Manila Maaaaaaaaaaaanila...

Yop, what's cracking bros?

Third World style in The Philippines. You may have seen some TV reports about the streets of Manila, children sniffing UHU glue (not the acid-free ones), dirty walls and pavements. This is all true!

Children begging in the main river - acid too - fabulous drag queens, absolute pollution (air, water, noise). BUT, Manila is a sensible city, full of contradictions. A nice historical center with churches, destroyed fortifications and a nice-looking business center. Nothing to compare to Central HK, of course but for such a country... A kind of Hispanic-Cuban atmosphere, pretty relaxing!
And The Philippines is full of Filipinos, nice guys, basket-ball lovers (due to a long american presence after WW2), boxe lovers but not sure they like Maupassant or Balzac. They speak a perfect english (US call centers are moving from India to the Philippines), laugh a lot and are just cool. Problem is that there is not a real culture there. Not a strong personnality I mean. Like Belgium. Or Corsica.

The Philippines are also pretty green. They have volcanos, rice-terraces, rice-terraces, rice-terraces. And sun!
And they have funny cars, I cant describe that, it is just too cool. Public transport with ganja-men-looking drivers in ganja-men-looking Jeepney (US heritage?). Filipinos are just like that, apart.

Hope you want to join me in Asia!

Bisous