I have been in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, for three days now. The city is incredibly dense people are crammed in every possible corner. At night the city explodes with light and voices. It’s an experience of its own. I’ve planned a number of activities which I hope to talk about in my next blog. But I’ll tell you what I’ve done so far.

I guess I’ll start off with shopping as it was the first thing I did. I started by taking a taxi to green hills shopping centre, at first glance it’s a flea market full of items with questionable legitimacy. But as I took a better look some of the things I found were quite impressive. The noise of the market takes a little getting used to but I came out of the market very happy. After my day I went with a couple of my friends to a restaurant called Ziggurat, which was a very relaxed atmosphere and a great way to finish my day.   

I woke up the next day tired from the night out but got up quickly when my friend told me about a golf course just down the road. I had not planned on it but I was very happy to play. The place was called Club Intramuros Golf Course. We showed up without booking but they were perfectly happy to let us on at such short notice. They quickly gave us our clubs and we were off. The course was really well kept and over all we had a great day.

Walking around manila is quite amazing and breathtaking but like any other city (I’d say even more) there are many things to avoid. I’ll start off by saying avoid any crowds or groups of people late at night especially in the main parts of the city. The outer suburbs are safe at day but certainly avoid slums.

 I have planned to go hiking at Taal volcano in a few days I’ll write about that in my second blog.