2nd Stop: Manila, Philippines

-->

The Philippines is much easier to navigate as most of the population speaks English and all of the signs are printed in English. Not thousands of chinese characters that are next to impossible to differentiate.  Made it to the hostel with minimal  problems and was tipping back a few exchanging stories with the roommates within minutes of arrival.  Much better.  Today I ventured out to Tagaytay. A town about 2 hours south of Manila that boasts the worlds smallest volcano.  Met a couple of guys with a motorcycle trike that said they would take me to the lake for 100 pesos, (about $2.5) and went for it.  Much better this way, as the bus would have been boring.  The way your supposed to ride this trike is silly, you’re basically in stainless steel egg shell cage over an axle attached to the bike.  Definitely not a side car. Much weirder and looks like it wouldn’t go so well. (SEE  picture for deathtrap picture.) Ended up just sitting on the back rail of it and enjoyed the ride through the twisty road much better.  Had some amazing fresh grilled fish from the lake and then wandered around befored heading back towards Minila.  It was great.

   The Philippines are a little more on the rough edge side and it makes things a lot more interesting. But there is a lot of poverty everywhere which gets to you at times.  People in general are very friendly and helpful and they are all very eager to speak english.  The food and drinks are all extremely cheap and you can travel around the city for under a dollar for most of the day.  The MRT (subway) system is not too bad but extremely crowded. To the point I wouldn't ride it sometimes for fear of getting pickpocketed and such.  The town was speckled with malls everywhere. to the point that you couldn't walk 5 blocks without hitting a mall.  and not just small little shopping centers I'm talking 5 stories high with full blown food courts and 40-50 stores.  Couldn't figure it out. They were always packed. There is an exceptionally large mall called the mall of asia, had to go see it for myself because of the way everyone was talking about it. Easily the largest mall I've ever seen.  I walked all around the city and visited the Main park, Rizu and the intramural a large old walled city.

Leaving this place was a little tricky as my flight was at 6am the next morning and the airport was 2 hours away.  Since the buses are just getting started around the time I'd be taking off that was not an option. Taking a taxi that early was out of the question due to the distance, the fair would be outrageous.  So I opted to traveling the night before and getting a place to stay near the airport. Much easier said than done. after a couple of hours of taking jeepneys (see picture) and walking I made it to the Bus station Victory liner which would take me to Dua, the town nearby Clark airport.  Once I was dropped of in Dua it was around 8:30 and I grabbed some fast food (their version). Trying to figure out which way I needed to go to get to the hotel I had scouted out. I hoped on a couple other jeepneys before gathering my bearing and realizing I needed to take another trike taxi to find it.  Dua is a wild town, a much dirtier and sexified las vegas on a miniature scale. As I came to find out as my taxi driver and I searched out the Clark star hotel.  Finally found it around 10:30 and paid for the room for 6 hours and then headed to the airport. All in all I liked the philippines, just would have liked to travel further into the country and not stayed in the city so much.