New Web Design

New web design for dutchpickle

“dutchpickle” is now in the process of trying to replace the bland headers with a new look.  Some  of them clash but we will figure it out eventually.

Indonesia header

East Timor – note the native kus kus and the “Land of Fire”.

This one might go on the home page.  I like the fly…

This one would be on the Philippine pages. The gecko lives at Dave’s apartment and the tarsier is from one of the tarsier farms in Bohol.

Bali – this island gets a lot of tourists but it still retains a lot of the Balinese culture.

Dave, my neighbor here in Ormoc City is fiddling around with a graphics program and here are some of the new designs we plan to use. This spotted gecko with red eyes was photographed under the sink behind the drain pipe.

Stay tuned! “B” must also be thanked for hours of writing code and organizing the entire project from the beginning. “M” is to be thanked for the technical support provided. Pius is to be thanked for insisting that I rewrite all the gibberish that I had on line in 2006 in East Timor. Sometimes a honest unbiased look and the proclamation , “Well it sucks!” can be very helpful.

East Timor – graphic

The kus kus on the left side was one of two that I bought for 20 dollars in Makaleb in the amazing Oecussi province of East Timor. (to save them from the cooking pot! The owner was also trying to drum up money to get back to Dili where he apparently had a job waiting for him.)

East Timor is simply a most amazing place and Oecussi is a backwater of absolute remoteness. It is glorious to wander around there on a motorbike.

East Timor is where I began the “dutchpickle” website. It is a humble website, but with the help of friends it is actually becoming a favorite of travelers that long to get off the beaten path. Horse racing in East Timor.

The reason I chose “Land of Fire” for East Timor is actually quite important. Fire is a huge part of Timorese culture. At night the hills are aglow with leaping flames and glowing embers being swept up into the sky. Everything is burned during the dry season to prepare for the next growing season.

When the Indonesians left in the 70′s everything was burned to the ground by various factions. (not getting into politics right now – everyone shares a bit of the blame). The devastation was so complete  that the evidence still remains.

In 2006, rival gangs, (east vs west) used fire to burn entire neighborhoods.

Here are a few others we considered using before we decided to go with graphics. I still need to come up with one for Bali and one for the home page. We are keeping on the look out for more geckos but they only come around when they feel like it, and I want to keep the site original rather than just cutting photos from the net.

This was a spotted eel lying on a table at the Catbalogan fish market in Samar – where I lived for a year.

Catbalogan fish market

This is the eye of a tarsiar from one of the tarsier farms in Bohol in the Philippines. There are some that live near my place in the hills we but haven’t come across them yet. You have to wait at the base of large trees and try to find them when they come down at night to feed. One kid tried to sell one to Dave for 250 pesos (5 USD) but he made the kid bring it back to the woods and let it go.

This was a weird one but I liked it.

Huge Python and Birds

In Bohol you can tell the newly captured tarsiers from the old hands at the tarsier farms set up for us tourists.

You might want to squeeze in a visit to Prony the python.

This captive monkey in Bohol was also considered.

This was not a great picture but I liked the color. I was swimming alongside a whaleshark and these fish were following too.

We went with this python for a while, just to relieve the readers from boredom. Joni and I saw 4 pythons that day on the small island of Guimit in western Samar.

wild pythons

I thought I might be able to do something with this one but it didn’t work out.

We will try to come up with something new from time to time so the site continues to be fresh!

Feel free to add to the readers’ comments section at the end of every story because I really need your input – thanks.

Our eventual goal is to create a community where your recent input will keep things fresh and up to date.

Keep checking back, we are having technical difficulties with the site right now but maybe things will get sorted out in the next few weeks. Let me know if you think that they don’t look right…

I took this picture up in the mountains above Ormoc this morning (July 1 – 2010). It was calm and cool and the steam from the geo thermal generators looked exceptionally cool.

cheers

dp