Beginning of November...
It took a while to get here, even from Kwaj. The United flight stops at Pohnpei, Kosrei, and Chuuk, before getting to Guam. I might have the order wrong, along with the spelling. Amber told me I could get off the plane on each island. I boarded the plane with a guy I barely knew from Kwaj that works with San Juan. I convinced him we need to get off the plane, and have a beer at each island. The islands were about an hour away, and it took around 45 mins to exchange passengers each time. The first stop, we started to deplane, but the announcement said basically that you shouldn't, so we sat back down. We both noted that others got off and came back anyhow. So the next little island, we both got off the plane. Dom is a smoker, and that had to be his motivation. There wasn't a place to smoke, but they did sell beer. He forgot his boarding pass, and started to wig out a bit after I asked him about it. I think the wigging out was the nicotine withdrawal. It worked out of course and we got back on the plane after around 45mins in the terminal. The next stop he said he wasn't going to get off the plane. I pushed. He stayed, well for a bit. There was a smoking part outside at that airport.
Dom and I were heading to the same final destination in Manila...well Makiti in Manila. So in Guam we ran together thru the airport to make it to the final flight to Manila. Dom was only spending the night there and heading to Thailand the next day. Turns out his hotel was right around the corner from my hotel in Makati.
Makati/Manila is a huge area,....a huge city. Manila probably has around 1000 buildings over 30 stories high. I would guess its bigger than New York. After spending 5 days in my hotel in Makati, its safe to say its a dirty city with nice people, and a ton of homeless and desperate people. That part of it has to be worse than New York because the weather is so much warmer. The exchange rate here is great for the dollar. 48 Philipino Peso's for one US dollar. The hotel, a very nice 50 story hotel downtown was 250$ for 5 days. The doorman and staff were super super nice and cordial. The streets were full of people asking for nearly anything at night. It seemed every store had a security guard in front of it. The guards all had police looking uniforms on, navy blue pants with a dress white shirt and the belt full of implements. Many had shotguns leashed in a way around their necks that they rested their hands on them. So they looked ready to be used at any timetime. The bank guards had M-16 rifles. It was fairly depressing in the beginning. After the second day, after sitting in an outdoor corner open air restaurant drinking beer and just watching people, a few women stood out. One was in the place when I got there.....and I kept making eye contact with her as this strange (American) guy sat next to her and kept bothering her kind of. She was Philipino, he was sunken eyed, dancing strangely and sitting next to her. She was facing me, and he was facing her. It looked uncomfortable for her. She didn't really waver, she just looked at me (at least for the few seconds I let my eyes meet hers) with a blank stare. Later when I was getting another beer a the counter she was too and introduced herself as Jane. I went back to my seat, and at some point the weird guy left. I ordered and ate dinner, which was a great chicken curry, while she sat there and brought something out of her purse to eat. I couldn't really figure her out, she was there way too long, but had a beer in front of her the whole time. At the same time another girl came around in front of the place begging for money. She approached a few people with with no luck. She stopped after a while and just sat in the chairs of the restaurant closest to the street. The chicken curry was good. I ordered another meal and asked the server to split it between the two women. I paid and left. It felt really great to do something nice for those two...it felt even better cause I didn't wait around to get a thank you. Hell, maybe they didn't even get it. It was GREAT chicken curry. It was $6. The grin lasted at least a few hours, the good feeling, a while longer.
The next night, maybe my 4th night there, after finding my way to the "Tequila Bar" that overlooked a very busy sketchy area in Makati, but had a security guard there ushering away street people. It was an open air bar/restaurant with a great view of the bordellos, and the skinny little street children, the skinny little street vendors, and just all the activity not seen in most of the Midwest or the states. I ordered a meal, then a second meal that first night. There was a guy, that couldn't have weighed more than 120lbs selling some feathery kind of thing. I couldn't tell what he was selling. He was incredibly small, and had some wares that he laid out in front of him on the corner. He sat in front of them on his feet, the way most adults in the US can't, still on his feet but his butt was resting on them. After watching him for a while, his (?) kids came by and he gave them some of what he was selling and he ushered them off. These kids were like 5 and maybe 8 years old. They got my second meal. I just walked out of the place handed it to them and walked back in.
The next night was very different. Ten pizzas went out. I passed them out so quick their reactions were missed. I wonder if altruism can also be hedonism. The next night I didn't go so far, there was a Korean restaurant that had the most THE MOST incredible seafood cake. It was a meaty 14 inch egg based pizza shaped deal. After first looking at it and thinking that'll make a great meal tomorrow too, I ate the whole thing. Across the street before I went in the place, there was this nearly seventy year old woman sleeping next to her probably older husband on a concrete stoop to a place that looked abandoned. The other seafood pizza went to this lady. It felt really good.
After getting a ride in the hotel cab for what someone told me later was a ridiculous price of 600 pesos, I used my "Uber" app on my phone for the first time. Pretty cool. It showed me how much the fare would be, who would pick me up, what the license plate number was, and the kind of car. So for around 3 dollars you can go nearly anywhere in Makati which translates into about thirty to forty five minutes on a weekend. The "Mall of Asia" was my first destination, with getting a decent pair of sunglasses in mind. I am pretty sure I've never been among so many people and been the only one with blonde hair.
Traffic in Manila is crazy. The main form of public transportation is these Filipino made buses with no windows called a Jeepney. To be more precise, they have windows, but no glass. Built anywhere from 1945 to present, they are half bus and half jeep. Most are pretty colorful and ornately finished. They just look like they are from a different era. They would make a great "coffee table" book, if someone took the time to photograph a few hundred of them. All Jeepney's have the same basic design, the same look, but they are customized by the owners sometimes very ornately. "Multicabs" are another form of privately owned public transportation. Smaller than the Jeepneys, they are basically a Toyota van with benches running along the sides and window openings with no glass in the back. Its amazing how many people can fit in one of these. They aren't as nearly ornate and colorful as the Jeepney's. Tricycles also carry a few people. These are 155 cc motorcycles with a roof covering the sidecar that can hold 3 small people. These little engines are way overburdened. Scooters and two wheel motorbikes are pretty popular too, and the people that drive them are insane. They don't wait. If they can squeeze between a semi and a bus to get to the front at an intersection, they will. They will fly between two cars going 45mph like it was a tunnel all to themselves. None of the above listed forms of transportation have any sort of emission control, and the smog shows it. I was told when leaving for the airport, since it was on a Monday, that I should leave the hotel 5 hours early to be safe. If there were no cars on the street, that's a 20 minute ride.
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