Colonial Charm of Manila

Monday, January 6th

I really wanted to visit the old part of Manila and I am slowly turning Chris into a lover (or at least appreciator) of history...trying at least!  It was hard to be this close to it and not see it, but we had limited time, limited transportation, and limited interest from the rest of the family.  So, completely supportively, Chris agreed to get up early and go into Intramuros with me (the old part of Manila that was once a walled city).  The biggest problem was timing and transportation, so after discussing with the hotel concierge and packing all of our belongings the night before, we decided to take a taxi at 6:30 in the morning.  That way we would miss traffic and have a less expensive taxi ride.  I am still amazed at how inexpensive the taxis are.  For just under a half hour, our taxi came out to something like $6.

Breakfast on Manila streets

We were dropped off just a street off of the Manila Cathedral, but it was still early and we wanted some breakfast.  We walked first past the Palacio del Gobernado, and saw it was open and busy (I though maybe at 7 am we wouldn't find much open).  I might have liked to go in, but quickly saw that our attire due to flip flops, shorts, and overall casual attire was not allowed.  We walked past the cathedral, which was largely covered with scaffolding.  We headed up and down a few streets looking at the breakfast options and the street fare.  One place we walked into looked nice enough but smelled strongly of cat urine.  We saw a few options and a cafe across the street that we thought we might come back to if we found nothing else.  We walked along some older looking buildings and one particularly that looked like it was just ruins.

One street over from where we were dropped off was a whole row of stands that were quite lively with people cooking food and small tables or chairs sitting out front for people to eat.  This definitely looked like it was popular, even though quite temporary...although maybe not.  We saw a pandesol on the corner which also had a line so we stopped and bought some bread.  I wanted a nice coffee, but nothing like that yet, so we circled back around to this place called Zucherro Cafe.  We looked in there, it didn't smell of cat urine, and had a nice selection of coffee drinks so we stayed.  Menus were brought to us and I ordered the beef tapa since it looked good and thought I'd give it a try.  Also, I had an iced cafe latte that was very fancy in a tall glass with the milk on top and coffee on the bottom giving it pretty little effect.

Sometimes you see so many empty
bottles!

We sat waiting for our food, and out of the of the corner of our eye, we both caught something run very quickly across the floor not far from us.  I'm sure a cockroach would have been too small.  I'm guessing a rat or mouse.  Not really sure...neither was Chris.  The place seemed overall clean and decent and the people were professional enough...this is an old area...we were used to seeing cockroaches...we had already ordered...the food was cooked...so we just stayed.  My beef tapa was pretty good, my coffee (kape in Tagalog) was good and we never got sick.  This cafe was a chain because I had seen it in Boracay as well.

Plumeria maybe?

We went back out onto the streets and past the Manila Cathedral.  We were hounded by kalesa drivers and tricycle drivers desperate for our business that guaranteed a great tour of the city.  We didn't want a tour, in part due to timing, and in part because I love walking the streets of these old cities.  Manila Cathedral was closed, and signs warned to beware of falling debris.  I read the sign and the cathedral had been rebuild seven times!  Most of the times were due to earthquake destruction, some to storms and some to wars.  This area, as we read later at a memorial around the corner, had been very badly damaged in WWII.  I don't know my WWII history in this area too well, but I know it was certainly not pretty and the Japanese did some pretty terrible things here.

Many of the plants here are blooming with flowers - a lot of bougainvillea which I love (we had a bright pink one in the backyard growing up).  There were some beautiful trees around the WWII memorial that had these white flowers with yellow centers.  I don't know what they are, but I have seen them associated with Hawaii many times, so I wondered if it was plumeria.  I found one that had dropped on the ground, still in perfect condition with a sweet scent, so I carried it for awhile with me.

San Agustin Chapel

San Agustin Monastery

We found the San Augustin Church and adjoining Monastery down the street a little farther, and that was open and ready for visitors.  We paid the entry fee and walked through the beautiful old buildings and pretty gardens.  There was a square courtyard with a nice little fountain and lovely manicured landscaping.  Around that courtyard was the building with a corridor which lined it.  All sorts of religious and some non religious items were set out with price tags on them.  Off the corridor were rooms turned into galleries for viewing permanent displays of religious artifacts.  Along one of the sides of the corridor ran a large chapel, beautifully decorated and painted in such a way to look three dimensional - like it was filled with carvings, when really most of it was just painted.  The opposite side of the square corridor led out to a lovely garden area...also shaped in a square with a pretty fountain in the center and some large trees in each corner.  There were plenty of nice places to sit and rest, pray, meditate, reflect...whatever the soul needed.

