Two days in Manila

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After two years I am finally making my Philippines volunteering trip a reality. I started with two days in Manila, arriving on Sunday evening and immediately liking the humid, crazy chaos.

I haven't been to SE Asia for a few years, having spent more time travelling around Eastern Europe and heading to whichever parts of Australia my visa dictates, so it is great to be back.

Manila is several cities in one and, after much deliberation, I had decided to stay in the 'sanitised' area of Makati rather than the more backpackery Malate as I was only there for a couple of nights to de-jetlag before heading off for the island of Leyte where I would be spending the next five weeks.

Despite its reputation of being the 'glitzier' area of Manila, Makati still felt run-down, chaotic and busy, with fallen power lines and huge piles of building rubble that need skirting in order to walk along the pavement, all the while dodging the mopeds that zip hair-brushingly close by.
I made friends on the first night with a Kiwi, Alice, and a Singaporean, Elizabeth. Alice and I went to check out the rooftop bar whilst Elizabeth set off to find a balut (fermented duck-embryo egg- a delicacy in these parts which honestly would not have appealed to me even in my meat-eating days) to sample. The rooftop bar gave great views in both directions over nighttime Manila and Alice and I enjoyed a couple of cold San Miguels (the beer of choice here, it seems) before heading off to search for dinner.

Most of the restaurants nearby seemed to cater for the redlight district set unfortunately, with young, improbably attractive women working and lots of western food on the menu. We quickly settled on place right next to our hostel and Alice bravely picked some unfamiliar Filipino dish, a souplike concoction which was apparently very tasty. I was still recovering from the meat-heavy plane food and elected for the only vegetarian food, a big plate of pasta arrabbiata. It was delicious but I felt like a terrible Brit Abroad and worried that this was the beginning of a descent of Irish-bar-visiting and the purchase of beer logo singlets.

The next day, Alice and I set off to walk to the anthropology museum in Rizal Park. The walk took us through some fascinating street scenes, showing us proper Manila life (the good and the bad) as we walked through markets, building sites, and streets of old Spanish buildings. We had built in a detour to an interesting-sounding cemetery which turned out to have been repurposed into a building tip and a residential squat. We didn't go far in as it seemed that we were about to head into people's homes and also there was a pack of dogs lurking at the end of the pathway. They were only puppies but they may have had bigger pals lurking nearby or, more likely, I would find myself overwhelmed by puppy broodiness and be unable to stop myself from petting the flea-bitten, possibly rabies-carrying little mites.

The park took quite a lot longer to get to than we had anticipated but we managed to buoy our spirits and revitalise our dehydrated bodies with a nice cold cup of coconut juice and very drippy-buttery corn on the cobs bought from streetvendors along the way. By the time we arrived, we were hot and exhausted so we settled down for a rest on the grass, first noting, with a trill of gay laughter, that the museums were both closed for the day.

All was not lost, however, as we made lots of friends in the park. Firstly, some college-aged students gave us each a rose and balloon and stood behind us holding a sign with a message about love and friendship (I assume- it really all happened too fast for me to be sure).

Our next new pals were some twelve-year olds who gathered around us. At first I wondered if we were about to fall victim to a humiliating schoolchild mugging as there were a lot of them and they were crowding very closely but it seemed that their aim was to get us to repeat Tagalog swearwords. They insisted the words they were asking us to say were innocent and meant things like 'food' but their mischievous peals of laughter suggested otherwise.

Alice and I went our separate ways after this and I returned to Makati, pausing only to get nicely ripped off by the world's most talkative taxi-driver in the process, and I spent the evening unsuccessfully attempting the near-impossible feat of finding vegetarian food in Manila. I ended up with a bowl of deep-fried vegetables and deep-fried tofu. Sigh.

Today I went on the excellent Bambikes Eco-Tour, a cycling tour around Intramuros, the old walled city. The tour guide Florian was great- very interesting and informative and the other person on the tour, a Chinese-Manilan called Eunice, was great too and shared snippets of information about the Chinese-Philippines culture. Intramuros is beautiful- the 16th century Spanish buildings combined with the tropical plants and humidity reminded me of Cartagena, one of my favourite places in Colombia.

Florian told us many interesting things about the buildings, Spanish and Chinese history, and the second world war, as we glided about the streets on our bamboo bicycles. We visited the old church, Manila Cathedral (built by Chinese immigrants so there are dragons interspersed amongst the Virgin Marys), and Fort Santiago. At the fort, we went down into the dungeons where the Japanese kept the Filipino POW (including Florian's grandfather). The stories of the occupation are horrific, as is the idea of huge groups of people being locked in the cramped, damp dungeon. After gratefully returning to surface, we completed the tour with a quick spin past a union protest and then I set off alone to Chinatown to find good eats.

I was slightly nervous as I headed into Chinatown because it is the best place to find vegetarian food but you are also likely to walk past dogs in cages who... are not destined to be pets. Luckily I was spared from witnessing this but I didnt feel the need to linger in Chinatown. The roads were so busy that it made the rest of Manila seem tranquil and it was too stressful to enjoy walking about. However, I did find a restaurant run by a cheerless Chinese woman from whom I bought some delicious tofu coined in a spicy, gingery sauce which made me very happy indeed.

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