Thrilla in Manila

Hello ma’am, hello sir;

The title of this post if a bit misleading as the only “thrilla” that’s left in Manila is found in the numerous shopping malls and fast food joints.  But, if we are giving credit where credit is due then 7-11 is the ultimate king of Manila.  We stopped counting after 53 because it was getting pointless.

street view from the sky train

The fast food nation in North America can’t hold a candle to Manila and the Philippinos. We have never in our lives seen so many fast food places in one location until we walked into theSM City Manila shopping mall that was across the street from our hotel.  There are five levels of fast food restaurants with stores scattered around them and a food court with about twenty more restaurants to choose from.  As if there aren’t enough food options, they also have food carts in the middle of the hallways that sell anything from popcorn to shwarmas to Jamaican paddies.  This trend pretty much continues on the surrounding streets and other malls that are in Manila.  For God’s sake there were seven different Kenny Rogers Rotisseries that we counted in the four days we spent there.

family time on the boardwalk

One thing about Manila that we really enjoyed was the walk down their waterfront boardwalk which has some spectacular sunsets.  The boardwalk is built for walking, running and biking so its used as a social gathering for the locals.  Along with the couples holding hands and the men fishing, there are street vendors selling fresh green mangoes and numerous merchants peddling “real” pearls for about five bucks.  The only eyesore at the boardwalk is the fortress at one end that is the American embassy.

one of many family tombs

While in Manila we visited the morbidly impressive Chinese cemetery.  This place look more like a neighborhood than a cemetery with tombs resembling mini-houses (or not so mini) with fountains, fully functioning kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms.  It is more of a showcase of wealth than anything else and the running joke is that it is packed with amenities that millions in Manila go without.  One interesting thing that we noticed was that a lot of people (we assumed the family of the deceased and maybe the caretakers) use the land and tombs for lounging, socializing and doing their laundry.  The latter was obvious from the piles of laundry that was drying in the sun next to the buildings.  The cemetery itself is huge and it would take around three to four hours to go through.  We opted for the shorter two hour version because after a while it all starts to look the same … and it was time to get away from the stray dogs.

Jeepney

There really isn’t much to do in Manila besides visiting one of the many many malls, walk the streets and eat.  A couple of cool things that we did notice were that there were: (1) more jeepneys (local transportation that we’ll discuss in another post) than cars, (2) basketball courts everywhere and we even saw one in the parking lot of the courthouse!; (3) a lot of 24 hour massage parlours;  and (4) a 10:1 ration of staff to customers in their department stores.

We would say that if you decide to visit the Philippines, Manila is worth a visit but we’d say for no more than two days.

For more pictures of Manila, click HERE (password: jollybee).

Thank you ma’am, thank you sir!
S&M

fisherman at the boardwalk

sunset over the marina with the volcano in the background

7-11 at the historic Intramuros

Rizal park

one of many streets in downtown Manila

Manila

rooftops in Manila

 

buying green mangos on the boardwalk

laundry drying along the golf course fence - downtown Manila