Manila Extract: Some Like It Cold
In 1946, just after the end of the war in the Pacific, my father arrived in the Philippines. He had lied about his age in order to enlist in the Army and, although there was some residual fighting in the islands even after the war was over, he was fortunate enough to have gotten there after the really nasty fighting was over. I guess I was fortunate, as well because he was able to return home and become father to four boys, I being the eldest of them. He was thrilled to hear that we were going to the Philippines, to his old stomping grounds, even if we were not so thrilled.
Actually, Manila, the capital of the Philippines, was not at the very tippy-top of our “places we really want to visit” list. In fact, it kind of didn’t make it onto the list at all and it is unlikely that you would be seeing us do a post on the city but for the fact that the Travel Blog Exchange (TBEX) held its Asian conference there. Jessica and I went in hopes that we would learn all the things we need to know to make our blogs more widely read and here are our takeaways:
We have to travel, hence the “travel” before “blog.”
We have to blog about our travels, hence the “blog” after “travel.”
And, we have to work our butts off to let the world know that we’ve actually put something out there worthy of their time. This translates into becoming besties with Google and acting as the bucktoothed misfit hanging out with the head cheerleader by doing everything we’re told and asking “how high?”
But this isn’t about TBEX, per se, though, if you are a travel blogger (bless your soul) their conferences are highly recommended. This is about our Manila experience.
Some initial observations:
Filippinos wear smiles like they would be naked without them. They are extraordinarily friendly, accommodating, almost obsequious people.
A lot of the locals pack heat. Even the doormen at our hotel were carrying and, not in a fancy holster but just a pistol shoved under the waistband of their trousers. And, accompanying us on the ferry to Corregidor (more on that later) was a member of the Philippine military with what looked like a very mean automatic weapon slung over his shoulder.
But, while they may pack heat, the Filippinos don’t seem to like it much. Everywhere we went in Manila felt like a meat locker. Outside it may have been hot enough to make a dolphin sweat (Think about it.) but inside restaurants, the convention center, clubs and cabs, the temperature made us yearn for a parka. One of our fellow bloggers said, “The coldest place I’ve been in years is anywhere indoors in Manila.”
The people seem to be both stuck in a colonized mindset and fiercely independent. They speak often of the Arab, Chinese, American and Japanese colonial periods and even seem grateful for some of the things that the American occupation did for the country but they will no longer accept the idea of being subject to any other power.
Manila is a very difficult city in which to get around, especially for people like Jessica and me who like to walk a place to get to know it more intimately. Not a good idea in Manila, as we were warned many times by locals. The rampant and well-documented drug problems in the Philippines have put personal security considerations at the top of everyone’s list in the capital city and even in tourist areas, we were given admonitions against walking around. We visited the famous Chinese cemetery where extravagant mausoleums are built to house the dearly departed, tombs that include toilets, running water, televisions and motorbikes just in case the deceased should find need of such things. When we told a local that we had wandered around the cemetery, he told us not to do such things since it is dangerous to walk around such places. As a result of the challenges to mobility, we ended up taking cabs to wherever we needed to go and immediately on placing our butts onto the seat of the taxi, we were told by the driver to lock our doors. It was explained to us that often, while stopped in the dense traffic for which Manila is infamous, the car door will be pulled open by a person who has decided to make your stuff his stuff, and grab whatever is within his reach. We locked the doors.
As part of the TBEX program, we were invited to spend a day visiting Corregidor, an island infamous as the place where the American army made its stand against Japanese forces in 1942. It was there that General Douglas MacArthur received orders from President Roosevelt to leave the Philippines and escape to Australia. Upon his arrival in Australia, MacArthur famously promised the Philippine people, “I shall return.” Major General Jonathan Wainwright assumed command of the US troops on MacArthur’s departure and, following days of relentless shelling by the Japanese, he was forced to surrender. The captured soldiers became the unfortunate victims of the Bataan Death March. So much for the history lesson. If you’re aching for more, Google it.
What you won’t get from Google is the fact that the crew of the ferry we took from Manila to Corregidor broke into a sporty song and dance routine shortly after we left port. The four young stewards smiled the ever-present Filipino smile throughout the routine and it kicked off the forty-five-minute boat trip in a very pleasant way.
Perhaps the most touristy thing one can do in Manila (and, of course, we had to do it) is to take a horse-drawn carriage ride around the Intramuros, a walled “city within a city,” that the Spaniards built during their tenure as Filipino overlords. The Spanish Colonial Period lasted nearly 400 years (1521-1898) during which time the walls.