Foot and Fire

Sowing my love for you (Considerations before planting rice) By Gerlie M. Uy I have a bag of seeds, consider this as a bag of my love for you. Now, shall I sow my seeds of love to you directly or raise them in seedbeds first before proposing them to you? If I have twice more seeds, I shall do it directly, like gambling. But since my seeds are only a bag, I shall raise them first before transplanting them, ensuring your positive reception. But planting these seeds in your heart depends on many conditions other than your positive reception: Are we in the right place? Is this the right soil to grow our love? Will our love thrive in this ecosystem of snails and weeds? Will there be others ready to lend us hands? Finally, I shall deliberate on one more point: When shall I plant my love in you? After the quarter moon or the low tide passed? Again, to ensure your positive reception, I shall wait for the right time and rea...

Our roadtrip from Roxas, Oriental Mindoro where the Montenegro Lines RORO from Caticlan, Aklan arrives, to San Jose, Occidental Mindoro where the Tamaraw Sanctuary and the Pandan Island is closely located , can be summed into three words: Forest, Slopes and Ricefields. The forest is lush green and richly stood as sentinel to the national highway which is sloping and curving so that we feel that we are riding with the "cool drifters." After the long stretch of forest, the sight of golden palay is so cool and the stretch of the ricefields awed us. After passing by stretches of palays being harvested and after kilometers of palay laid on the national highway for drying Pinoy-style, we saw NFA bodegas. We were expecting to eat the local rice produce. To our disappointment, we did not partake of the juicy newly milled rice as the carinderia and the Jollibee in San Jose, Mindoro did serve us dry and not tasty boiled rice. At any rate, here are my photos of the road. ...

Tam Coc, about a two-hour drive from Hanoi, is another place which showcases the karsts or limestone formations in multitude. If Ha Long karsts are by the bay, Tam Coc karsts are by the river. One more fascinating thing about Tam Coc aside from the karsts is that one can see closely that the river is  actually  planted with rice. One can also row by the swimming ducks and pass by many temples, even in the center of the river. See our favorite spot in Tam Coc in the above photo, courtesy of our talented rower Mr. Son. (He rows with his feet while taking our photos.) A community of rowers with hundreds of boats... Rowers, ready to row. Fellow travellers went in while were going out.  Tam Coc sampling Mr. Son Karsts with rich green trees... Ducks, peacefully enjoying their swim by the growing rice plant. Quack, quack, quack... Ducks in serene mode. Buddy Bads with her Vietnamese seatmate.. Mr. Ten, you are thumbs up...