Bali to Manila, Philippines: Jeepneys and tricycles, and Filipino soap opera

Nearly every person whom I told I was going to Manila gave me the same reaction: "Manila?!  You have to be careful!  Its crazy in Manila!".  Nicole, my host from Kuala Lumpur, even showed me a message her last CS guest sent her in which she express how she just wanted to cry in Manila and was so afraid she couldn't eat.  When I asked Nicole why it was so bad she said that cops with large guns search you at the subways and stores.  "Well that's not too different from the cops in the NYC subway trains", I told her.

My guidebook describes the air in Manila as "It makes Bangkok seem like a natural reserve".

It was not joking.  The hustle in Manila it made KL seem like Tokyo.  It made getting on NYC subways during rush hour seem like getting into your car in a parking lot.  

The main transportation method is by jeepneys.  After World War War II, the US military had tens of thousands of unneeded military jeeps, which they sold to the locals.  The Filipinos modified them by adding roofs, seats in the rear, and personalizing it with decorations in a way that would make a devout Christian hippie really proud.

The other main form of transportation are tricycles.  Its a cross between a tuk-tuk (the carriage pulled by a motorbike common in Thailand and Cambodia) and a fisher-price toy car common amongst toddlers.

Tuk-tuk

+

Fisher price car

=

Tricycle

Now doesn't it look like a fisher price car being towed by a motorbike?

Since the jeepneys were made in the 1940s, their environmental standards are very poor.  Thick black smoke pummels out of the exhaust pipe.  The motorbikes also emit a lot of smoke.  For the first time during my trip, I even wore a surgical type face mask whenever I was outside because I started coughing so much by the second day there.  Alan, my hostelmate who gave me the mask, had been in Manila longer than me.  He sounded like he had been smoking for decades.

When I got to my hostel in Manila, I was totally exhausted.  Because of a long layover in Singapore, even though I left Bali at 5pm, I didn't arrive in Manila until 6AM the next morning.  I spent the first day in the hostel unwinding in the living room while watching Filipino soap operas with Hazel, the hostel staff.  Luckily my hostel, Coconut Hostel, was very quite with a home like feel, so I was comfortable sitting in the living room all day.