None of us were excited about Manila. This city of 12 million was almost completely destroyed by bombing in WW II. It also has the second largest military cemetery outside the U.S., with 16,000 men buried there, and 35,000 who are missing. One of the worst battles of the Pacific occurred at Corregador, where many of our fellow passengers went on a long tour to pay their respects. Captain Jonathan made special arrangements for these passengers to allow them to go, because we had to depart the port at 6 pm. and their ferry was coming in later. As we were staying moored out in the harbour anyway in order to see the International Fireworks Contest, Jonathan arranged for a ship's tender to go to the ferry terminal to bring the Corregador group back to the ship. They were very grateful.
Jonathan and Barry also had a private driver and, among many interesting things, saw a memorable sculpture of a martyr, a novelist who was shot by firing squad for inciting rebellion from the Spaniard rule.
We had another wonderful welcome at this port with two huge puppets, and lots of dancers and music. Before we left, we were all excited to meet Leslie's son, Marty who was flying in on business enroute to Malaysia. Leslie of course was over the moon with excitement. She was worried though as to whether she would find him as there were 1700 Philippino's crew family members embarking for the day. That is more than the 1300 passengers we have on board! Jonathan and Karen found Marty shortly after 8 a.m. and we all gathered in the Lido for a coffee and a very interesting hour's visit. Marty is the COO of SunProducts, a company based in the U.S. He told us about his business, and we kibittzed about all the stories Leslie had told us about him. Leslie and her family had lived just outside of Manila in the 1970s as her husband was stationed there while in the airforce.
Three of us (Karen, Peggy and I) had decided we had no interest in seeing Manila except whatever we would see as we drove in our private van on our way to some local bazaars and shops. This was a great decision. Manila is a combination of very old, very mouldy buildings in terrible disrepair, and big wide modern boulevards with huge new condos and office buildings. Even so for a city of this size there are not a lot of tall buildings.
For all my IBM friends who depend on support out of Manila, I took a picture to show why their phone lines go out so many times a day. This wiring reminded me of the first time Barry and I went to China - giant balls of wire, and rusted lines. We saw lots of beggars selling us strange combinations of goods when we were stopped in the unbelievable gridlocked traffic. One guy had a coat rack and a garbage can, another had soccer balls, and one guy had huge feather dusters. You never know when you are going to need a feather duster in the car.
Kidding aside, the poverty in this city is no joke. Marty was telling his mother that he has a project called "Community in a Box" that helps provide power to the urban poor who live on Smokey Mountain in this city, which, at the end of the project, will have impacted 5 million people who will be able to redirect most of the money they currently spend on electricity to make charcoal that they sell for five cents, into food for themselves. As we travel the world, we say to each other every day, how privileged we are. It has strengthened my resolve to get more deeply involved, now that I am retired into some charity work that goes beyond donations. How in the world will we ever have peace in this world when such a large number of the world goes to bed hungry and so many children remain destined for poverty because they are not educated at all.
We have seen for ourselves some evidence this poverty so widespread across the planet .
Our private driver and guide took us to a local bazaar, that was just huge. It reminded me of the largest Asian market we visited last year in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. Frankly it is overwhelming, and you wonder who in the world is going to buy all this "stuff". We love getting into these places that normal tourists don't go, just to see how and where the local people live and shop. Peggy had her heart set on some baroque pearls and she got two beautiful sets for a fantastic price. She had priced them last year in Shanghai, and couldn't believe her luck to find such good quality ones. Then we went to the Asian Mall - a monster place with all the usual chain stores we all know, to find the Philippino store where they had some very high quality products. We spent a happy hour choosing some lovely things. Then we went to a little Japanese place for some lunch, as it was now 2:30 pm. All told we spent 2 hours of our day in traffic, and we were so glad we had a private English speaking driver and guide who knew where to take us.
The evening was very enjoyable as we decided to get a table on the stern of the ship for the sail away (out to anchor in the harbour), to watch the fireworks show. We had quite a little crowd around our table, and we all loved the warm evening air and the company. The fireworks were not quite as remarkable as we had hoped, although I guess for the 500,000 people on shore watching them and listening to the music, they must have been fantastic. We were quite a distance away and so lots of them got lost in the tremendous black smoke. Hey - it was still a very pleasant way to spend the evening.
Of course we are all terribly excited about our next port of call which is I think, my personal favourite city - Hong Kong. It is always a thrill to visit this complex, clean, safe city, and although we will be here for 3 whole days (1 longer than last year), it is still not enough time to soak up all one wants to see and do. We will certainly try though.
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