Capital of Philippines: Manila
I’m going to break this huge stop of posting (you know… golden week… holidays…) to continue with the story of the travel to Philippines. Lots of things happened since then, but first, let’s finish what was start.
Manila is a noisy city, very polluted, but it doesn’t have a bad ambient. One of the first things that call the attention once at the capital of Philippines is a strange kind of vehicles called Jeepney. These are some kind of reinforced truck-tank abandoned after the Second World War by the Americans:
The way you can use them is something between a taxi and a bus. First stop them as a taxi, and with difficulty you get on them as in a crowded bus. Then they leave you somewhere in their established route. Sometimes the interior of the Jeepney looks like a party, completely full of people everyone jumping with the bumps and surrounded by lights of other cars… weird experience..
The second thing that calls the attention is the amount of pollution in the ambient. It’s said that Manila is one of the most contaminated cities in the world… It’s curious to see how the city center is populated by new building as by old skyscrappers half demolished:
In Manila I came across a lot of things that I didn’t expect, for example, I got into a liturgy while shopping in a crowded mall:
It was then when I realized that in Philippines still continues the tradition of Crucifixion, by which on the Holy Week, several devotes get themselves crucified as penitence for their sins. It looks incredible that nowadays still exist this kind of rites.
Manila is a city where you must be alert. Everybody tries to con you whenever they can (this is common for almost all Philippines). The worst thing: The Taxi drivers! Our mates at the Commercial office at Manila commented a few cases of a taxi driver stopping in the middle of the highway asking for more money; if you don’t give them what they ask for, you take the risk of being left there without your luggage (this has happened a few times).
It’s common as well to come across this kind of police armed as a SWAT:
There is no much left to tell about Manila, so this is all folks!