road trip

This week we had the amazing opportunity to visit a Filipino village together with Sammy, one of Mark's co-workers. The entire trip was exciting! Over the course of the next few days we'll be blogging more about it. For today we'll just share some images of the road trip.

For the entire 3 1/2 hours of travel from Davao, there were endless interesting sights...

...through countryside...

...and cities.

Check out all those trikes!!! I think ours was the only private car around!

We saw speed limit signs for the first time since arriving in the Philippines.

Fruit vendors sold their wares along the road in city and country.

Here's a bunch of guys hanging out around the pool table.

The vehicles we saw on the way defy imagination. I only wish I could have taken some better shots. Mark wasn't too thrilled with my suggestion to support great photos by driving at 15 mph.

This guy was trying to keep the load of cardboard balanced...

...ooops - now he's losing cardboard from inside!

The vegetation was gorgeous. Below is a field of coconut husks drying to be used as fuel. Not much goes to waste in this culture.

Fields of sugar cane

Rice fields

Rubber trees too!

There were also so many schools along the road, I lost track of how many we saw.

As we neared the village and began trying to read the fine details of the map, we found that it wasn't totally accurate. We took one minor detour, through a banana plantation and over this water-covered bridge. These photos don't do it justice... it was definitely worth the detour!

The vine bridge that spanned the river was tantalizing, but there was no time to explore.

Thanks to Sammy's Filipino good sense, we stopped and asked directions.

And soon we were on the final road leading up to the village.

Soon we'll blog about our days in the village!