Thrilla in Manila

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There are tons of great things about the Philippines, but by far away the best of them is the fact that inhabitants are called Filipinos. I like the fact that they thought ‘Well, the Philippines is a nice name but Philippino would be a bit of a bugger to spell. Let’s just settle for Filipino.’ It makes things a lot easier for writers like me.



The Philippines isn’t part of the traditional backpacker’s route. The country, which consists of over 7,000 islands, lies to the west of Vietnam and to the north of Indonesia. Its location, and the fact that the country is only accessibe by plane has to be the reason that most backpackers stay away, because the Philippines offers plenty in terms of sun, sea and nightlife.



Unfortunately, while the Philippines can offer breathtakingly beautiful sandy white beaches and even more breathtakingly beautiful women, its capital city, Manila, is considered one of the most dangerous in the world. Anyone wishing to visit the country will have to spend some time in the capital, so I thought I’d share my experiences of the city.



All things must be taking into perspective. Any seasoned traveller will know that backpacker rumours can spiral out of control. While we were in Thailand, it was well known that travelling on certain buses was extremely risky, as the drivers would use the bus’s air conditioning unit to spray a sleep-inducing drug throughout the bus, thus rendering the passengers unconscious and open to being robbed and probably molested. Of course, this never happened to me while on a Thai bus. I always remember the buses being extremely relaxing, and I would often drift into a deep sleep; so comfortable and relaxing in fact, that I would often wake to find I’d taken off my trousers…



Anyway, we’d heard enough about Manila to be suitably worried. Don’t wear any jewellery, we were told, because they’ll kill you for it. Don’t go outside after dark, or you’ll get killed. Don’t eat at certain restaurants, don’t wear certain clothes, don’t say certain phrases… you get the idea. From what I could tell, we were going to have to work quite hard to not get killed. I was expecting most of my time in Manila to be spent hiding under my bed.



First impressions are often the worst impressions, but my immediate thought was that Manila was like any other Asian city. A mixture of local culture and western skyscrapers; if you didn’t look too hard, you could be in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore. The supposedly dangerous atmosphere of the city was nullified by that fact that despite it being early November, the very-Catholic Filipinos were already starting to celebrate Christmas. It’s very hard to feel intimidated when you’re riding in a taxi covered in tinsel listening to ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’.



Checking into a hostel was easy enough; despite the fact that Manila is a fairly large city with a population of over 10 million, there are specific backpackers areas. We stayed in the Ermita area, where there are plenty of choices for travellers. Feeling emboldened from the pleasant taxi ride and comfortable guesthouse, we decided to take a quick stroll around the neighbourhood. We had plenty of time to kill in Manila before our flight to Boracay. The only problem was that I’d heard that it was people, not time, that got killed in the city.



After removing all jewellery, stuffing my wallet down my pants and tucking the key to our room in my sock, I was ready to face whatever this city had to offer. The streets around our little guesthouse didn’t offer very much; there were lots of dilapidated buildings and boarded up shops that looked so much nicer through a fake-snow encrusted car window. I felt pretty tense walking around the streets; there were plenty of men who were probably just hanging around, but when you’ve heard lots of bad things about a place, hanging around becomes loitering. And nobody likes a loiterer.



Despite the potential for danger, we had to find a cash machine. This required putting into practice Operation Getmoneyfast. While one of us attempted to get money out from the cash machine as quickly as possible, the other two would stand guard. Standing guard was mainly made up of frantically urging the other person to ‘hurry the f**k up’.



In the end, Operation Getmoneyfast wasn’t needed. Some very caring soul had decided to employ a security guard by every ATM. This was great news. I breezed up to the cash machine, smiled a cheery ‘Kamusta’, and then froze. The security chappie was holding an enormous gun. A shotgun, to be precise. You always think of guns as kinda cool, right? That is, until a heavily armoured man is absentmindedly tapping one on the wall and whistling the tune to ‘White Christmas’. The twin barrels that stared at me were like tunnels from the bowels of the Earth. Registering where my eyes were locked, the security guard continued to whistle and waved the gun in our direction, in what I assumed he felt was a friendly and reassuring manner. I somehow resisted the urge to duck or pull one of the others in front of me.



Now the tricky part. Getting money out in a foreign country is never easy. The machines take ages, more often than not they’re in the local dialect, and then you have to try and convert Pesos to Pounds. It’s easy enough when doing American dollars to Pounds, because it’s usually something like $1.60 = £1. Not so easy when £1 = Php 67. Well, that isn’t actually that hard - it gets a lot more complicated when you’re in Indonesia, for example, and it’s 15,000 Rupiah to the Pound. Try taking out £200. Go on, I dare you. Still, despite the fairly easy mental calculations, the fact that Robocop was standing about 5ft away from made the process a lot harder. I panicked so much that I forgot my pin, and then panicked even more when the guard asked me if everything was okay. ‘Yes, yes’ I squeaked, finally getting the right combination of four numbers that I’d known for several years.



What made me most nervous was the fact that if anybody did try and mug us, the security guard would undoubtedly deal with them with his shotgun. The only problem was, he’d probably deal with us, and most of the street too. They may look impressive, but I’m not sure a shotgun was the best choice of weapon for defending honest citizens such as ourselves.



After that nerve-jangling adventure, we needed some nosh to calm ourselves down. After quickly glossing through our copy of the Rough Guide to Southeast Asia, we settled on a place called the L.A Café. It was nearby, and sounded like it served fairly westernised food. After all the excitement, I needed something simple to settle my stomach.



