It's hard to believe that in a few hours we will be checking out of the Shangri-La Hotel in Manila and checking in for our long flight back to the States. This trip began thirty-six days ago on a British Air flight from Phoenix and will finally end with a Southwest flight from LAX getting to Phoenix just at midnight, if all goes right. Philippine Air cancelled our original flight, which gave us ample time for connecting in LA, and now we have a little over an hour to clear Immigration and Customs and hustle to Terminal 1 to check in. Wish us luck.
Manila has been quite a surprising city, with the poverty you'd expect in a developing country, but also with a surprisingly large and well developed money class replete with all of the high end shopping one would expect, towering chrome and glass skyscraper condominiums, fancy cars, restaurants and hustle and bustle of a modern city. If you stay, like we did, in the town of Makati, you could wake up and think you were in any number of world class cities.
Venture out of the confines of Makati and large pockets of poverty and very tough living conditions are everywhere to be seen.
This is a penthouse shanty built on top of a two level shanty town below it.
Like so many places we've seen, the poor live a large portion of their lives on the street.
As proud as our guide was of the economic progress the Philippines has made over the last few years, the daily minimum wage is still just twelve dollars a day. There is no social safety net as we would know it. Yet the people seem friendly and happy and activity is going on everywhere.
I entered into a sea of people in one of the parks and I can't begin to tell you about all the smiles I got and hellos. In less crowded situations and more personal interactions, the warmth just radiates from these people. I think the Philippine people were one of the highlights of this brief visit. You certainly won't come away depressed as you would from Cuba.
Each country has it's own highly favored means of transportation for the masses and here it is the Willie's Jitney. Thousands of Willie's jeeps were left after WWII and they were transformed into jitneys. Today they are manufactured in the Philippines, but keep the original style. Also, like we have seen every, size is no limitation when it comes to packing things on any form of wheeled transportation.
Those are only some the of highlights of our brief stay in Manila. I have to close now as it's time for us to depart. Kathy is more than ready to get home and I must say I am ready as well. There are still a few more posts left in me, one is a really cool Colombo, Sri Lanka, but that will have to wait until we get back.
I do want to leave you with a picture of the device that makes most of the mercantile commerce in the developing world work. Whether on the plains of the Serengeti, the streets of Mombasa, the back ways of Madagascar, the shops in Phuket, or the bazaars in Turkey, you see merchants every where doing their transactions with these:
This occurred to me at lunch when I saw a well dressed young woman doing a deal with a similarly well dressed man and his wife, who were using their cell phones throughout lunch, take out her Casio Calculator from her leather messenger bag and do the final numbers just as the guys we bought our Tingatinga paintings did in a hot, shack in Dar Es Salaam. The developing world would stop without them.
Manila has been quite a surprising city, with the poverty you'd expect in a developing country, but also with a surprisingly large and well developed money class replete with all of the high end shopping one would expect, towering chrome and glass skyscraper condominiums, fancy cars, restaurants and hustle and bustle of a modern city. If you stay, like we did, in the town of Makati, you could wake up and think you were in any number of world class cities.
Venture out of the confines of Makati and large pockets of poverty and very tough living conditions are everywhere to be seen.
This is a penthouse shanty built on top of a two level shanty town below it.
As proud as our guide was of the economic progress the Philippines has made over the last few years, the daily minimum wage is still just twelve dollars a day. There is no social safety net as we would know it. Yet the people seem friendly and happy and activity is going on everywhere.
I entered into a sea of people in one of the parks and I can't begin to tell you about all the smiles I got and hellos. In less crowded situations and more personal interactions, the warmth just radiates from these people. I think the Philippine people were one of the highlights of this brief visit. You certainly won't come away depressed as you would from Cuba.
Each country has it's own highly favored means of transportation for the masses and here it is the Willie's Jitney. Thousands of Willie's jeeps were left after WWII and they were transformed into jitneys. Today they are manufactured in the Philippines, but keep the original style. Also, like we have seen every, size is no limitation when it comes to packing things on any form of wheeled transportation.
For a city as old as Manila, it was already a thriving city when the Spanish conquered it in 1561, there is very little history in the form of buildings. Why? The bombings of World War II destroyed most of the prominent historical buildings as the Japanese used them as shelter from the Allies. In fact one of the most imposing sites in Manila is the American Cemetery and Memorial. It is the largest military cemetery outside of the US. There are 17,097 headstones and the remains of 3,704 unknowns. It is astonishing that there are still 36, 286 still listed as missing in action. One can feel the weight of history and the sacrifices our soldiers gave as you walk through.
The historical center of Manila is the Intramuros and here are a few scenes from it. Unfortunately, many of the buildings have not been repaired and after the Marcos Regime was toppled many squatters moved in and they have yet to be removed.
I do want to leave you with a picture of the device that makes most of the mercantile commerce in the developing world work. Whether on the plains of the Serengeti, the streets of Mombasa, the back ways of Madagascar, the shops in Phuket, or the bazaars in Turkey, you see merchants every where doing their transactions with these:
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