After some later research, I learned that this place was made into a concentration camp of sorts by the Japanese and many were killed inside during the Battle of Manila.  Also, it is the only older building that survived the many earthquakes that destroyed the Cathedral and many of the other older buildings.  Whether it was God's saving hand, a good architect and structure, or both, I don't know, but it is a beautiful place and a UNESCO world heritage site.

Casa Manila Courtyard

We crossed over to Casa Manila and didn't spend much time there, but again the lovely architecture, pretty courtyards and the vines and flowers adding just enough romance made this place a favorite.  Today it is filled with coffee shops, restaurants, souvenir shops, and a museum.

Streets of Intramuros

There were a few streets that were quite alive with people and shops.  Stretched across a few streets were rows of small flag like banners or streamers. One row might be pink, then the next yellow or green.  It had a very pretty effect.  Tricycles were waiting for customers and there was one hearse looking vehicle that had a kid sleeping atop of it.  He saw us, jumped down and followed us a ways with his hand out until I reached into my purse and gave him a little pack of cookies I kept on me for such an occasion.

All along the streets were men dressed in a uniform of sorts.  They must have been stationed there to keep a sense of security (though they didn't have weapons) and also help with tourism, give directions, etc.  Most of the time they just stood there as we passed.

Fort Santiago

Our goal was to return to the hotel between 10:30-11am since check out was at noon and we needed to allow 30-45 minutes to drive back, so our time was coming to an end.  Fort Santiago was just up the street and I wanted to at least see it and walk around quickly, so we sped up a bit, getting stickier due to the rise of humidity and heat by this time of the morning.  We paid the small fee to get inside the park area that first met you with a lovely plaza or park of sorts with bougainvilleas covering a walkway leading to a large grassy area that extended to a few fountains and flags.  Around the park were buildings and ruins lining them.  Plenty of kalesas (horse carriages) were lining the street around the grassy plaza.  We walked past a cannon and some large artillery that clearly was for later use than the cannon.  This, Chris was more interested in.  Boys always love the idea of forts, fighting, and war machinery.  It must be the power and explosiveness of it all...I know it's not the idea of death or killing that is so attractive to them.

We walked past all of these and through a very old walled area with an arch with fancy carvings decorating the entrance.  Beyond this was a little water area - almost like a mote - that had some lily pads growing in it.  This is where we saw some old buildings and ruins.  I believe this was the original fort as well as a a church.  The other sides of the fort were surrounded by a river that led to the bay.  Here we looked out over the Manila skyline and saw tall skyscapers and rows of colorful buidlings lining the waterfront that looked like they may just fall down at any minute (my impression of what may fall down at any minute must not really be accurate because so many buildings sag and lean and yet people are living and working in them daily).

Manila Riverbank as seen from the fort

We hurried back out, quickly grabbed a taxi who drove us this time along the bay, past the US Embassy, and through some Manila streets.  Chris noticed the flood markers on the streets.  It's quite smart, the way they have paint and meters marking how bad the flooding is - whether caution is needed or it is impassable.

When we arrived back to the hotel, we found the rest of the family was not any where near being ready and even though we had left money and the receipt for our laundry that still needed to be picked up, it had not yet been done.  We hopped back in a taxi, drove less than a mile (but almost a twenty minute round trip taxi ride) to the cleaners.  They had all of our clothing neatly and compactly folded and bagged.  It was so neat and organized I didn't even want to take it out of the bag, but I did when we returned to the hotel to place it in my suitcase.  We asked for a brief extension to the check out of an hour, and then had a problem with getting the car out of the parking structure since the ticket had been lost.  They wanted to charge a fee for the lost paper and wanted proof the car was ours (which it really wasn't - it was another family member lending it to us).  Luckily the sticky situation was cleared up and we were on our way to find a shop called Team Manila that we were told would have some trendy t-shirts and such to buy as well as Blue Kitchen that supposedly had the best banana chips.

We spent a hurried time shopping, feeling the pressure of already being behind and needing to get to the airport for our final destination.  I found another Schlurp (so yummy milk tea) and bought one on our way out.  The van made it's way to Silantro where we were going to meet our cousin who would take us to the airport.  Of course, we had to stop at a vape shop, at a convenience store for diet coke, and at a McDonalds for lunch (since we had run out of time for Silantro) and then a 7-11 because McDonalds didn't suit everyone's taste.  Not that my McD's was any good...I threw half my burger away because instead of tasting like hamburger it tasted like meatloaf.  I really couldn't stomach the idea of what it might be after hearing about pink slime in the chicken nuggets.  Here they have they call Chicken McDo - or basically friend chicken.  That may have been a safer call.