The first odd thing I noticed when I walked into the L.A Café occurred at the door. I’m used to being frisked by overzealous bouncers, but this was the first time I’d ever been frisked going into a restaurant. By a fairly attractive, albeit older, woman. Who mainly seemed to be interested in touching my biceps, which was odd, as I’m not exactly bodybuilder material.



I’d love to comment on the décor of the L.A Café, but I didn’t get the chance to see it. The interior of the restaurant resembled that of a Turkish Sultan’s harem. There were staggeringly gorgeous girls everywhere. They lounged at tables, draped themselves over the chairs and leaned seductively at the bar. What’s more, everyone of them was extremely interested in us. It was an intoxicating feeling; to have the complete attention of a roomful of beautiful woman, knowing that are all of them are completely in your power, feeling like Casanova, JFK and 007 all rolled in to one….Oh wait, they’re all hookers. That’s right, the Rough Guides to Southeast Asia had sent us to a pickup bar. Later consultation of the book revealed that it did say that the L.A Café had ‘it’s share of single customers on the make’; we just didn’t know what that meant.



Lunch was an awkward affair. I always find eating when someone is watching you to be a difficult enterprise. It’s almost like as soon as someone’s eyes are upon you, you realise how bad your dining skills are. And then all of a sudden there’s a piece of pasta in your eyelash. I tried to keep my eyes averted from the local lovelies, but it was pretty difficult. The girls giggled and fluttered there eyelashes; we gulped our food down and got the hell out of there.



It had been an adventurous day in the Filipino capital, but the next day would prove just as exciting. The next caper will forever be known as the 'Great Airport Scam'. Salivating already, perched on the edge of your seat, you enquire as to what happened. Did we steal a plane? Trick the flight attendant into upgrading us up to First Class? Score with an Air Hostess and join the Mile High Club? Ah dear reader. Our tale is much grander. Get this. We managed to pass our 15kg bags off as 10kg, thus avoiding a hefty fee of around £10 to carry extra weight aboard. I know, I know. They’ll be bringing a film out about it soon enough.



First, a bit of a background. We’d originally planned on taking the ferry to Boracay, a tropical paradise located to the south of Manila. Unfortunately, the 22-hour ferry only ran on a Tuesday. We arrived in Manila on a Wednesday, and didn’t fancy hanging around in Manila for 6 days. There was no chance we’d survive.



That meant taking a flight to Boracay. Booking flights last minute might work out well in England, but in the Philippines, it proved fairly disastrous. The flights were expensive, but even more importantly, there were fairly savage baggage restrictions. Only 10kg per person. Generally, most of our flights had allowed up to 20kg, and our three bags averaged around 17kg each. I know what you’re thinking; get rid of a few things here and there, wear a thick jumper, shove a few things in your hand luggage…should be easy enough. But you don’t understand. Losing over a third of your luggage might be an option if you’re going on a 2-week break to Tenerife. But we weren’t. Our travel bag was effectively our home. It contained everything that I needed for the next 7 months. It contained more than that too. Memories. Love. Friendship.



Okay, so maybe I’m going a little over the top, but the simple fact was, there was no way we could lose roughly 7kg of luggage. Even wearing my heaviest jeans, biggest hoody and stuffing lots of stuff into my hand luggage, my bag still weight around 13kg. It was weigh over the limit. Snigger.



It looked like we were going to have to suck up and pay the airports excess baggage fare. Travellers all over the world will tell you that paying little extras like excess baggage fare and airport tax are a right pain in the arse. It feels like the corporations are getting one over on you man. Stick it to them!



Desperate times call for desperate measures, and none were more desperate than this. We entered the airport wearing as many clothes as was humanly possible given the 30°+ heat. The airport security must have wondered what on earth was going on; fortunately, none of them were clutching shotguns.



The Manila Domestic Airport was fairly small, and didn’t have the most scientifically advanced weighing machines, or the most intellectually advanced staff for that matter. The scales were quite simple; you placed your bag on metal plate, and a computer screen flashed you the weight. But, importantly for us, the metal plate was a couple of inches off the floor, and if you jammed your foot underneath it and exerted an upwards pressure, you could make the scale show a different weight. A lower weight.



I won’t take any credit for this; it was Ant who realised it. I’m sure someone who knows could explain the physics of it all. I know I sure as hell can’t. But it didn’t matter.



Remember how I said the staff weren’t that intellectually advanced? The flight attendant who was dealing with us could have been a descendant of Blackadder’s assistant, Baldrick. He loaded Ant’s bag onto the scales; it flashed up 14kg. Then he added Chris’s, then my bag (obviously deciding it would be quicker and easier to do all three bags at once than to do one at a time). The scale rocketed up to nearly 40kg, then slowly lowered to 29.9kg, as Ant casually attempted to manipulate the system. The Filipino Baldrick didn’t seem to notice, and we’d done it!



We were still congratulating Ant and grinning at our cleverness when the plane took off. The smirk was nearly wiped from our faces as the plane lurched and stuttered to get airborne. I feigned sleep, hoping that the extra weight in the hold that would cause our plane to crash would never be blamed on me. Then I remembered it was Ant's idea. I was safe. Bless him.

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Comments

[TinNiE]

the spelling is correct though 'Filipino'...a bit of a surprise with the leniency of the luggage weigh though, or have i just been too compliant...?