Blur your eyes to hide the palm trees, and you might think you're in Montana.

I had no idea that a cowboy subculture existed in the Philippines, let alone Dumaguete. As I stood beside the iron fencing to watch the cowpokes participate in a bucking bronco and whip cracking contest, they were blasting county fair country music standards over the PA system.

Just like a county fair from Anytown, USA.

The crowd favorite by far (and mine too) was the bucking bronco riding contest. These guys who saddled up were hard core.

Kind of funny to have an advertisement for "Matador" brandy at a bucking bronco riding contest. Kind of like having an add for Penzoil at the Kentucky Derby?

Dumaguete has a surprisingly large number of rodeo fans.

Being a fan of Indiana Jones since I was about 8 years old, I was very impressed by the bull whip cracking contest.

These cowpokes came over from the nearby island of Bohol.

Here's one of the frenetic dynamos that the cowboys tried to tame with an 8 second ride.

Once again, blur your eyes a little and it was very easy to forget you're in the Philippines.

This cowboy from Bohol had by far the best ride that I saw, and luckily I had a good position at the fence to capture the action (you can see my shadow in the lower right corner).

Everything happened so fast, and before I knew it, the crazed horse and his tenacious rider were headed right for me.

I had to pull the camera back from the bars to keep it from getting knocked out of my hands by the crazed horse.

I got lucky and snapped this pretty classic rodeo image.

The rider hung in there, I think at this point he was about six seconds into his ride.

The cowpoke from Bohol managed to hang in there all the way to the opposite side of the corral, turning in an 8+ second ride for the wildly clapping and cheering crowd.

The rider bailed off safely at the opposite side of the corral from me.

Some of the other guys from Bohol roped the bronco and led it back over to the paddocks to calm down.

Next up was riotous round of "cattle rustlin'", I think the guy in the sandals chasing after the cow wasn't as hardcore of a cowboy as the guy wearing the boots.

I ran into my friend Nicky who was at the rodeo as a lasso thrower. The previous day he told me he had walked the main streets of Dumaguete throwing a lasso in front of the amazed crowd. I have to say I was really impressed to see him handle the huge lasso in this photo like a champ.

Throwing a lasso like a cowpoke is something I've never tried before, so Nicky started me out on a less challenging rope that was a lot shorter and easier to use. As you can probably tell from this photo, it still wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Photo by Rudy Rudolph

Next to try out the lasso'in was Rudy, one of the volunteers from the newest Peace Corps batch who is assigned to the nearby island of Siquijor.

Finally after some patient instructing by Nicky I was able to really get the hang of it. Yee haaaaw! Photo by Rudy Rudolph