raton fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Feb 11, 2010

Noir desir fucked around with this message at 10:01 on Feb 11, 2010

SonicDefiance fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Feb 11, 2010

Pompous Rhombus fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Feb 11, 2010

raton fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Feb 13, 2010

ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Feb 13, 2010

ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Feb 14, 2010

• Manila

• The Airport The airport in Manila is confusing as gently caress and divided into 3-4 "terminals" that are all miles apart in driving distance. When flying out, make sure you know if you're going out of Centennial Terminal or the new terminal or A or B or whatever, because you can't just walk from one to the other and traffic is Hell in Manila.
  
  On a side note, when you're flying out you're probably going to fly out of Ninoy Aquino International, so make sure you says "Ninoy" when you ask to go the to airport. The cabbies mostly assume you're going there if you're foreign, but some people have been taken to Clark.
  
  If you go to the old terminal (you'll know because that's where most non-Philippines carriers fly out of and it's an old, worn out brown building), chicks will approach you after security about going to "The Lounge". Normally this kind of thing is a rip off, but my advice is DO IT. It's the equivalent of about $15 US and you can drink and eat all you want and they have couches and wifi. It's like something out of 1982, heh. I easily drank way more than $15 in airport beer prices every time I was there. Food kinda sucks, but whatever, it's better than farting around the waiting area for an hour or so.
  
  
• Taxis Taxis from the airport come in two flavors: fixed rate and meter. Meter are yellow and next to the curb when you exit, fixed are white (last I checked) and across the first driveway. Used to be that fixed was all they had, and this may still be true at some terminals, but meter was available the last few times I went. Meter saves you several hundred pesos, so I'd advise it. The meter guys at the airport have always been honest when I used them, which is more than I can say for every other taxi in Manila.
  
  Generally speaking when you're in Thailand, taxis in tourist areas will try to rip you off and taxis outside of tourist areas tend to be more honest. In Manila your odds aren't so good and the rules are more like "if you're obviously foreign the taxis will try to rip you off." There are a lot of reasons for this, but essentially expect to at least be hassled for a tip and expect for taxi drivers to constantly try to negotiate a fee up front. Your odds get better when you're not in a wealthy Kano area or a tourist area, but they never get very good. Still a "rip off" consists of paying about an extra $1 or $2 US, so it's nothing to flip out about, it just gets old once you're sort of regular there. Like, you know, I know the loving place is just up EDSA, don't try to charge me 400p rear end in a top hat.
  
  
• Buses I can say I never took a bus because I was usually on business and not traveling, so I had more money than time. The thing to note about buses in Manila is that there aren't public buses, there are public licenses to drive a certain route, which is why you see huge buses all flying in front of one another and honking constantly at bus stops to compete for passengers. It's a ridiculous system, Manila is a ridiculous city, get used to it. I have no idea what the fares are, but everything that regular people in Manila use is pretty cheap because Manila is a dystopia of impoverished slum dwellers, domestic workers and laborers peppered with pockets of insanely wealthy plantation-style elites. There is a growing middle class, this is true and positive, but it's relatively small.
  
  
• FX You'll see Mitsubishi SUVs flying around in certain areas painted like taxis. They're basically share taxis. Each one goes a certain route, you jump in, pay your share and ride. Often you'll be stuffed in the back. Enjoy. Rates vary, but are usually in the range of double digit pesos depending on how far you go.
  
  
• Trikes These remind me of tuk tuks in Thailand. Annoying to ride in, always trying to rip you off, should probably be done once just so you can say you rode in one.
  
  
• Jeepneys The thing every tourist needs a picture in front of. There's no mistaking what a Jeepney is. Basically after the Pacific war a bunch of jeeps got left here. Filipinos took them, elongated them and made makeshift buses out of them. They run a set route painted on the side, you pay the small fee and you ride the route - it's usually very cheap. 10p or something depending on the neighborhood. These are closest to saengtaews in Thailand.
  
