Manilla Stories

Manila, manila, manila,

Right now at this moment there may be millions of things I would like to be doing, but stuck on a nine and a half hour flight, you are quite limited! Unfortunately due to extremely unfortunate circumstances…I also have no inflight entertainment! Yes the worst that could happen on a nine and a half hour flight…

Let me explain nine hours to you in terms of a plane, on my way to manila; it was two meals, three full movies (one of which was philipino which makes it like three and a half movies), a two hour sleep, an episode of 24 watched on my laptop, three conversations with different people of the crew whom I happened to know, some bored moments playing with my ipod, an episode of everybody hates chris and three magazines.

Now as some of you may or may not know, flying one way is sometimes quicker than the opposite direction of the journey due to wind resistance etc.

The previous description was my first part of the journey, I am now on the longer return leg of the journey!!!

So I figure I would write, but even with my tendancies to write overly lengthy emails I doubt I could fill that time just writing about my journey so don’t worry this will not be a book on its own, I will also fill up part of this journey with some world domination plans…but firstly while it is still fresh in my mind…Manila:

To be quite honest with you I had no idea what to expect... I mean, I have grown up with Filipinos all my life, they represent a very large part of the expatriate workers in the middle east in all forms from housemaids to engineers! But honestly, and quite shamefully I knew nothing about it.

This also made my trip all the more exciting and the reason why I decided to make the trip three hours before the flight when an opportunity presented itself. Yes more spontaneous than a song from a Bollywood movie! (the ones were two people alone in Bombay burst into song and dance in Switzerland along with 300 gyrating guys that are part of the guys crew and 300 women in saris who are part of the chicks crew and the whole collective knowing the dances despite the fact that the girl and guy have only just met let alone have time to introduce the crews to each other!)

Anyhow:

As a country, the Philippines has been occupied by everyone ( I am tempted here to use an innuendo that would insinuate an immoral character of some friends, however I am learning to rise above following through with those!!!)

They have Spanish names coz the Spaniards told them all to change their names when they occupied it, they all speak English coz the Americans all made them learn it when they occupied it, and the effect of the Japanese penetration was extremely minimal (still rising above the urge to comment)

Anyhow the country, made up of many islands was actually extremely economically diverse! From slums to high rising towers and world class buildings we passed many things while driving through Manila. Many of the malls were of extremely high standards and included one of the 5 largest malls in the world, the mall of Asia! To be quite honest with you, it felt exactly like home walking through the malls funnily enough because all the people that work in the malls at home are Filipino!

However if you consider most of the tourism there comes from Korea and a couple of Asian countries, I just slightly stood out from the crowd. The sad reality is if you are not a short white Asian looking person, you are singled out as a tourist, shocking I know!

While the malls were ok, in some areas the second I stepped out of the hotel, it was like there was a network alert on the grapevine!

“ Patrol, foreign boy left the hotel….launch attack”

“copy that, all units are go!”

“hello sir, where are you from my friend?”

“ watches mister?”

“ bandanas sir”

“ I will show you a good place to go out”

“ taxi?”

“ hotel?”

“ Would you like to try a shooting range”

“ I can gib you tour, real cheap”

Etc etc.

I mean, in actual fact those were not the bad ones, its always that old bald guy with teeth missing who smiles at you that is worrying. Why does he follow me, what does he want and why when he talks to me does it make no sense!!!

The weird thing is that while this was happening to me when I exited a building, it would not happen to anyone else when they were walking in and out of buildings!!!

I wish I knew why!

To be fair however this only happened in one of the areas I stayed in and not at the first hotel which was more upscale, whereas the other one was more of a Google find with the price a major part of the criteria!

As a major part of the public transport the Filipinos have something called the jeepnee, a sort of mini-bus made from approximately 70% recycled materials. The materials are actually bought up from Japanese junkyards (the Japanese can only keep cars for 5 years I learned).

These vehicles are then painted in all sorts of fanciful colours and graffiti which can sometimes be extremely cool or sometimes as random as my whole bollywood rant earlier!

Either way, you can flag them down in the street and ride in a semi-open vehicle with many people for less than peanuts. As an intrigued tourist, I really wanted to go on one, however was advised by everyone that it could be dangerous.

Being the rebel I am and partly refusing to believe that if small white Filipino women rode it all the time, that they were braver than me….

I decided one day to gear up and ride it…exhilarating as it was, I think it was as much an experience for the passengers seeing me on there as it was for me riding it…

Even one of the old bald man with missing teeth had more of a confused look than the normal smile I see when they followed me…possibly thinking, man maybe these types of darker foreigners are poorer than I thought…he cant even afford the normal taxis that some of the philipinos can afford!!!

I love having the opportunity to travel and experience different cultures. If traveling is something that you have always wanted to do, but did not have the time or money, see how a home based business opportunity can give you all the money freedom, time freedom and income security that you need to make all your dreams come true.