Renovation of Malunggay Life's Farm Shelter

We've done some renovations on our farm shelter to accommodate the new farm workers who started working for us since the second week of June. They asked us if they can stay and sleep in the farm because it is inconvenient for them to go home every day. 

The picture above is the completely renovated shelter. For pictures of the old shelter, you may visit my blog post "Making the Shelter for our Workers at our Moringa/Malunggay Farm."

The new farm workers (except the guy wearing the green shirt) who started working for us this June. From left-right: Mang Cris, Glery, Jimboy, and Edward.

Meanwhile, you might be interested to know how loads of bamboo were brought to us. We bought them from a Tagbanwa, one of the oldest ethnic group in the Philippines and can be found in Palawan. Nope, he did not carry them one by one as that would be one tough feat! He delivered the bamboo we needed for the renovations using his carabao and sled, called "karosa," which is also one of the primary means of transportation used by farmers here in Palawan.

Malunggay Life's Very Own Three-Wheels

Malunggay Life's motorized three-wheels

Our moringa (malunggay) farm is growing, we need to bring more tools and equipment inside, plus we need to harvest those moringa leaves that we prune, so we asked someone to fabricate a motorized three-wheels for us.

Initially, we wanted to just buy a kuliglig. The regular kuliglig is a vehicle which is composed of a two-wheeled tractor and its trailer at the end. A kuliglig does not need to be registered because it is considered a farm equipment by the Land Transportation Office of the Philippines (LTO). But since we do not need the tractor and our farm is not a rice field, we opted for the three-wheels. Although both kuliglig and three-wheels have engines powered by either gasoline or diesel, there are some differences:

1. Body - As I mentioned above, a kuliglig is composed of a two-wheeled trailer pulled by a two-wheeled tractor. The tractor's handlebars are used for steering the kuliglig. The motorized three-wheels, as the name implies, is composed only of 3 wheels: one in front where the engine is attached, and the two wheels attached to the body. The motorized three-wheels uses a steering wheel to steer the vehicle. 

2. Uses - A kuliglig can be used as means of transport, and as tractor in ricefields. The engine of the kuliglig can also be attached to a water pump to irrigate farmlands. Since the engine of the three-wheels is attached to the vehicle's body, I'm not sure we can use the engine in other ways. Right now, we use our three-wheels as our means of transport to bring our workers and farm equipment and other tools to our moringa farm. When we harvest our moringa leaves, we will also be using our three-wheels to transport the fresh moringa leaves from our farm to our drying facility.

Both kuliglig and three-wheels are prohibited on main roads because they are slow and cause traffic congestion. Here in Palawan, you will see them plying the National Highway in the rural areas, but you might never see them in Puerto Princesa City. 

For comparative purposes, you may see some pictures of kuliglig here and here.

The New Puerto Princesa International Airport

I was one of the fortunate ones to have witnessed the first day the New Puerto Princesa International Airport was opened to the public after its inauguration on May 3, 2017. I was flying PAL's last trip to Manila together with my cousin.

The old Puerto Princesa Airport had a floor area of only 3,000 square meters, but the new airport spans 13,000 square meters with a seating capacity of 1,500, and has parking lots for more than 200 cars. I was unable to take pictures of the airport from the outside because I was already in a rush to get inside to meet my cousin but Rappler has pictures of the new airport. 

Here are some of the pictures from inside the airport.

From inside the airport, there are two entrance gates that departing passengers may use. 

Upon entering, the check-in counters for Air Asia and Philippine Airlines are on the left side.

Cebu Pacific check-in counters are on the left side.

It's a ticketing booth space, but there are no ticketing booths yet.
Maybe when I come back to Palawan, I might be able to see some improvements.

Upon entering the departure gates, on your right, there are stores that sell Palawan souvenirs.
I've seen only two. Wait a few more months and maybe there might be more stores inside.

The terminal fee booth and the Security Check gate are on your right
from the check-in counters. Prepare P200 as terminal fee.

There are three gates for boarding passengers. The boarding gates for international flights are furthermost on the right. Forgive me for the blurry picture. :(

There is another shop inside the airport's boarding gates that sells Palawan souvenir items.

On the second floor, there is a coffee shop and a kiosk that serves rice meals and sandwiches.
I wasn't able to take a picture anymore because it was too late, and they were already closing.

The new Puerto Princesa International airport was a joint project
by the Department of Transportation and by the South Korean government. 

Gecko Time: The Palawan Gecko

I don't think I'd ever be able to overcome my fear of geckos. They're just weird-looking reptiles, with knob-like bumps all over their body. Whenever I see them, I feel that they are looking at me and ready to jump at me and attack me. I heard that when a gecko accidentally lands on your skin, they are hard to rid of.

They have been showing themselves to me for two consecutive days now. Huhuhu... Anyway, here are some things I've observed from them:

1. Most house geckos are nocturnal, meaning they go out of their "houses" just when you're about to sleep. Aren't they sweet? Perhaps they just want to bid me goodnight. 

2. Geckos like being with humans. Some of our neighbors and even my cousin believes that the arrival of a gecko into a home is a sign of good luck. Not a believer though.

3. In the Philippines, they are called them "tuko," and that's because of the strange [tuk'ohh] sound they make. According to some articles I've read (yeah, I've started reading about them!), geckos are considered the most vocal reptiles, and only the male geckos make a sound. They make this chirping sound to ward off predators, to attract females or to interact with others.

4. They come in different colors. So far, I've seen two humongous geckos at home, but I believe there's a third one from the neighboring lot right beside our home. He makes a different sound than the ones we have at home.

This is Blue. He's got blue speckles all over his bumpy body. 

This is Red. He's bigger than Blue. Just look at the nails on its feet. Scary creature!

5. Another interesting thing I found out about geckos is that they lick their eyes to keep them clean and lubricated. Geckos don't have eyelids so they use their tongues to lick their eyes. Okay, that creeped me out.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. And if you're ever wondering who took the pictures, I didn't. My dad did. :P