blunt face of a cliff with not much room in between where we were. I decided to lighten the mood by sarcastically asking if this was the type of vehicle that we always read about in the American newspapers that were...

While I am away in the Philippines for the month, I will continue to have my blog publish some old posts from previous trips. Here is one from from a trip back in 2003.   Joe Philippines: Part I The air went from a controlled stale cold to heavy dampness that instantly clung to my entire body like a dirty fir coat two sizes too small as I stepped outside the airport doors. A smell not entirely different from that of a roomful of wet dogs assaulted my nose. A crowd of people speaking in a different language all jostled to get near me first and sell me a service or trinket that I did not understand or want. "Hey Joe," they would say before they rambled into a broken thickly accented English sales pitch of some sort. In my tired jet lagged state, it might as well have been Arabic for all that I could understand. Welcome to the Philippines I said to myself as I worked my way out of the crowd and started looking for my fiancé. My first trip down the sidewalk was unsuccessful in fi...