Philippines, Hectic Manila

 

Besides its what I am told normal madness, we are told that Manila will be even more hectic as we will be visiting (unplanned) during the APEC conference. We get a quick taste of this outside the airport arrival area when we attempt to join the taxi queue which is about 150 passengers deep with a “Yellow Cab” showing up about every 7-10 minutes.

 

 

Knowing this will not work we walk off the airport area through a construction site then jay walk across 6 lanes of traffic on a major highway to find a “White Cab”.

 

 

 

 

Our 5 mile journey to downtown begins but takes us almost an hour in bumper to bumper traffic even on a sometimes multi-lane highway.

Checked into our hotel our next adventure is a ride in one of the most popular forms of public transportation, a colorful and (9 pesos) very cheap “Jeepney”. Our destination is one of the oldest parts of Manila, Intramuros. Here we discover of the quickest ways to see this huge area is on a bicycle tour where someone else is doing the pedaling.

 

 

 

A lot of the city's history is here including Fort Santiago and the Manila Metropolitan Cathedral which I think has being rebuilt about eight times. Intramuros is definitely a worthwhile stop in Manila.

Our second day has us crossing MacArthur Bridge to see another part of the city.

 

A nice local noodle lunch then we receive a sidewalk blessing of “Holy Water” before we make a visit to Quiapo Church.

 

 

 

 

Quiapo Church is home of the Black Nazarene which is considered scared and miraculous by many here in the Catholic faith.

 

 

 

The Black Nazarene