So we (Nosher plus colleague and chum Julian) set off on an 18-hour journey via Hong Kong to the Philippines. Although most of the four days is taken up with work-related activity, there's still the afternoon we arrive to have a look around, as well as the morning of the day we leave again.
Hot and humid, Manila re-defined Nosher's concept of "seething humanity": it has vast sprawls of shanty town, surrounding most of the city and all round the airport. Brief and fascinating glimpses of life within these is caught as we drive around: narrow alleyways packed with small shacks out of which spill washing lines, children and all manner of collected stuff which makes it look vaguely like a scrapyard. Around the city chug smoke-belching Jeepneys - a type of stretch Willys jeep made into a sort of bus-cum-taxi. The pollution is sometimes staggering - much of the population gets around with bandanas or handkerchiefs covering mouths and noses and a perpetual layer of smog can be seen hanging over the city when seen from a distance. Cars and taxis crawl and jostle for gaps in the almost-permanent queues: there's plenty of horn action, but it seems mostly as a "I'm beside you so don't move or you'll hit me" kind of pre-emptive strike.
For all that, it was a fascinating place to visit, and it was certainly refreshing to be somewhere were there was almost no westerners around. Nosher's bright dyed-red hair certainly seemed to cause a stir though - apparently it's highly unusual in Manila, and all the time it seemed to cause curiosity, stares and the occasional (luckily positive) comment. It was a very unusual experience being considered "interesting" or at least "out of the ordinary" for a change. dcp_6786 Take-off from Heathrow, and the new Terminal Five is being built dcp_6787 The M25 - normally known as "The World's Largest Car-park" dcp_6789 The flight takes us out over territory familiar to Nosher - this is part of Suffolk, showing Felixstowe middle-centre and the River Orwell snaking away to the bottom-right towards Ipswich dcp_6791 In Manila, in the old quarter known as Intramuros, a smelly (on account of the heat) pony-and-trap takes tourists around dcp_6793 Part of Fort Santiago, the oldest buildings in Manila dating from the Spanish colonisation in the 16th century dcp_6794 There were loads of seemingly half-feral cats hanging around not doing very much dcp_6796 Julian, fellow Trigenixer, looks out of the battlements # # new images # dcp_0277 dcp_6782 dcp_6784 dcp_6795 dcp_6798 dcp_6800 dcp_6801 dcp_6803 dcp_6804 dcp_6808 dcp_6809 dcp_6810 dcp_6813 dcp_6814 dcp_6815 dcp_6816 dcp_6817 dcp_6818 dcp_6819 dcp_6821 dcp_6822 dcp_6823 dcp_6824 dcp_6826 dcp_6828 dcp_6829 dcp_6830 dcp_6831 dcp_6832 dcp_6834 dcp_6836 dcp_6837 dcp_6838 dcp_6842 dcp_6847 dcp_6848 dcp_6850 dcp_6851 dcp_6852 dcp_6853 dcp_6862 dcp_6864 dcp_6865 dcp_6866 dcp_6867 dcp_6869 dcp_6873 dcp_6874 dcp_6876 dcp_6877 dcp_6879 dcp_6880 dcp_6882 dcp_6883 dcp_6884 dcp_6888 dcp_6891 dcp_6895 dcp_6897 dcp_6898 dcp_6910 dcp_6911 dcp_6912 dcp_6914