All those Filipino nurses, maids, care-givers and construction workers the rest of the world takes for granted return to their friends and loved ones through this small airport after god knows how many years away from home earning foreign dollar. It‘s a very touching scene to witness, despite the mayhem.
With their air-conned Chelsea Tractor and driver Louie, Bes and Cheska whisked me away to Bes’s mother’s house for a family lunch - Chinese as they weren’t sure if I was ready for Filipino food so soon after arriving.
They were probably right, my flight fright medication meant I wasn’t fully compus mentus and I’m sure they were all wondering who this semi-comatose white zombie was that they’d invited into their home. None of them let it show though and they gently, kindly introduced me to Manilan life.
Bes helped me with my accommodation, warning me off one area the guidebook suggested, and her mother put her driver at my disposal for as long as I was in Manila.
Initially I was sceptical about having a ‘driver’, but when the scale of Manila dawns on you, and you realise the full horror of the city’s lack of infrastructure (Manila makes TfL seem God-like geniuses) and traffic problems you realise that if you can afford one, you use one.
It’s the first third world city I’ve ever seen close up (I’ve been to Delhi, but I was there for BTW so never actually left a five-star hotel or air-conned limo), and it’s sheer pandemonium.
Lexus and Toyata Landcruisers mix with Jeepnies and tricycles on the pot-holed sweltering streets. The main city access road, EDSA, is unavoidable if you want to cross any significant distance in the city and is essentially a car park. Without the marked spaces.
Traffic lights are ignored, people cut across petrol station forecourts to dodge junctions, pedestrians wander indiscriminately across four-lane roads, lane rules are non-existent and traffic enforcers stand by essentially helpless in the face of the chaos.
But somehow it works. Not in the way Tokyo works, but it works. There’s no horn tooting, no shaken fists or shouted obscenities. Everyone goes about their chaotic life very politely. It’s amazing.
After mumbling my inadequate thanks to Bes and her family for lunch and kindness - her mother had even prepared a room for me in her house - I holed up in a hotel and spent the next two days planning my next month’s moves. I had a trip to Brunei, a holiday to Boracay with Susie and a journey up into the mountains of Banaue to see the rice terraces to plan.
Believe me, when you don’t use travel agents, are in a third-world country and are trying to keep costs down, it takes two days!
We did have time for a bit of sight-seeing though. Bes and her daughter Mica took a day out to drive me around the only tourist area of Manila, Intermuros. Actually, the ever-useful and ever-uncomplaining Louie, drove us while we collapsed gratefully into the air-conned car after each landmark fairly gasping from the heat and humidity.
First up was the execution site of Philippine national hero Jose Rizal. A park has been erected in his honour and in the best tradition of national heroes, a few lucky/unlucky guards had been detailed to guard his monument.
Given even Bes and Mica who live in Manila could barely stand 20 minutes outdoors, we forgave one of the guards when he slipped behind the monument for a quick hose down. Poor guy.
Next was lunch at a lovely Spanish-style Filipino villa where I sampled Ox tongue for the first time and wandered around the courtyard enjoying the butterflies for as long as we could take the heat.
After lunch we walked the 100 yards to the St Augustin cathedral and arrived in its cooling cloisters dripping with sweat. It’s one of the few buildings in Manila to have survived the war, and while little has been done to ’historicise’ it, it’s a genuinely interesting place - all nooks and crannies, old paintings and crypts.
Leaving the church we were hi-jacked by a seemingly affable guide who somehow got us into a pony and trap-tour of the sights we’d just seen. By the time we realised what was happening it was too late. Good job he was funny.
And that was it really, there’s not a lot else in Manila, despite it's mind-boggling sprawl.
There’s an awful lot of malls,
an awful lot of squatter villages (slums),
And weird transvestite parades.
Oh, there is the weird story of the Manila Film Centre, which Imelda Marcos had built in the 1970s to host the inaugural Philippines Film Festival.
The building work wasn’t moving quickly enough for Imelda so she ordered a few corners cut to meet the festival deadline.
Sadly that meant when a section of the building collapsed and killed a number of workers that work just continued on top of their corpses. Noone knows how many died because noone bothered to count, they just carried on working on top of them.
Locals say the place is haunted now and despite its great location right on the bay it lies unused and dilapidated as noone is prepared to occupy it.
Actually, that's not strictly true, the local transvestite show has the whole place to themselves, but they're more like glamorous squatters than actual tenants.
This is a weird place.
