Manila

We're at the end of our short visit to Manila, sitting at the airport waiting for the flight. Jonathan appears to still be in one piece, but does not look "local" yet. He seems to have found a second mother in Lorna (met for coffee yesterday), who he met through Dinah in Auckland. It does not look like work in Manila is busy yet...

We visited one of the GK villages in Baseco. Lots of smiles, but obviously a very different situation. Compared to the squatter housing across the water, these guys have made real differences. Interesting to see the names of the companies that are sponsoring parts of the village.

We caught a taxi to the village - actually we caught the third taxi to the village. The first two thought it was too dangerous to go there. On the way out, we found someone who would take us on their tricycle - a motorbike with sidecar contraption. However, it appears that local politics intervened (organised groups?), and he was only able to take us part of the way. We ended up transferring to another tricycle who could take us further. Even he was not keen to get too close to town. Then a 15 minute walk to the closest hotel for a cold drink in air-conditioned comfort.

The rest of our trip has been a series of short dashes between air-conditioned buildings (mostly shops). I guess we've quickly grown accustomed to the temperatures in Hong Kong, so Manila feels very warm. Even Lorna mentioned that this is particularly warm.

Nothing else worth mentioning really. Just a good break from HK. I saw on the news this morning that the weather in HK is rainy - oh good.