Fun, food and Film in Manila

Lots of firsts yesterday. Who would have thought that we would take our first public bus ride this late in our trip. I think we were spoiled in India where we had personal taxi service all over the country which was so freeing that we can't give it up anymore.

In any case yesterday morning we left Tagaytay on an almost sunny day taking one of the motorcycle trikes down to the bus stop area. I got to ride pillion, just like Geordie did the night before - side saddle on the bike itself. At the bus stop a bus pulled up as we arrived and after confirming that it went to Manila (well, to Baclaran, which we'd never heard of) we got on. The bus was airconditioned - we were glad we were still wearing our long-sleeved shirts.

Once we were settled we pulled out the guide book and found that Baclaran was indeed in the neighbourhood of Manila and actually closer to our hotel area than the area we thought we needed. The ride down to Manila through the province of Cavite was lovely - the road for a long way was full of garden centres selling plants which lined the road. Certainly if one lived here one could have a gorgeous garden. We had seen a bonsai in a garden centre in Tagaytay itself that would have set us back about 65,000 pesos (about $1500.00) - a goodly bit of money but so beautiful.

Baclaran turned out to be not quite as easy as we hoped but as usual we coped. We were let off in a sea of buses and had to walk about 10 minutes through buses, jeepneys, people, cars and a large open air market before we found a street where we could locate a taxi - a bit of a rattletrap that still got us where we wanted to go. Good thing we'd been there before because we did have to help the driver find it.

At the hotel things did not go well. We had reserved a room on the 2nd floor (so we thought), although we also knew that we would have to spend one night climbing to the 4th floor. But when we showed up we were informed by a couple of surly and sullen young women that they didn't book specific rooms, that the room we wanted was occupied and we would have to spend all four nights climbing to the 4th floor. We went to look and discovered the "executive room" was about a third the size of the one we'd had back in November, and on the side of the building where the huge condo is being constructed with lots of banging, slamming, and other construction noise to entertain us.

No go! We went to have a coffee at Starbucks (attached to the hotel) and Geordie went off to check out other hotels in the neighbourhood. He came back about 5 minutes later and sent me off to look at room 301 of the Rainbow Hotel across the street. I went off and 5 minutes later was booking the room for us. From the little tiny noisy room we were to pay $1700 pesos, we moved to a large room with a queen sized bed, and a sitting area with a "pleather" sofa and two chairs, breakfast included in the price, $1600 pesos. In a hotel with an elevator!

Ok, on to more fun stuff. While we were on the bus heading down to Manila, Geordie's phone rang and our friend John from Vancouver was at the other end, checking on our arrival in Manila. We arranged to call him as soon as we arrived which we did. He and his brother Joey then made plans to meet us in Manila after we arrived.

It was great. Joey arrived in his car with John, we had our excited reunion and then we headed off to the Mall of Asia for a little tour of Filipino food. Joey apparently has learned the lessons of his mother well, according to John, and insisted we eat as much food as he could think of. We had grilled chicken on a bamboo skewer at Mang Inasal - a big chain that has restaurants all over the country. Then we had to go have huge fresh lumpia (a filipino egg roll) at Mannan Hang, and from there around the corner to have halo-halo - shaved ice with sweetened black banana, a milk based topping and a garnish of slices of creme caramel.

Joey thought this was hardly enough - there was so much more to try, but we were bursting at the seams. It was great fun. We also did a little shopping - got to go to the Costco of the Philippines, and looked at tv tables at the Mall. Joey is still refurnishing his house after last October's typhoon damage and needs 7 tv stands!

Our final stop was for coffee - Joey thought we needed dessert there too, but we resisted. Honestly, even I can't eat that much food. I think I've gained back the 3 pounds I'd hoped I'd lost in the last couple of weeks of eating my high-fibre, no beer diet.

And finally - we said goodbye to our two wonderful hosts and sent them off. We stayed because we wanted to see Avatar, and although Geordie didn't find it so comfortable, I thought seeing the movie in 3D at the Imax theatre was incredible. If you haven't seen this movie, the special effects alone are worth the price. This is the most vividly realized alien planet that I've ever even imagined in all my science fiction reading. The plant life, the animal life, the sky - it is impossible to put into the words the glorious detail. Certainly there are gaps in the storyline - this is not a perfect movie. As I'm sure you've read in reviews, the notion of a sentient planetscape does take simplistic aim at organized religion, the references to recent conflicts here on Earth ("shock and awe"), and the in-your-face racism of the military, and the "big business is king" attitude are way over the top. And the Avatar concept itself needs a little more development. Finding out only half way through the movie that the avatar just collapses when the original mind comes out of stasis was a stretch too.

However, go see this movie. And if you can see it in 3D all the better. The effects are astounding, the scenery is impossibly phenomenal, and the animal life is wild.