I don’t like saying this about many places, but Manila is a shithole. It’s not a bad place as such, there are great things to do, just not a lot of things to see, and the place is a lesson in how not to design a city.
Any wannabe urban planner should come here for a trip before putting any city plan into place. There are no green spaces, and the place looks to me like America gone wrong. Everything is here for commerce, and no-one has actually thought they may have to live in the city too.
Also it’s full of security guards with machine guns that are probably getting paid peanuts!
Anyway, time for my kip. It’s almost 1am (when did that happen!) and I’m up at 5am to get the taxi before the traffic starts, then a bus to Clark airport out of town, then flying to Singapore for the night before hitting Australia overnight on Tuesday.