Manila and the Business Traveler

If you are planning to stay over the weekend, definitely arrange a trip to Boracay Island- see attached journal for more information.

Quick Tips:

Plan on spending alot of time in traffic and arrange your day to leave early/ return late if at all possible. The traffic is horrendous and the noise, pollution, and congestion make commuting an ever constant test of self restraint.

Best Way To Get Around:

In a word, getting around in Manila an easy way doesn't seem to exist. As a tourist, don't attempt to drive- get a taxi. You can try walking but the city pollution makes it very unpleasant. For the braver, small jeeps call "jeepneys" constantly roam the city and can be hailed on command.

The Edsa Shangri-la is by far one of the nicest hotels I''ve ever stayed at. In the typical Asian fasion, the hotel is HUGE and ornately decorated. It boasts several really nice restaurants, a large healthclub with good, new equipment and which doesn''t get overly crowded, and big comfy robes and slippers in the rooms. As for the ever-important question of what English speaking tv stations are available, the choices were more than adequate- HBO, CNN, some version of MTV, Discovery, and the Cartoon Network. I would definitely stay there again on a return visit to Manila.

Boracay is a really beautiful island, full of palm trees and small hotel/ resorts that blended rather than consumed the landscape. Blue, blue water about 80 degrees and a sun so warm 15 minutes in it was my limit. Friendly staff were found at the hotel/ restaurants along with an abundance of stray dogs that roamed freely among the guests.

My favorite part of my weekend to Boracay took place on Saturday afternoon. Sitting on the beach, my colleagues and I were constantly accosted by all sorts of peddlars selling everything under the fun- jewelry, fake rolexes, sunglasses, fruit, ice cream, and other miscellaneous trinkets. Also being offered were massages on the beach! For $10, you could get a 45 minute full body massage and we all jumped on the chance! It was fantastic- I relaxed on a mat on the sand, underneath the palm trees, with the sound of the waves and soft music from the outside bar drifting by. Afterwards, we were all so relaxed we bordered on comatose. It was definitely the highlight of the weekend!

Probably the funniest part of my weekend trip to Boracay Island was the transportation required to get there. We flew on a plane so small (18 seats) and so old (early 70's at the best)- no safety guidelines, certainly no beverage service, lots of unpleasant smells, and what appeared to be a lethargic left-side propeller (although I suppose that could've been my imagination).

But that's not the best of it. We landed on Caticlan Island and then had to take a boat to Boracay. When we arrived (in our work clothes, as we came straight from the office), we found that there were no docks for the boats- they were anchored a ways out in the water. So we took off our shoes, rolled up our pants, and waded out into the water. Unfortunately, although the water wasn't too deep, the mild waves resulted in a diaper syndrome for me. Even worse, to actually board the boat you were required to climb an extremely rickety and slippery plank. I managed ok, but on the way home, my colleague slipped halfway up and both she and her luggage ended up flailing about in the water. Happily, she was a really good sport about it, although she then had to sit for the afore- mentioned awful airplane ride in dripping wet clothes! Nonetheless, the minor inconveniences encountered on the journey were more than made up for by the sheer beauty of the island.

The traffic in Manila is wretched!! Tons of cars, narrow roads, and no semblance of traffic laws. Everyone drives with total disregard to lanes and stop signs, relying on incessant beeping to avoid hitting others and of being hit. There are buses galore and these funny looking things called jeepneys which are basically colorful military jeeps. They have no lanes so just continually stop in the middle of the road to pick up/ drop off passengers so that traffic comes to a complete stand still for many minutes at a time.

Although the commute from my hotel to the plant is only 12 kilometers distance, it took an hour to get both there and back b/c of traffic. It turns out that "Metro Manila" has 8.5 million people, which goes a long way to explaining the chaos. The roads are small and in very urban settings- no highways at all. There are hundreds of people at each street corner, trying to cross or get a ride in one of the jeepneys, who just stop in the middle of the road to pick up/ let people off with total disregard for traffic. Pedestrians are also oblivious to traffic and routinely step in front of cars, leaving their fate to their blind faith in their fellow Filipinos. As far as I can tell, though, nobody seems to get hit!

On my first day in Manila, I ate lunch in the company cafeteria even though I had been amply warned from colleagues who had been to Manila previously about the poor quality of the food. I didnt' want to offend my Manila counterparts on the first day though, so I cheerily agreed to dine in the lunchroom. The trouble was, I had been forewarned of rice timbales littered with bugs and of all kinds of unmentionable meat products, so I suppose I was a bit predisposed to finding the food ineditable. I'm usually pretty good about adventurous eating, but I have to admit, I was eyeing up those rice timbales pretty closely. And sadly, I probably shouldn't have looked so thoroughly b/c there were definite unidentifiable items lurking among the grains. Coupled with that, the rice was served with three different items, none of which were identifiable as anything I'd ever eaten. I tried all three, two strange vegetable dishes, one ominous- looking meat chunk dish, and then basically stuck to the paltry banana that was also included with the meal (sigh).
As the week progressed, the food improved slightly, mostly due to the fact that they ordered my lunch every day so I successfully avoided a repeat trip to the cafeteria. One evening they took me and an American colleague to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I was pleasantly surprised with the food, even though it included shrimp with their heads (and although I know they're supposed to be better that way and that you're supposed to pull the head off and then suck on it,I couldn't bring myself to do it), some strange seaweed, and several vegetables I didn't recognize. They also have a local fish called lapu-lapu that was served whole and which was pretty good. Anway, I was chomping away, happily enjoying the food, when my colleague abruptly stopped eating. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but upon our return to the hotel, he informed me that when the waiter moved our carved pineapple full of fried rice from the serving tray to the table, an army of ants scooted out from it and proceeded to scoot into the other food on the table!!!! So i am fairly sure I've ingested more than a few bugs so far this week!