Manila

Greetings from Manila, Philippines. I don't have enough time to write about it all, but just for several impressions, Manila has been:

Surprisingly Organized - when we whisked through the airport and into the city in 1 hour, when it was supposed to take at least 3.
Completely Disorganized - in most other aspects. It's pretty much one big mess.
Hot & sticky - well, that's just as it is here.
Overcrowded - people, cars, bicycles, tricycles everywhere. With about 13 million inhabitants, it must be one of the larger cities I've been to.
Rich & poor (mostly poor) - while modern buildings and expensive cars are present, they are far outnumbered by the begging children.
Uniformed - there's a guardian at every shop and every door. They also always check our backpacks, looking for guns.
Dodgy - when some random guy tried to force us to go with him to some "District office" in the middle of the night, because of the offense we caused by drinking beer out in a public square. No worries, we know better than that.
Pathetic - seeing old foreign men, walking hand in hand with young Filippina girls everywhere. I knew this was a popular destination for sex tourists, but still, it's sad.
Shopping Obsessed - Manila is full of malls. Huge malls. I always get lost there. It seems like that's all the local people ever do. (good idea, they have air-conditioning.)
Against the Market Laws - The fact that no bookstore in Taiwan has a guidebook for Philippines is acceptable. The fact that no bookstore in the Philippines has one is a bit more strange. We found one last copy in one of them, eventually, probably because it was hidden away at a shelf away from all the other travel books.
Vocal - People yelling "Hello sir, Hello ma'am" from any direction imaginable, music blasting on the jeepneys (a wonderful thing - write about that some other time), noisy traffic everywhere, noisy ktvs and bars everywhere else.

While English is one of the official languages here and communication is therefore much easier than in Taiwan, Taipei now feels like a calm, relaxed, laid-back place, and I'm sure glad I live there and not in Manila.

Ok, that's it from me for now. Going to look at a volcano inside a lake tomorrow, then finally going to search for that perfect empty beach paradise away from this crazy city on Friday.

Nebojte, mam se tady fajn a vsechno je v poradku.