From Manila to Jakarta

Another day, another flight. This time early in the morning (again) back to Singapore. I didnt have a ticket to Jakarta but fortunately there was space on midday flight so I jumped aboard and was in Jakarta by the middle of the afternoon.

Headed for my usual hotel, the Millenium Sirih, mostly because it as a good swimming pool, sauna and masseurs. Dumped the bags, headed straight for the maseur so I could have the six flights in three days rubbed out of me.

In the evening I just stayed in the hotel, ate a curry and - you guessed it, crashed out.

One day in HongKong

The flight out from Manila was terrifyingly early, the reason being I had to be downtown HongKong by 9am. There were more people than I expected at the airport at this hour, locals heading places, tourists going home, workers heading to who knows where. Mostly filipinos on their way back to the many jobs they have in other places.

I had forgotten the 'exit tax' process here, a brazen excuse like in several other places to levy an extra tax on people traveling through - and of course provide extra sources of patronage for local government officials.

The flight out was the usual - i slept. Arriving early in HongKong was an event in itself - swept through pass control with the politest of smiles from the various authorities, bags delivered in about 30 seconds and speedily onto the train that effortlessly takes you to the heart of the city.

Doesn't matter how many times I'm in Asia, I enjoy the mix of history, culture, civility, vibrancy and focus on making today's lifestyle less of a hassle and more of a rewarding part of whatever it is you are doing that day.

The day was for work, which is never the purpose of this blog. However one things I have t mention in passing - lunch was at the HongKong Yacht club, which juts out into Victoria Harbor and gives you a brilliant view of both the Island and Kowloon.

From here, my host told me, many people gathered to see the scenes they shot for the latest Batman movie - the part where he grabs the Chinese bad guy and is pulled out of a building by skyhook from a passing plane. There, above the newly built stadium, was the tower. Evidently the director had the plane pass so closely to the skyscrapers that everyone was convinced it was going to crash - which is why they were all at the Yacht Club watching (several of the buildings' owners being members of the Club).

Work over, it was back to the airport and another flight back to Manila. Arriving late, I really didn't do much - wandered to a bar in Malate, had a couple of drinks, crashed out.

Reflections on the Philippines

Two days of intense work. No particular events to report; tomorrow I'm office to HongKong and although I'm back in Manila overnight this is really my last day day here. I liked the Philippines the moment I visited the first time in 2005, I'm sure in part because of the friendships I had with Filipinos before I arrived. I like their warmth and personableness, their hospitality and their intellectual flexibility.

I'm sure that, as in many countries and cultures, what a stranger sees on the surface of a society isn't necessarily what that society or individual truly feels - but since the mask exists in all places I prefer it is a polite one, rather than the hard and hostile one I've seen in a few places I can mention. The true way to a culture's soul is t learn its language - learning Tagalog and/or Visayan would be a challenge, but it would be a fun one.

I'm sure this is completely erroneous, but I always come back to comparing the Philippines with Mexico - they are almost sister countries, tied by Spanish steel, Spanish trade and Spanish mores. Both are fusions, but of quite different histories. The overt Hispanic presence has been subsumed into a melanged identity, more evident in Mexico because the principal language is still Spanish, but still very much there in the Visayan tongues also.

This is a place I could live in - the infectious warmth of the people and the beauty of the country has got to me - but what I could do I don't know, especially as Manila, the hub of everything in the country, is not an attractive place. Let's see what time brings - for sure there is business potential.

Viva México!

The greater part of the day was work. This took me from Malate into Makati - about 20 minutes through streaming traffic in roads narrow and wide alike. The city looks like a mash between Mumbai, Jakarta and Sao Paulo. Middle class neighborhoods rub against poorer shopfronts, soaring glass towers against older concrete buildings that were once the high points in town. Many roads seem to be upturned, with work going on to install drains, cables, restructure or just hold together. Once away from the bay its difficult to have a sense of orientation - or maybe it was me just letting the sensation sink in and not worry about the direction.

Met up with Chinky Calderon for lunch. I first met Chinky in Cebu in 2005 when I visited Philippines for the first time; she's a friend of Charlie's and we've stayed in touch since. Quick update of each other's activities over last year, jaunt around an indoor market in Greenfields looking for fans for a party she's holding and I headed back to Makati to wrap up business.

At the end of the day I met up with Jude again, who had gotten me an invitation to go to an event organized by the Mexican Embassy to celebrate Mexico's Independence Day. Of course I couldn't refuse - Viva México! The event was in a hotel ballroom, all decked out in Mexican colors, with chefs imported for the occasion. So good to see the bright colors of Jalisco and hear the music of Veracruz! And the sopa de tortilla!

