Davao day 1 - The morning landscape

Good morning Sir. Good morning Ma'am.

We are greeted this way EVERYWHERE we go. At first I thought maybe it was something we would just hear at the hotels from the staff, but not so. This seems to be a typical greeting when wanting to show a sign of respect. We also read an email from a Filipina lady who wrote about people we would meet here and put Sir and Ma'am in front of their names. To me it seems then they have replaced our Mr. & Mrs. with Sir and Ma'am. Love it!

I started going through yesterday's pictures and am overwhelmed by the beauty of the day. We took in so many sights within about 12 hours, ranging from garbage littered waters that children were walking in, to modern houses high on the hill, to natural jungle-like trails, to busy city streets and markets. And it was all beautiful. I am in awe of this land and this life. So completely different from most things I know.

The next few posts will be all from one day, but chopped into groups. This post will just be pictures from our morning drive to a beautiful nature type preserve that is still "in the city of Davao" but is actually an hour from the city. We had an hour of many, many sites.

As you will see, there is not as much wealth as in Manila. We learned that most taxes, and other monies, are directed to Manila. Davao sees VERY little of the money they give to the government. And yet, they seem so much more "relaxed" here and are very happy and devout to their land.

All of these pictures were taken from the car, so most are not in focus, there is no artistic set-ups, but all are trying to show just a small nugget of the sites we took in.

Houses on the water.

How many lanes should there be to drive on?
Looks like about four here. Think it was only supposed to be two.

Police vehicle transporting prisoners.

Ice plant. Maybe they should visit Wisconsin!

Motorcycles enclosed with cabs.

Jon loves seeing all of the Volkswagen beetles.
We have not seen any vans yet - those are his favorite.

Coke truck. These are everywhere!

Local construction.

We have been officially welcomed to Davao!

Houses are made with woven bamboo.
They are quite beautiful.

Many of the roads we drove on were dirt like this.

A lady in her garden

These are banana trees.
The bananas have been wrapped with blue and white bags to help keep bugs and birds off of them.
The papayas and mangoes are all individually wrapped in newspaper.

Corn! Now this is a site we understand!
However, many of the fields used their land in multiple ways.
The lower layer was corn.
Middle layer banana trees.
Top layer was the towering coconut trees.
Very resourceful.

Children's recess time at San Jose's Elementary school.

Did you enjoy our drive?

Mara