  
• Crime I never experienced any crime in Manila. Every single Pinoy I know professionally has been mugged and/or beaten and had their wallet and/or laptop stolen. It's common for businesses, for example, to provide a room for people to lock their belongings in when they leave work because of this. The crime takes place anywhere, but a very common venue is in public transport. Remember the Jeepneys, FX and buses above? Almost every person that I mentioned who was robbed was robbed in the back of an FX, a Jeepney or in a bus at gunpoint. When you get in a taxi and the guy reaches around to lock all the doors so you don't get robbed at a streetlight on the way from the airport he's not doing it for show.
  
  The main thing here is, unlike Bangkok, don't go wandering down dark streets at night even if there are people around. Manila is not a particularly safe place, but if you're in a well-lit and secured area then it's completely different than if you're wandering around some random baranguay. If you're in the middle of Makati or Ortigas or The Fort, for example, nothing's going to happen to you usually. Part of the "pockets of wealth" thing I mentioned above includes heavy security presence in wealthier areas that essentially repels poor people, scammers and criminals. When you want to run a society with huge gaps in income equality and social mobility guns and jackboots are an effective tool.
  
  At the same time, I tell people what I always tell them - the reputation for crime anywhere is always a bit overblown. I used to go jogging into the ghettoes across the river and while it most definitely was not friendly like the slums in Bangkok, I wasn't approached or robbed or anything.
  
  
• Guns Yeah, be ready for this. The amount of guns on display in Manila is staggering - and I'm from Texas and own guns. Everything from McDonald's to the LRT is guarded by a guy toting a shotgun. For real fun, hang around a bank until the armored car shows up. An entire tactical unit deploys and takes up position around the bank entrance completely with body armor, M-16s (or whatever variant) and tactical gear. Quite a show to watch.
  
  
• Food Pinoy food is awful, frankly. It's renowned around the region as the only country where the food just sucks. Of course don't take my word for it, just like I didn't take anyone else's word for it. You'll find out on your own. Their barbecue is tolerable and there are a few good dishes, but by and large it's hideous. Of the things I tried, sinagong, diningding, lechon, beef tapa and the various forms of barbecue (ihaw, as I recall) were actually okay. Everything else, from sisig to the 400 varieties of "gobs of grease and chunks of fatty/boney meat on rice" were all universally either bland, bad or rancid. To each his own, but I've got good friends who have lived there for years and had a good time living in Manila and even they think the food sucks. Prepare to, no poo poo, see menu items titled "Tuna Guts" and "Chicken rear end in a top hat". Not kidding on that at all.
  
  The international food's okay and the beef is much better than Thailand, but the whole cooking culture is built around insane amounts of heavy grease and oil, so get used to feeling really grimy. The country largely ships its edible food out for export, so even when you're eating some other kind of food the ingredients seem to be kinda bad unless you're paying top dollar. That's just my personal opinion though.
  
  
• Beer Cheap and plentiful, everything is San Miguel. They do have a few other options like Tiger and of course the bars stock fancy stuff on tap if you want it, but almost everything is brewed by San Miguel - Red Horse, San Mig, Lone Star (yes, that Lone Star), Cerveza Negra, it's all San Miguel. All very cheap too. A big old bottle of beer will run you the equivalent of about $0.65 US.
  
  
• Nightlife/Restaurants/Stuff Like This You'll quickly find that half the poo poo "to do" in Manila turns out to be in a loving mall, basically. This is largely for security reasons, but also because building huge malls is what the SM group makes money at. Still, it's depressing. Who the gently caress wants to hang out at a Cuban bar at the mall?
  
  Outside of the mall there are a number of interesting nightlife things to do. Remedios Circle was my favorite area, with interesting bars and poker rooms and some Cuban and other international cuisines all in the middle of a kind of University area. Makati has a number of expat bars and things, mostly in malls or around malls. When people say stuff to you like "Greenbelt" or "Glorietta" or "Market Market" they're talking about gigantic mall compelxes essentially. Makati's also where the famous red light district is (P. Burgos). I don't recommend P. Burgos. It's like Patpong without the charm (heh). It's just not at all interesting to people watch or goof around in for an evening, unless you're into whoring and I'm not. Things are like that in general in Manila - much more desperate and craven.
  
