Motag 'living museum' - traditional Filipino farming

On the island of Panay, in the central region of the Philippines, there is a 'living museum' near the city of Caticlan. It is a rice farm, set up and run in the way a rice farm would have been run in the 1930s i.e. no machinery, no modern technology; just living off the land and making do with what is around them. It was set up by the local government to create jobs for young Filipinos who do not wish to, or cannot afford to, go to university, and for older Filipinos to teach their agricultural and rural-living skills to the younger generation.

We had to book in advance as you are unable to just show up and look round - the people who work there only work on the days that a booking has been made, so that the farm does not lose money paying wages when there is no-one to show around. So make sure you book ahead of time if you ever plan to go!

We were shown round by three ladies, who walked us round the farm in about 2 hours, showing us all the different, ingeneous ways that the Filipinos lived off the land. The farmhouse, for example, was built entirely from bamboo and took about 6 months to build. Different parts of the bamboo plant were used for different sections of the house, so nothing was wasted.

We walked around the farm and were shown things like their medicinal herb garden, which had different plants for all kinds of ailments: asthma, headaches, tooth abcesses - you name it, they could cure it. 

We then walked out to the rice paddies, to see the traditional planting and harvesting methods for farming rice. It was here that we were introduced to their caribou, a water-buffalo type animal which is used to plough the fields and drag the cart, instead of a horse. We were given an opportunity to ride it, which perhaps unwisely, I took. Riding an animal with no saddle or reins is challenging, especially when it clearly doesn't want you on its back and might throw you off into muddy paddy field at any minute!

 Picture credit to Kim Johnson

Vita and Emma tried their hand at rice planting:

I had a go at threshing the dried rice; you stand on a raised platform and work your bare feet into bundles of dried rice. The grains fall through the bamboo floor onto a sheet below while the straw from the rice plant stays above, separating the two. The lady next to me had incredibly nimble feet that were a lot more skillful at threshing than mine!

There was a lady weaving banana leaves to make all manner of things: bags, baskets, slippers, the roof for a new outhouse. She made it look verey easy as she had been doing this for all of her life (83 years, we were later told) but Vita didn't find it as easy!

They had prepared traditional refreshments for us: fresh buko which is the young coconut fruit - the flesh is more soft and jelly-like than the dried coconut flesh we see in England. Also bananacue - barbecued banana with brown sugar, and a lemongrass and ginger tea, both picked fresh from the garden.

The elderly ladies of the farm, to whom this life was normal, rather than a 'throwback', seemed very taken with us and sat us down to sing to us in Tagalog, the national language (although each region also has its own local dialect too). They were very lovely ladies, all pretty old but still so full of life. They had very good English too so we were able to sit and talk to them for a little while and find out about their lives. One of them was 92 and still had a full head of naturally black hair (see the centre of the photo below); she confided that the secret to not going grey was to regularly use pure coconut oil on your hair. We all immediately promised to give it a try!

The museum was set up to show tourists the 'real' Philippines, as most foreign visitors come to that area to relax on the beach with a cocktail, and try out the watersports that nearby Boracay has to offer. We went to Boracay to see the beautiful beach (and to have a cocktail or two) but visiting Motag was far more interesting and insightful into Filipino culture than the tourist haven of Boracay. We met people who didn't just see us as a chance to make some money by selling us tat, as is what happens in any beach resort around the world, but instead to learn about their livelihood before machines took over. Their skills of rural living are slowly dying out and Motag aims to ensure they are not forgotten. Definitely worth a visit if you are ever in the area.

A typical Sunday in Hong Kong

Imagine a 4km walk uphill in 27 degree heat and approximately 60% humiidity, with a hangover. This is how we began our Sunday in Hong Kong. It had seemed like a good idea the night before and 8 beers in - 'let's walk up the Peak tomorrow, the views are amazing' our friend BJ (an English friend who lives in HK) told us. 'Yes definitely! Sounds fantastic,' Kim and I had enthusiastically replied.

9am arrived, and our friends Nausea and Mild Regret came along for the ride too. Still, up we got and met BJ. Carbohydrate was the first port of call, in the form of Chinese baked goods, and so began the uphill struggle to Victoria Peak.

We walked up via the Univeristy of Hong Kong where BJ is studying to see his campus. Queasy is an understantement to how I was feeling by now - the night before we had partied in LKF: this is esstially a neighbourhood of HK which tranforms into an enormous street party every Saturday night. Up we climbed, catching glimpses of the view down on the city which made for a lovely distraction. Hong Kong has more skyscrapers than I have ever seen in one place, and yet the hill we were climbing towered over them all.

By the time we had reached the top, the hangover had been burned off in a combination of sweat and adrenaline. The views were phenomenal. Hong Kong, which traslates as Fragrant Harbour, is an island and the Peak overlooks not only the island itself, but the bay in front.

We then caught a minibus down because we had used up all our combined energy on the incline. We found a place to have lunch on a side street in Central and I chose boiled pork and chive dumplings because I love dumplings, although if the rule of 'you are what you eat' applies to me then I may well soon become one. 

On Sundays in Hong Kong, all the Filipino maids who work overseas have the day off, and they flock to the streets in droves. Sitting on flattened cardboard boxes and sheltered from the sun with umbrellas, these ladies set up camp in any public space to enjoy their day of rest. Food and beers; hair braiding and gossiping; this is their one day a week to relax, enjoy some company and in most cases, simply get out of the house that they serve for six sevenths of their time.

After lunch we wandered round 'Central' where a lot of businesses, banks and shops are. It's also home to Hong Kong Park, a rare oasis in a city with almost no respite from noise, crowds and traffic. Public spaces are so rare in Hong Kong that a lot of buildings have made their rooftops accessible, just to give the city's residents some space back (this is also why the Filipino women sit on the pavement, on roads, on bridges and on the piers, because there really isn't anywhere for them to gather in large groups).

Our feet began to ache from all the walking around, so we sat down by the waterfront and watched the sunset. The colours of the sunsets in HK are incredible because the pollution is so bad: the haze and smog from all the fumes make the night sky turn a wonderful shade of pinky-purple that no photo can do justice (trust me, we took loads and below looks dreary in comparison to real life!) There are no stars in the HK night sky because no only is traffic pollution a problem, so is light pollution. Every shopfront, skyscraper and market stall is emblazoned with advertisements - I didn't feel unsafe in Hong Kong because all the streets were so well lit! 

We caught the Star Ferry across to Kowloon, the mainland side of Hong Kong (until this point we had been on Hong Kong Island) and watched an orchestrated light show on the skyscrapers across the water. The buildings light up with lasers and LEDs in time to music, which sounds far more impressive than it actually was. Because of the smog and the brightness of all the other city lights, the flashing buildings choregraphed to music was sadly unwhelming. Nevertheless, the viewing platform was packed with people, mostly non-tourists, who had settled down to watch the show with a beer or two. You are allowed to purchase and drink alcohol in public spaces and in the street in HK, and we often grabbed a (very cheap) beer from a corner shop and wandered round, drinking as we walked! 

We then headed up to Temple Street night market, a long road jam-packed with market stalls, selling fake designer watches, handbags, sunglasses - you name it. It was quite crowded as is a popular spot with poeple from China, who come down to Kowloon to buy things cheaper than they are able to get in China itself. There were also swathes of fortune tellers, offering to read your palm or your face or Tarot cards to let you know what you were in for. We didn't go to one but they were very popular, with many people queueing beside someone's tent or table to have their futures revealed.

Exhausted from the day's activities, we caught the MTR - Hong Kong's version of the Underground - back to Sheung Wan and headed home.