Day 46

We arrived in Manila port just after 7 am. The pier looked hazy, maybe smog? On one side of the pier was a slum area thick with squatters’ huts. One wonders how they fare during a storm. The water was full of trash and looked really filthy. The ship was greeted by the porters who put on a dance show. After negotiating our way through a crowd of jeepney conductors, taxi driver and beggars, we decided to find our own way by asking the locals who were very helpful. We walked through Divisoria Market, which was very crowded and Ole bought an orange bandana to replace his worn-out one. He always wears bandana to keep perspiration from dripping onto his face. Two jeepney rides took us to Pension Natividad. It is nice, clean and spacious. We checked in the dorms which are not co-ed. We found where the Adventist hospital and we had lunch at the cafeteria. There Ole struck up a conversation with an attending doctor and some other medical personnel having lunch. All the nurses still wear traditional nursing attire with little white hats and white shoes and stockings. Male nurses also have their own distinct white uniforms with a line of large white buttons up the right side and across the top of the front of their shirts.

We also visited the Manila jagriti’s old neighborhood of Paco. We visited the small, round Paco park whose outer walls are thick enough to have a spacious elevated pathway. Underneath the path are the tombs of many ancient Manilenos. Then we proceeded to UN Avenue and the Sikh temple, where Ole stayed several days when he first arrived in Manila in 1982. Since it was Sunday they suggested we not visit the inner sanctum and we did not press the issue. Then we continued in the neighborhood and came across the old, now abandoned, site of the Paco jagriti. Ole spent many a day there in the eighties. A later internet search revealed it has moved to the suburbs so we did not go to Dharma Cakra. Continuing to Paco Market, we were able to find neither the Hare Krishna nor Indian temple. We suspect they have moved out of the neighborhood. It was here in 1994 with Ole’s parents and Eric Dapp, his nephew, that they first beheld a traditional public market. Everyone was very impressed at the dazzling array of tropical fruits and veggies sold by hundreds of vendors in typical third world fashion with neat piles of well organized items displayed so appealingly. But to a carnivore’s dismay, the meat and fish market’s strong stench, suspect sanitary conditions (no refrigeration, flies everywhere), and live animals awaiting slaughter that turned Eric and Mom to vegetarians for the remainder of the trip. Eric was also disgusted by the story of, and witnessing locals consuming, balut, semi-incubated duck eggs with visible body parts like feathers that are consumed as a Filipino delicacy.

This trip we did encounter a man in a streetside stall making lumpia wrappers and he consented to a photo, much to the delight of the onlookers. Then we returned to the pension, rested, and took an evening stroll to the now heavily commercialized waterfront which is only one block away. We also walked around Mabini and Del Pilar streets, our pension’s neighborhood. As it was Palm Sunday we noted many beautifully trimmed and woven coconut palm leaves sold mainly around the churches.

We were able to get a wifi connection on an upper balcony at the pension and skype the girls and Karen.