  Roxas is where cabbies will try to take you. It's the big boulevard by the bay. During the later Marcos years, Imelda's big project was to reclaim the area from the sea and turn it into a world famous seafront property area. You can see the remnants of this in the Cultural Center of the Philippines on one end and then all the run down, abandoned large hotels and clubs. When Marcos got run out of town the ice cream went to poo poo, of course. Today it's sort of like Escape From New York meets Miami's Ocean Drive. Beggars, homeless people, touts and the seediest looking bars and hotels dot the landscape. There's the occasional Hyatt or something that attempts to rise from the ashes, but overall it's horrible. Don't go unless you have word of a specific spot you need to go to, like an airline office on Roxas or a restaurant that's overlooking the bay.
  
  Malate used to be a very cool, Bohemian area. When you start googling around for neat places to go in Manila you'll find all these descriptions of interesting sidewalk cafes and live music joints that sound very neat and Bohemian. Yeah, they're mostly gone, that's why the reviews and travel tips for them stop about 4-5 years ago. That's what was cool in Malate. Remedios Circle is still there and there are things to do, but my Pinoy friends tell me that after the base closed the whole area dried up. Malate's the erstwhile gay area, by the way, so any bar may be a gay bar. Don't be surprised.
  
  Unfortunately I don't know anything about most of Ermita, but I gather this is where the backpackers go - it's also where there's a lively sort of seedier (but not entirely horrible) expat scene. Stuff like LA cafe is there, where you can listen to live music and beat off the hookers with a stick while you hang out with Manila's incredibly salty expat scene. Might be useful for someone else to chime in on all of this.
  
  
• Other poo poo To See Intramuros is about the only picturesque thing in Manila. Manila used to the "Pearl of the Orient" (a label applied to about ten different cities over time - from Shanghai to Bangkok), but then the entire place got mostly bombed by the allies and/or destroyed by the occupying Japanese during WW II. What got rebuilt was not so pretty as you'll find out. Intramuros, though, is left from the Spanish colonial times. It's small and it's ridiculously touristed up with the fancy horse carts (forgot the name) and the parks, but it's interesting to read the history of and it houses museums and churches and such. We wandered into one huge church in the middle of a wedding and sat up on the pipe organ balcony taking pictures of the ceremony down below. Some of that kind of thing are my better memories of Manila, frankly.
  
  I have literally nothing else to recommend in Manila that isn't covered above in the nightlife & restaurants section. I'm not saying that doesn't mean there isn't anything else (the city's dotted with nightclubs and a few interesting restaurants) and surely someone here will have better advice than me, but my advice is GET OUT.
  
  Fortunately it's very easy to get out. There are flights on Cebu Pacific to drat near everywhere. There are two major ferry ports that run out of Manila and take you to a bajillion places. You can catch buses out of town very cheap to nearby areas like Tagaytay or further out parts of Luzon (La Union, Mt. Pinatubo, etc) and beyond. Most of the neat stuff is not on Luzon, it's on Mindanao or Visayas. My recommendation would be to go to those islands. There ARE things on Luzon, of course, so I'm definitely not saying there aren't, but most stuff you get recommended (like Negros, Boracay, etc) is off Luzon.
  
  
• Manny/Manny Pacquiao/Pac-Man Check the international boxing schedule for a Manny fight before deciding to make a trip. It's fun to be in The Philippines for one of his fights, but you don't want to travel ON the day of the fight. Everyone who can takes the day off and everyone at work is glued to the TV, so it can be a little harder to get a taxi or whatever. Also, when anyone asks your opinion of Manny, say he is the greatest boxer of all time (which you can make an argument for actually) and that he's going to win his next fight. I'm exaggerating a little here, but not much.
  
  
• The People I do have to drop a note here that the people in Manila are by and large very nice. The people who need money from you are a problem, but that's understandable since half of everyone is desperately poor, but most of everyone else is pretty friendly. Not as insanely nice and happy as you'll find in Thailand or Laos or Cambodia, but still friendly. My friends there are real friends and my description of Manila has nothing to do with the quality of the people living there, though I could go on a rant on how employers treat workers or about the politics, heh.
  
  

ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Feb 14, 2010

superwofl fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Feb 16, 2010

ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Feb 16, 2010

fartmanteau fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Feb 17, 2010

superwofl fucked around with this message at 10:25 on Feb 17, 2010