Part 5

It is practically impossible to describe any world city in a single word, but if you add “mostly” to the description, you get closer to the truth. In this way, for example, London becomes mostly classical, New York mostly vibrant, Parys mostly romantic and Manila mostly a dump (yes, yes – I know that’s two words, but who counts?).

Endeavouring to be objective, I have to concede that you will indeed encounter the largest shopping mall in Asia here, and if 16^th century architectural ingenuity is your thing, you will spontaneously break out in goosebumps a number of times.

On the other hand, Manila’s population density dwarfs many other well-known human ant nests the likes of Kolkata, Shanghai and Hong Kong. And because there are so many people around every corner, traffic is an absolute nightmare. To travel 5 km in a taxi can easily take an hour – making it a very expensive hour!

Furthermore, most of the (ghettoish) neighbourhoods outside the city centre look like they have been hit by a tornado the night before, while the emergency services are still on their way – possibly stuck in traffic somewhere. And there isn’t even a Big Ben, Colosseum or Eiffel Tower as primary tourist focus. I wouldn’t want to live in Manila or even spend more than a few days there.

However, I was indeed flattered by all the attention I got from the fairer sex. The women of Manila must have seen something in me, as my every step was greeted with shouts of “Hey, Sir!” and “Hello, Sir!” Interestingly enough, these interactions never happened when Michelle accompanied me, and the frequency also intensified significantly after dark. But what man’s ego would not feel special when cute dolls with short skirts and long cigarettes call out to him from the side-alleys? You know?

About an hour’s drive from Manila lies the Taal Volcano (no relation to the Taal Monument!).  This volcano has already erupted 33 times and although the last eruption occurred in 1977, there have been signs since 1991 that dear old Taal is setting himself up for yet another eruption spectacle.

Because of its unstable nature, the Taal Volcano is earmarked as one of the world’s decade volcanoes – volcanoes that are monitored regularly for signs of imminent eruption.

Despite the fact that, potentially, we could have found our deaths, we did indeed go to see what’s cooking at the Taal Volcano. It took an hour and a half’s vigorous hike to get to the side of the crater, but our breaths were completely taken away but what we beheld. It is a bit of a challenge to try and describe the view – you will therefore have to look at the accompanying pictures to understand exactly what I mean – but dozens of eruptions over the centuries have created the most spectacular landscape imaginable. Today the Taal Volcano is an island within a lake, on an island within a lake, on an island in the sea. And the green grass grows all around …

We were treated to tens of hundreds of informative snippets (and even more uninformative snippets) in the course of two weeks. This is how we learnt that the Republic of the Philippines was named for King Philip II of Spain, that it is the only Asian country where Christians (Roman Catholic) are the majority, that more than 11% of the country’s total population live and work abroad, and that the Philippine flag is the only flag in the world that are flown upside-down in times of war.

We also learnt that crime levels in Manila drop to 0% when the Philippine boxing hero Manny Pacquiao gets into the boxing ring, that the very first karaoke machine was patented by a Philippine man in 1975 and that the world record for the most women breast-feeding at the same moment was set in Manila in 2006.

The most important discovery that I made about the Philippines is that you will have to search far and wide to find a friendlier nation, despite the fact that the average income is much lower than that of many other developing countries. So, the worst that can happen to you providing free lodging to a parasite for a day or two. But if that is what it takes to be able to spend a little time in one of the most breath-taking natural beauty in the world, it is a very small price to pay.

Please visit Fanie’s website, Fanie Os Oppie Jas, and his Facebook page, Fanie Os Oppie Jas: howzit my China.

Photos: Fanie van der Merwe