Manila – First impressions

(This was written after my first visit to Manila in April 2013)

So, finally a late Friday afternoon it was finalized that I should fly to Manila… on the following Tuesday… for a week. Because I was leaving the job in two days upon return!

After 22 hours of air time, and four hours of waiting at Narita, reached the Aquino international airport around 9:30 PM local time. Relatively smaller than JFK or Heathrow or Narita, but pretty clean, typical international airport. Now I realized the folly of not booking the car service to the hotel. No big deal, walk up to the “Manila Taxi Union” (or some similar official sounding name) booth and get a lady officer, with an official (looking) badge and photo-id to get me a cab! - That will be 1,800 Pesos, Sir – No problem (I don’t know right or wrong; or even how many Dollars that is).

Only after leaving the airport premises, does the driver announce he never heard of this hotel – but we will ‘find our way’. After travelling on some decent highways, and some big and not so big roads, we seem to be in the town. Somewhat seedy areas, stopping at several what would be paan-bidi shops in India for directions. Next, it starts looking downright red light, not dirty or horrible; but clear from the ‘club’ names and neon signs… Finally, I am able to contact my hotel, they speak with the driver and give directions! It is a regular five star hotel; not too far from the red-light district!

Next morning, wake up early due to all the screwed up time sense; get ready and get to work… on foot, since the office is only about 20 minutes walk. What I saw - a very clean city. I had heard from my Filipino friends that ‘Phills’ is a developing (read poor) country with huge contrasts between poverty and riches – ‘just like India’. In Manila, I kept hearing there is large scale poverty – but couldn’t see too many visible signs of it. Granted, most of the time I stayed in the business district, surrounded by 5-star hotels and six-star malls. But even so, I have not seen such immaculate cleanliness in any part of Mumbai, Kolkata or Chennai (my recent Indian city visits).  Or, to put another way, I did not see – even though in my limited excursions – any horribly congested or outright dirty areas in Manila. Next striking thing was the abundance of greenery in Manila. The palm and bamboo trees are always eye-pleasing. I was pleasantly surprised to see tolerable heat and humidity – I had been prepared for much worse, it was late April after all. The sky-scrapers in the business district were very much New York – but newer and better. The hotel was great, service could not be any more courteous and smiley. The huge – and I mean huge – mall across from my hotel had stores like Gucci, Hermes, Channel and Tiffany. Like I said, the poverty must be fairly well hidden. I did see the ‘slums’ during some city tours – from afar, and from the car – but the streets approaching them were clean again.

The one resemblance to the Indian cities could be seen in the tiny, junk stray shops in the outskirts. They were the only ones unlike the well-organized shopping centers and strip malls. The best disguise for the poverty was the peoples’ faces – very cheerful, happy and polite without being obsequious. Looking at them enjoying their holidays, their church visit or their family outings, nobody could convince me there was poverty here. On the outskirts, the roads were single lane and smaller, festooned with banners and streamers like in most Indian cities. The road-side fruit vendors selling mangoes, pineapples, jackfruits and coconut water dotted all along the way.

Now, before you think I was totally enraptured by the place, let me say the food was a huge drawback – definitely for a finicky eater like me. My belief that I can handle meat disappeared the first time we visited an ‘authentic Filipino’ restaurant – most of the dishes had pork (I am more Muslim than Hindu in this regard) or some exotic sea-food like squid, clams or oysters, which again I was quite queasy about. Much of the food was very greasy, with some overpowering all-encompassing smell that just rubbed my nostrils the wrong way. Bottom line: my local food excursions, which are usually the most enjoyable part, were stopped dead and I stuck to the known Indian and American style food (even McDonalds!) as far as possible.

On the way back, I had the hotel book the car service to the airport, for which they charged me a whopping…. 400 Pesos! Moral of the story – taxi union murdabaad!