Southeast Asia Day 1 - Manila, Philippines

We arrived in Manila at 4 PM local time yesterday. We got in a cab just at the beginning of rush hour in a city known for its traffic. We were told to get a metered cab outside of departures to prevent any rip-off situations.

The traffic is nuts. Motorcycles weave through the traffic, buses are tiny and cramped (yet stylish), and even bicycles are dodging cars on roads that seem like highways. The experience reminded me of South America.

I gotta be honest, I wasn't expecting much from Manila since I hadn't heard much. I thought it would be kinda dumpy but it has some character and energy. We are staying at Our Melting Pot hostel and right across the street is a nightly outdoor festival of street food and 70 pp beers (just over $1) and live music. 

For dinner we went to Manam for Philippino food recommended by the man at the desk of our hostel. The area where it was called Greenbelt is incredibly nice. There are 5 new mall-like buildings and one of which is entirely of bars and restaurants. In between each is a path through a beautiful garden that's well lit up and super fancy.

We then walked home and stopped off at a street full of neon lights with patios, lady boys, and what seemed like young opportunistic women. We took it all in and then headed back to the outdoor food festival for a beer. We had a tough time falling asleep as there was blasting dance music outside our room. Before 7 am motorcycles and traffic in general were blasting.  

Today we are trying to book tickets to Boracay on an overnight ferry tonight. We couldn't book them online from Korea for some reason and we are hoping we can still get on this ferry. Wish us luck. If we get tickets, we'll have to take a 3-4 hour bus to Batangas to get to the ferry.