Túk Túk

Transporter

The name is onomatopoeic, mimicking the sound of a small, two-cycle engine. Túk túk.  

It's a small, open-ended taxi with a canvas roof and an open-frame body made of sheet metal that provides cheap and efficient transportation in Asia. 

Today, we're in this auto rickshaw, seated at its rear passenger and cargo space for an up-close-and-personal ride through the convoluted world of Old Delhi in India. From a small cabin at the front, our driver, controlling the vehicle with a handlebar, is taking us to the crowded and dilapidated heart of the walled city of Shahjahanabad toward Chandi Chowk. 

What a place! I mutter, raising an eyebrow, as I peer behind drop-down side curtains. 

I let the details of the view seep into my mind - the whispering of chiffon saris, lights in the street, the chanting voices of Hindu priests that never stop. The air has that festive holiday feeling.

All surfaces seem to be grounded in colors of orange, gold, and red. Incredible vistas of yellow curry and other spices mounded in large baskets are everywhere. Everything is shiny and involves a lot of metallic trim. 

I feel sweat on my brows as the túk túk weaves in and out of vehicles, zooming along narrow alleyways. A steady buzz of traffic, stray dogs, and small, running footsteps continue to hit the senses with beeping and curses. I smile brightly, gazing out at the growing crowd of people milling about over piles of loose debris. 

There is a loud tooting of horns, just as a bus unloads across the street. Nobody seems to yield the right of way to carts or pedestrians who are pushing and shoving along the street. I snort out a laugh when our driver sounds his horn to encourage a skinny goat to clear out of our path, but get distracted quickly by a shopkeeper calling without looking up to advertise his tangy and spicy snack from his roadside food cart. Chaat!

As I glance around, my face brightens at the variety of delicacies and sweets. Samosas. Kebab. The smell of chicken tandoori and the allure of chole bhature, a dish that combines spicy chickpeas with fried bread and a dollop of chutney, entice me. I try to keep my voice level, as I spot the sugary sweetness of gulab jamon flaunted on open shelves. 

Time unravels. The world outside seems very distant. But in my face, right now, is a whole city with its shabbiness and glory just waiting to be discovered. Breathing deeply of the dry, warm air, I shake my head and laugh under my breath.

I want to explore every single part of it.

Traghetto

Transporter

NOTHING BEHIND ME, everything ahead of me, 

As is ever so

ON THE ROAD. - Jack Kerouac

It's long, black, and slightly crooked.

Here near the Piazza San Marco, on the bank of the lagoon in Venice, I'm peering at a water taxi that looks like a cross between a canoe and a coffin - without keel or rudder and flat. Unlike the traditional gondola, it is unadorned: devoid of any bow decoration, brocaded chairs, and other luxury trimmings.

A traghetto! My voice is loud with excitement. A couple of people turn and stare at me. 

The word means ferry. Our trusty Europe Through the Backdoor guide book recommends it as a simpler and quicker alternative to hiring a gondola. A traghetto crossing of the Grand Canal only costs €2, whereas the official fare for a 40-minute gondola ride is €80, or €100 after 7 pm.

The single oarsman standing on its keel announces that it's bound for the glass factory on the island of Murano - and the ride is free. What a deal! 

Without hesitation, I wave a hand, pleading like a spoiled child. Andiamo! Let's go!

We board and find a place to sit. Although Venetians traditionally stand during the crossing, we opt to sit as it seems safer to do so in a bobbing boat.

I'm grinning like an idiot as I survey the cross-breed of land and water that unfolds in the early morning light.

White phantom city, whose untrodden streets 

Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting 

Shadows of the palaces and strips of sky.

How can something I have only imagined be so suddenly upon me? 

There's the Bridge of Sighs, I blurt out, as I spy its other-worldly silhouette lifting from the green of the Adriatic. A lacework of interconnected canals surrounded by beautiful buildings and churches, some of which date back as far as the thirteenth century, comes into view as the ferry gently propels down the waterway and under the Ponte de Rialto.

Quello è il palazzo laggiù. That's the palace over there, our boatman drawls, his eyebrows tilted. He gives us a smile.

Leaning forward, I place my fingers lightly on my parted lips as I take in the domes, gilded spires, and majestic arches in the Doge's Palace. I'm nodding speechlessly, my eyes wide and animated. The grime of centuries eats at the stones of majestic palazzos. But the decay is luscious, I mutter, my voice purring with contentment.

The entire scenery is a romantic combination of art and history, old trade, and the beauty of the sea. I can feel the breath of the waterway on my skin as it rushes past. I feel light. 

My voice warm and fond, I give our gondolier a wobbly, crooked smile and whisper, Continuiamo su. Continue on.

