Meeting Shannon in the Philippines

After 6 weeks in India, I took two flights to get to Manila, Philippines to meet up with my girlfriend, Shannon, who I missed so much! She is currently in graduate school and she flew out from Orlando, Florida so we could travel around the Philippines for about a month.

We visited the Philippines before in 2009 but, at the time, it was our first trip to a Southeast Asian country. We had been to South Korea and Japan together but East Asia is completely different. Philippines is a developing country of about 90 million people and some travelers avoid Manila and go straight to Boracay or other beautiful tropical islands in the archipelago. However, Manila has grown to be a special place for us as it takes a little time to get past the crowds and grittiness.

We stayed at Friendly’s hostel in Malate (it has since closed down) and made a beeline for our favorite place to eat called Super 6 BBQ. You walk up to a large table heaving with all kinds of meat and veggies on skewers. You pick out the ones you want and they grill them up and take them to your table with some ice cold Filipino beers (Sam Miguel or Red Horse).

Malate is a very fun area – lots of backpackers and shady bars that stay open all night into the morning. We popped into a random singing bar called Bedrock and enjoyed some fun live music.

We slept really well and weren’t even woken up by the seemingly thousands of roosters that crow around the neighborhood. Filipinos love cockfights (roosters put in a ring to fight each other). Cockfighting is legalized and every town has a cockfighting pit. It is also featured on the local television stations.

The next day we walked along Manila bay to the main historic area called Intramuros. This is the old walled city when the Philippines was a Spanish Colony (for about 300 years until 1898 – the Spanish American War). This area was leveled during WWII and is hugely popular to visit. Thousands of touts pedal around asking to give you a ride.

We hopped in a bicycle cab and rode around the walled city for a bit taking photos of the ruins and people.

There are some very pretty historic churches – some parts that survived the WWII bombings are from the 1500’s. The Spanish were fervent proselytizers and, as a result, the Philippines in the only predominantly Christian country in all of Asia.

This church (pictured below) is my favorite and has a jeepney in front of it. Jeepneys are left over American Jeeps from WWII that have been elongated to serve as a kind of public bus in the Philippines. Jeepneys are everywhere!

After our intramuros ride around, we asked the driver to take us a local place for some food. This is one of our best travel tips – anytime you want good authentic local food, put the guide book down, and ask a local.

Near Intramuros is Rizal Park, which has a bunch of places to visit. Many people gather to picnic, dance and exercise and there is a lot of historical stuff as well. Jose Rizal is a famous martyr who stood up against Spanish rule in the late 1800’s. He was executed in this park and his memorial is guarded 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.