Manila

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My face was stuck to the window. I was flying low over The Philippines and simply couldn’t believe my eyes. Greenery clinched with solitude, volcanic craters were sticking straight through the specks of misty clouds creating dreamscapes. My heart started beating faster every minute, overly eager to explore this country.

But the more we flew up north the more worried I got. Pleasurable isolation slowly got replaced with villages, and villages with cities. We flew into southern Luzon and I watched the building density get thicker and thicker, the smog getting almost impenetrable but yet unable to cover the atrocious sight of the capital.

I didn’t want the plane to land here, but it was inevitable.

I stared down at the thousands of fisher’s huts right on top of the Bay of Manila and the South China Sea and I felt them. Also I wouldn’t even let a sea stop me to escape this hellhole.

The story doesn’t get better from here. Where I’m certainly not a city girl, normally I can get quite some joi de vivre out of a conglomeration of theatre, art, nightlife and fine dining. However, Manila isn’t the place for that either. It’s just a soulless collection of buildings, glued together by always persistent traffic jams with zero movement supplemented by the ear-deafening sound of a honking-car-orchestra. Crime is peaking in this megalopolis, safety an unknown concept to foreigners. Local culture can be summed up as an endless supply of shopping malls, and if you ever heard the Filipinos are a lovely and welcoming bunch (which I - after three weeks of traveling in this country - won't necessarily support), that certainly doesn’t go for the grumpy and rude population of Manila. And you can’t even blame them, how would you feel if you have to call this abyss your home?

The only upside I can think of right now is the high-end accommodation you can book for next to nothing. For the price of one hostel bed in any first world country, you can book a fancy-pants sky view apartment for 2-3 people with swimming pool, spa and in-room-massage-service-on-demand (five bucks an hour) in Manila. Or anywhere in The Philippines.

I stayed in Mosaic Tower, The Milano Residences and Knightsbridge (all Makati area)... what can I say, I like variation, even when just recovering from four flights in a row...

For the same five dollars you can eat in a luxurious restaurant, but I have been told that amount can last your food supply for four full days when going local*.

* Which isn’t quite the vegan practice in this country. ‘Pork’ is the magic word. However, veggie restaurants like Corner Tree Cafe present local dishes the animal-friendly way. Although I must confirm the Filipino kitchen has zero appeal to me, with or without meat.

Yes: Sleep. Eat. And plan your escape route out of Manila.

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