Manila - Day 1 (Part 2)

Friday, 10 February 2017

Upon arrival at the hotel, I asked the hotel about directions on the places I wanted to visit and as usual, although I had my own plans, they advised me otherwise. As a result, my first destination was to be Intramuros (which I had planned to do tomorrow). Then came the directions. I must say that I find Philippinos to be generally extremely helpful, and most of them are able to speak (or at least understand) English. Which makes travelling easy.

However, (1) they assume I know all their street names and the locations thereof, and (2) their pronunciation is atrocious. Tagalog is a totally foreign language to me but I did hear some splatter of Malay and Spanish. I’m not sure whether this is the reason for their funny pronunciation. Anyway, my first set of directions went as follows. “Go downstairs, take the tricycle to UNW (U. N. Avenue). Then walk to Jolly Bee (Jollibee, a fast food restaurant) and take the jeepney to Intramuros.” Fool proof directions. How can I ever get lost?

Ok so first the tricycle which I assumed were the motorbikes with a side seat for passengers. There were some parked outside the hotel, I asked them to take me to U. N. Avenue (of course, they didn’t understand what it was; I had to say UNW) and they quoted some exorbitant amount. I told them the hotel said only 10 pisos (RM1) and they said that was the yellow tricycle. But of course! And the yellow tricycle only stopped on the opposite side of the road so I had to commit the suicidal act of crossing the perpetually jammed Manila street. The best thing to do was to tag behind some locals which I eventually did and I accosted the first yellow tricycle I saw and said UNW.

And then, directions to Jolly Bee (at that time I didn’t know what it was or how it was spelt). I arrived. Then the jeepney to Intramuros. Asked around and was informed correctly and got into one. The jeepney is basically an open air van, you get in at the back and passengers sit on both sides on long benches. Each ride, no matter where you stop at, costs 8 pisos (RM0.80) but you must know the route of the jeepney and where to get off. People at the back pass long money to the driver in the front, and any change is also passed along to the back. Quite cute.