After all our stops and detours we were running late to Silantro.  A young kid was out there to help us park.  He really was cute, acting so grown up as we had seen so many other parking or security guards.  We gave him some cookies...and then a hot dog that was no good, and he was so happy.  We waited around in Silantro, because our ride was not there.  I saw the kid helping out the workers scrub down the sidewalk - he was certainly a little worker.  Another few kids ran up to me with their hands out asking please, so I gave them the last two packets of cookies I had and with a polite thank you they ran away.  The buildings around the restaurant looked nice, but there was a few little street cart stands that had some people hanging around them, along with the kids, that looked like they may have been struggling.  Chris had been trying to finish his ube jam (which was good, but really it's just this thick purple paste) and he started getting sick of it (just as would anyone eating straight jam with a spoon).  I called the other kids over, and they took the jar, smelled it - not sure what it was, but then ran away with it.  They really seemed hungry.

Even when our ride arrived, we decided to just take taxis...the problem was locating the taxis and we needed two.  Chris downloaded an app called grab taxi and we tried to get two, but that was giving us a problem.  We sent his parents and sisters off in one taxi and waiting for another (we couldn't all fit in with our luggage).  What really touched my heart was when our taxi came, that same little kid opened my taxi door for me, gave me a smile, made sure I was ready for him to close it, and he gave me this serious, professional smile and wave like his job had been done.  He asked for no more than what he had been given previously.  I pray that his strong sense of responsibility, his desire to help and work ethic are rewarded and protected as he grows into a young man.  He couldn't have been more than 8 years old, but his spirit was that of one much older and more mature.  I pray God's hand of blessing on this young soul.

Chris and I didn't know the correct terminal and the taxi driver guessed wrong, but we found out in time to turn back around to terminal 3 which we had already passed.  This wasted even more time, and we were now in a hurry.  His family had checked in already, and we were concerned about getting seats together.  I hate flying and while I had been getting better at it recently, the sheer number of flights had actually not improved my fears but worsened them...not sure how but I think I was just pushed too far with the stress and strain of flying.

The airport was fairly empty, the flight ended up being delayed (we discovered after racing through the airport, starting up an escalator to decide we really didn't want to and turned to run down it and I almost fell at the end making a very hard landing and hitting my hand and wrist awfully hard on the railing when I misjudged the last rising steps).  It wasn't delayed too long, and we sat next to and near each other as we took the short but bumpy flight to Puerto Princesa in Palawan - another region and set of islands.  This was the flight we had booked when we were bumped on our first flight to Davao City at the beginning of the trip and were given free roundtrip domestic flights.  We were excited about this last minute destination since everyone had been talking about this jungle island paradise.

By the time we landed, the stress, fear, and exhaustion had caught up with me and I was not in a good mental state.  Just about anything was setting me off as I held back the tears as best I could.  Thank God, this airport was small but beautiful and new.  A friendly driver awaited us with a van, complete with seat belts that loaded us and our luggage and took us directly through the very nicely kept city streets to a fence that had the banner of Susan's Place.  Chris had found this on Airbnb, and he is good at researching places, and this had looked nice online.

Our reservations at the walled entrance were quickly taken away as the guard opened it for the van to pull through into a small but beautifully built home and cottages.  Immediately our hosts welcomed us and the warm hospitality put us at ease.  The little cottage  building that housed four rooms with separate entrance was a traditional woven facade.  A screened in breakfast and gathering room sat opposite with dark wooden tables and couches.  The grounds were manicured with walkways lined with intricately carved wooden benches.  It had a very native tropical feel but done so tastefully and was immaculate.  Our rooms were as well, sparkling clean would be the best description.

Susan's Place B&B

We set our belongings in our rooms, refreshed quickly and with the advice of our host, were sent back out to dinner at a large outside restaurant.  Tables lined  the area with some under traditional thatch huts.  A large screen was hoisted up over the parking lot playing sports, but no sound.  The food was good and inexpensive and I had a refreshing pineapple shake.  The breeze helped temper the humid warm air so it was pleasant.  We still didn't stay long since we had arranged an island hopping tour that left very early the next morning.  So far, this seemed like it may be the perfect place to end our trip on a high note.