# Carabao Sled



## oobiedoo (Apr 28, 2012)

Love the photo. I have a friend, a retired coworker, who is from the Philippines and now goes back to visit and posts the most amazing beautiful photographs he takes there.
I'm a fan of colder weather myself but it looks so green and gorgeous I'd love to visit there one day.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Cordillera Cowboy (Jun 6, 2014)

Oobiedoo, I've had many good times in cold climes, from temperate, to alpine, to arctic. But, I find that the more time I spend in the tropics, the less tolerant I am of the cold.

If you do visit, be careful. You may fall in love with the place.


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## churumbeque (Dec 20, 2009)

so no wheels? is every thing that way?


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## Woodhaven (Jan 21, 2014)

When we were in Cuba a few years ago we saw that a lot of farming was done with oxen, interesting to see.
Apparently gas is very expensive so oxen are used to save fuel for other things.


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## Cordillera Cowboy (Jun 6, 2014)

churumbeque said:


> so no wheels? is every thing that way?


There are wheeled conveyances of various descriptions. I've seen some farm carts made with surplus automotive parts. The few I've seen in our area are broken down. Other places seem to have more. Could be the terrain. We have a lot of hills and mountains. Most wheeled conveyances that I have seen are for passengers in tourist areas. Some are 2 wheeled, some have 4. All that I have seen are pulled by only one animal, be that carabao, ox, or horse. They are often overloaded, but people tend to overload themselves as well. 



A traditional calesa in the museum district of Manila.


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## Cordillera Cowboy (Jun 6, 2014)

Woodhaven, my father was a child during WW2. Tractors had very much replaced horsepower by then. But due to the gas rationing, folks returned to horsepower. Went right back to tractors afterwards though.


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## Woodhaven (Jan 21, 2014)

Cordillera, was your father in the Philippines during WW 2? I know this happened a lot in England and to some extent here in rural Canada. I was just a child then so don't remember much about it.


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## Cordillera Cowboy (Jun 6, 2014)

Woodhaven, no, he was in elementary school in the mountains of Virginia. My late Father-in-Law was a fighter in the Philippine resistance, and later, served with the Philippine Auxiliary of the US Army of Occupation in Okinawa.


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## mindanaomarine (May 2, 2017)

*no wheels?*

No wheels is actually better in the hilly terrain. Wheels on carts do not have brakes and when on steep sections the Kalabaw would be constantly stressed due to the cart wanting to roll back down the hill. This way it can rest then pull again quickly, while the sled holds fast. In our town, much smaller and more rural when I was there as a child, these sleds would come into town. As time passed and the center became more vehicle oriented, they would come to the edge of town, then transfer their goods to another form of vehicle. 
Slowly, but surely, the areas around towns turned to the use of the "kubota-cart" method. A Kubota or other brand agricultural two wheel tiller would be connected to a two wheel cart, the tines removed or raised, and slowly-very very slowly-driven into town, usually overloaded with bags of unmilled rice, or loads of sugarcane. Pilipino peoples are the Kings of improvisation and creativity when it comes to machinery. I watched a bus driver crawl under a fully loaded bus, on a muddy road, braid strips of his tee shirt then use that to tie the differential joint back together, and get us back underway. A half hour of hard driving later, he had to use his codrivers shirt to repeat the measure so that we made it into a town with a mechanic shop! 
An engineer who designed the motor for the small 125cc and 200cc motorcycles used in the late '70s and '80s for the motorcycles used in tricycletta, constantly told me that what he was watching was physically, mathematically, and mechanically impossible and must be some kind of trick. By the time he left, he had gained a deep and abiding faith and respect for Pilipino ingenuity and ability.


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