Manila madness

The weekend in Manila was not exactly what I expected. There was the sights-seeing as planned, but also lots of things that I never thought I'd saw. On Saturday morning I arrived at the hostel and over the breakfast we discussed the local politics and how there are so many poor people. How there is a lot of hope for the new president, and how the attitude of the Catholic church is ruining the attempts of the government to promote family planning by offering free contraception. The hostel staff were great, they were keen to discuss everything and also offered advice on what to see, eat and drink in Manila. So I headed out to see the vicinity of the hostel.

My first stop was the Ayala museum which probably is the best museum I've been in. I typically get exhausted in museums where the collections are extensive and you just see so many things of the same type that it ends up dulling you out. The Ayala museum was different, as each of the floors were completely different to each other AND very interesting on their own field. The Filipino gold items from a thousand years ago; the progression of modern Filipino art of 20th century (Fernando Zobel!); the history of the Philippines until 1980s; amazing art made out of plastic and light by Olivia d'Aboville. After exploring the museum throughout, it was time to see some shopping malls. Philippinos apparently love their shopping and not getting sweaty, so Manila is covered in massive shopping malls. I felt like I was in the States so it wasn't too exciting.

For the dinner, I teamed up with three other people from the hostel and we ended up going for a couple of beers after the dinner. As the hostel was located next to a dodgy bar street, we had a look at the options. Every other building seemed to be a church, and the rest were poledancing bars, ladyboy bars, bars with girls with very little clothes on... and we ended up choosing the Ringside Bar that had oiled midget wrestling. I kid you not. We found the idea hilarious so we went in, ordered our "expensive" beers (2.50 eur) and after a round of lady boxing, the wrestling was announced. And because me and the other girl from the hostel were the only female customers around, we were asked to oil up the midgets. Eek! In a way the show was hilarious, but I felt very exploitative. Laughing at someone's disposition? But on the other hand, it offers them a job, and they seemed to laugh a lot themselves... whereas the girls in the bar seemed bored out of their wits and were giving us an attitude because we paid no attention to them. It is a weird industry, all the old white men and the beautiful young girls, and apparently most of the girls are happily in it, hoping to find a husband to take them away. What can you do if all of the parties are willing and happy with their end of the deal?

On Saturday I headed out to the old Intramuros area with another traveller I met at the hostel. We spent the morning looking at the old fort and the walled city and talking a lot about philosophy, life, science, politics, history etc, and the morning was amazingly good fun mainly because of the company I had. Towards the afternoon another friend from the hostel joined in, and we saw the Rizal park and the monument, and by a shaded bus stop near the park, we saw a local guy flashing his private parts at us. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before, but we all took it calmly, walked away and laughed at it after we were a safe distance away. But it made me think, what is the logic of the people who flash? To scare? To show off?

We saw the sunset over Manila Bay sitting in this lovely rooftop Korean restaurant, with quite a few local beers and tasty Korean food. Others were keen for a crazy night out, so we headed to the central bar area (not the one near the hostel), but I felt tired and not really up for bars. I wasn't a big fan of the music or the topics of conversation, and I felt irritated and I decided to catch a cab and head home, and I actually enjoyed my chat with the cab driver more! So I got a full nine hours of sleep and woke up feeling good, and headed to the airport to catch my flight to Hong Kong. I'm now at a internet cafe in HK, the hostel is not great as there is no communal area and I was upgraded into a private room instead of a dorm. So I haven't met anyone yet but my friend from home is arriving later today.

I realised quite a lot of things in the hostel in Manila - that people are very different. They travel for very different reasons and with very different attitudes. There was two travellers who had done all of Southeastern Asia and carried their tan and their wrist bands with pride, and loved to discuss the places they've been, the best bars, how intoxicated they had been and where, the stories of these countries as the adult playpark only designed to provide them entertainment. One of them said to me that she was on a holiday and really didn't want to talk about philosophy or politics. It irritated the hell out of me, but I still don't know exactly why. Because she could dissociate themselves from the surroundings so strongly? She wasn't ignorant no, it was an informed decision on her part. It probably was the fact that she had just chosen to be on a holiday for a year and ignore her environment. I think that the best part of the travelling has been understanding the different countries and peoples better; seeing what their history is like, their current conditions, and how it reflects on everything. Maybe she did that too much in her everyday life and wanted a break from it - fair enough then!

The Southeastern Asia travellers were obviously keen on places that weren't destroyed by tourism but which had a fair population of their type fun-loving travellers. Oh the irony. The stories they told made me crave for the beaches, but I'm not sure if I want to go to the destinations they recommended if they indeed are crowded by people with their attitude.