I lean back, dreaming vaguely of a new existence of idleness.

When September Days Are Here

Favorite Seasons

When squirrels are harvesting, and birds in flight appear,

By all these lovely tokens we know - September days are here.

- Helen Hunt Jackson

It is one of those taut September days. Everywhere, there's a distilled sense of perception, a sparseness, every line firm and unredundant. The leaves are beginning to turn, and nothing is wasted or goes unseen. 

Walking in the garden, I feel the first intimation of fall in the air - that smell of a decadent, overripe autumn, rich and swollen. It is crisp and windless, with the clouds overhead looking like perfect cutouts of themselves. It is still hot outside, though the sun has begun to lean to the west.

Overhead, against a sky full of yellow dust, I see the leaves of the dogwood tree beginning to blush with a tinge of color. The wind puffs its branches, and tiny yellow leaves drift down into the shade.

I pause to inspect my valiant hosta which is holding its long, pendulous white petals erect, snuggled among the stubborn green of the mint leaves, but the yellowing foliage of the hibiscus has never looked so sad. As well, the morning glory vine has dropped off its dying flowers, leaving behind small, round pods at the end of a drooping stem. Summer has ended.

Sitting on the front porch's small landing, I watch the patch of black-eyed Susan tuck itself in for the night. The heat of the day has slithered away like an unwanted guest, reluctantly letting in a teasing chill.
    
Just as I begin to flop back to savor the blissful moment, an obstinate ash maple leaf is dislodged in the wind and gracefully spirals onto my lap. I perk up to the playful nudge and say loudly, Well, hello! 

When September days are here is my favorite season - bringing summer's best of weather and autumn's best of cheer. 

When Birds Flock In The Evening

Favorite Seasons

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - 

and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all. 

- Emily Dickinson

The sun is going down, its rays brought home to roost. I inch toward the window and raise my face, squinting at the edge of the back garden. The shadows have begun to lengthen. The night is quiet.

Then a chatter begins to throb in the darkness. A trio of baby squirrels who have claimed the neighbor's wood pile for their playground are skittering away. The crickets, joined by one bellowing frog, are serenading the stars with their evening melody. 

Above, in the clump of green ash trees, their leaves shimmering with imaginary breeze, I sense the pulsing rhythm of movement and echoes. I perk up to the red-winged blackbird calling, Conk-la-ree, counterpointed by the fast trill with a very sharp staccato quality of gathering blackburnian warblers. 

Chirr, chirr. Fat, orange-breasted robins gab in their nest, the sound rising in volume like a chuckle from the dogwood tree overhead. 

I scrunch up my brow when inside my field of peripheral vision, a bird calling, Dee-dee, goes past, but then my eyes light up in recognition. It's a chickadee, I can tell, because of its dee notes. The song sparrows on the ash-leaf maple tree branch look irritated and fly off. An impish grin lights up my knowing gaze. They're stuttering their displeasure at being disturbed.

At a distance, a mourning dove calls out its low, fluted notes into the blackness. I screw my face up in concentration, but turn around quickly with a half-smile to the rushing sound of wings as a meadowlark lands, and swifts and pigeons glide their way and settle back on the eaves.

The yard has become an amphitheater resonant with the sing-song babbling of a winged throng. Espérance. Its spark and buzz are bursting with hope. I puff up my chest and beam.

It is my favorite season, when birds flock in the evening, making yet another casual stop on its endless way to the future.

When Fireflies Burn Brightly In The Night

Favorite Seasons

Firefly! Firefly! burning bright in the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye could frame thy glowing symmetry? 

- Adapted from Blake's The Tyger

Holding a hand up to my brow, I squint into the peach-colored evening sunlight. The dying sun has left only a faint gleam in the western sky over the Mitai Maori village in New Zealand. 

Tonight's after-dinner treat is a visit in Rotorua to see glow worms in their natural habitat. Perfect, I mutter. Lightning bugs, fireflies, alitaptap in the Filipino vernacular - by whichever name, these bio-luminescent bugs enchant me. 

The tall reeds whisper in the breeze as night sounds rise and fall around them. As I gingerly step across the damp, dark bank along the Wai-o-whiro stream, I recall how, according to Philippine legend, the alitaptap used to be just small and ordinary insects that came out only during the day. They did not have that special fire that kindles light at night. They rested under the leaves and flowers of plants as soon as darkness covered the land. 

But one night, the pretty sampaguita bush under which they hid inspired them to no longer be afraid of the dark and of the fruit bats that threatened to eat them up. I've got an idea. I will tell you just what you should do, said the sampaguita.

Well, what? the insects asked. Each of you will carry a torch of fire, she replied. Then make your way in groups when you go out in the night. The fruit bats will be afraid of you. They won't try to get close to you without getting burned.