Mexico is always one of my most favorite countries in the world.

Met some people, wrapped up the fiesta, walked Jude to his offices, headed back to Malate for drink and then crashed out at the hotel. Jef was watching TV and I don't think I remember much else.

Meeting an acquaintance

Managed to struggle awake at a reasonable time, which was good because had to head back to the airport to pick up Jeferson Menuza, a guy I had been chatting with for years. He flew up from Cagayan, since I had no time to go there and visit him and his family.

As is so often the case, chatting and meeting are often to different things. Once we could talk more easily, we quickly found we had little much to talk about that the other actually found interesting or could relate to. So anyway we were able to twitter on about this and that, and the time passed.

In the evening I wandered around a different part of the city, heading down the bay front away from the US Embassy. The bay is enormous - it could hold an entire Armada comfortably within its encompassing embrace. It also smells from the effluent of the city, which I suspect lies in the bay and festers as there is no significant current to sweep the detritus away.

Saw more of the street life at night in the district, which was subdued given its a Sunday. This time no crashing out - just a meander back to the hotel, with the evening finished off by a really good back massage by a Filipina. One of the things I discovered the time I had overnighted the first time I passed through Manila - there's a 24 hour massage service in every hotel I've stayed at. I love being slowly kneaded, especially after long flights.

Party in Manila

I made the flight! I'm stunned - I was sure I wouldn't even be close. This Cebu Pacific flight was from the 'budget' terminal - bright, light and ful of filipinas returning home from work as maids etc from Singapore. There's actually quite a large filipino community in Singapore; the mall on Orchard Road where I bought my air tickets was full of stalls selling filiipino foodstuffs, movies and other stuff from home.

I slept the entire flight out to Manila, waking up once to the sound of the stewardesses singing to everyone. Yes there was a competition - three stewardesses, three songs and three winners - those passengers who were first able to guess the song. There was also a 'raffle', with three lucky winners selected by randomly picking a seat number out of a bag. What an absolute total delight! A human touch where normally you get an amorphous lump of mewling passengers prodded into obedience by scowling warders. American Airlines (whose cabin staff are morose), British Airways (governesses) and Continental (Con Air) could all lean a trick or two from these sweet, smiling, staff.

Landed some time in the afternoon, grabbed a cab into town and checked in to the hotel Jude Defensor had proposed for me - the Riviera Hotel in Malate. I called him on arrival and said though the price was great (1,700 pesos) the place wasn't, so the alternative he had proposed would be a good idea.

Jude came by, and this was the first time I had met the Expat editor, the magazine in which my article on security had been printed. After the usual introductions we went up two buildings and checked out the Executive Hotel. At 2,500 pesos a night it was perfectly acceptable.

From there Jude acted as guide to Manila for me. This is the first time I've walked in the capital of the Philippines; the first time I was physically here I just 'overnighted' in a hotel near the airport, so I saw nothing of the city itself, except by air.

We walked up the seafront promenade, past the US Embassy in its high profile location on the bay, through the park with its fountains and outdoor theater where young ballerinas were pirouetting to the music of Mozart, past the old Senate building and the shell of a building the Queen of Spain had, many years ago, funded for its restoration.

By now it was dark. We kept on walking, over a bridge into Chinatown, through a gate in the glowering walls of Intramuros, the old Spanish heart of Manila with buildings are sisters to the buildings I remember from Mexico.

In the much cracked and as many times repaired church a wedding is being celebrated, the whole family in white and with cockades of flowers. From here on in the streets appear cracked, the buildings shuttured, the atmosphere one of abandonment. Think what could be done to revive such as place - made into a tourist attraction, a Bohemian quarter, with arts and night life and street shows that make a place live. Not here - people want the modern luxuries of malls, air conditioning and boxy apartments that sell for twice the value in two years.

We wandered back up streets that I had no idea were, stopped at a bright, formica tabled restaurant for a delicious bowl of beef stew, then back through Malate to the hotel.

Later in the evening Jude came by again to invite me to a party he had been invited to, not far from the hotel. Great fun! Locals, plus guys from Spain working for an NGO, a woman from Angola, some Dutch, an American and an Indian who looked like a guru. The noise roared on and the rum was too soon gone.... The view from the apartment looked over one section of the district that still had the old, two story Chines style houses, infinitely preferable to the anonymous concrete towers that dominate the city.

Eventually wandered back to the hotel and crashed out (I'm always doing that, huh?)