And that's what the fireflies did. They were like high-flying embers altogether, and the fruit bats did not dare get near them at all. That was how and why the alitaptap today have a light at the end of their tails. 

We're here! Our tā moko-tattoed Maori guide interrupts my thought.

I peer into the water, its depth illuminated with an eerie blue light. It looks frosty and full of stars... no, glow worms! - flickering and diving, embroidering the black velvet water with an ethereal strangeness.

It is an imposing mural of radiance, showing like brush strokes on an oiled surface. Slim prisms of the moonlight catch the glow worms' stray beams like butterflies in a net and release them across the water in a flurry of a thousand wings and a thousand colors. 

I look up from face to face among the group standing by the lake with me, a luster like the luminous unseen catching on gleaming foreheads, and hear soft voices. All have melded into a throbbing night sorcery, dim and unfocused, as though a gauzy material had floated between earth and sky.

I revel at the timelessness of it all.

A night such as this is my favorite season - when fireflies, pretty and mysterious, burn in the rippling dark of night and glow like the full moon, their warmth and brilliance wrapping around me like an embrace.

When It Rains

Favorite Seasons

Make it rain, make it rain down low

Just make it rain, make it rain. - Song Lyrics

There are only two seasons in my home archipelago of Seven Thousand Islands: dry and wet. One never really knows which one it's going to be for the day or even for a segment of the day, but invariably either the sun shines or it rains.

After looking up at the bruised clouds gathering this late afternoon, I grin pleasedly and make a quick prediction, Rain.

I wait expectantly. Sure enough, a flash of light ensues. The sky gives out a roar, a familiar cry. The clouds are in labor. They are giving birth. I feel a small thrill as rain, like confetti, starts to drizzle silently outside. Ratiles leaves cradle its drops.  

A shower shortly starts to drum on the tin roof. I listen intently, patiently. It sounds like people clapping, as though the clouds have done something clever.

Then thunder ripples outside, more a grumble than a roar at being left behind by the lightning. The rain increases in intensity in answer to the thunder's command. The sky has opened, as if the anito gods were disconsolate.

Within minutes, large drops merge into a waterfall that needs no river as its source. Muddy water is pooling at the bottom of the adelfa bushes. My mouth gapes for a moment. It is no longer just raining. Water is pouring in sheets, beating down relentlessly, rattling the capiz shell panes of the window.

Dark clouds continue to spawn thin streaks of lightning, the latter's flashing fingers bridging the gap between heaven and earth. A moment or two passes, then the thunder comes again. The downpour has become a deluge as though from a gigantic reservoir that could never run dry.

Like a desert succulent, I drink up the beauty of the rain folding the city in its shroud. Thereafter sated and comfortably sleepy, I lie down to the perfect lullaby and insistent staccato of the raindrops.

Rain is my favorite season. I'm not telling it to stop. 

When Heavy Mists Hang

Favorite Seasons

Thick swirls of fog excite me. Thus, when a misty haze descends upon the city, I nix the taxi ride and opt to walk one-and-a-half miles on uneven terrain from the university to my boarding house.

Which is what I'm doing today.

The sky seems to be very low, encroaching upon the campus which is built on a mountain plateau. I peer at the bank of darkening clouds that has already formed over the Cordillera Central range.

Profuse and heavy water droplets hang suspended in the air as I head toward Session Road, the city's main downtown thoroughfare. Negotiating narrow and steep alleys, I veer down from Luneta Hill  toward the Baguio public market. The view looks so vast and wide from the road's so-called Upper Lane that the land appears endless.

Reaching its business hub, I see bazaars, Summit Bank, boutiques, and Victoria Bakery famous for its young coconut buko pie - the buildings somehow blending rather than clashing with the uncluttered scenery, becoming part of it. 

Past the commercial center, I quickly traverse onto the twisting lower byway. The grass is damp beneath my feet. Everything has turned thick and gray. Smoky swirls roll around me, giving a tiny peek of the road before shrouding it again.

Although the rhythms and nuances are as familiar as the lettering on the Magsaysay Avenue stop sign on the corner, what I see now is a shadow world of illusory shades. Igorot women with babies tied to their backs, wrapped in an Ifugao blanket, promenade as in a trance into town. On the sidewalk's backside, a stairway leads up to the Lady of Atonement Katedral church, veiled in thin light.

As I turn left toward General Lim street, I catch a glimpse of the Benget pine trees bordering historic Burnham Park. They seem to have lost all individuality, merging into a continuous blurry mass. An ethereal stillness has crept over the city, draping it in a specter of gauze, weightless and thin.

When heavy mists hang is my favorite season - when I can float, as in a dream, among spectral silhouettes of white.