Manila and the typhoon

Hey all,

It's been about three weeks since our last update, and let me tell you, we have had a pretty good time.

We flew from Kuala Lumpur early in the morning late September to Clark airport in a city outside of Manila. We woke up at 3.30 (ie in the middle of the night) in order to have enough time to make our 7.45 flight. The trip to the airport was ok, but we were super tired and by the time we had checked in, our bellies were asking for some food. Guess what happens?? Remember our earlier rant about eating McDonalds in the morning... and how much it sucks?? Well, it happened again!! We had a choice between Malay food (ie. rice and stew) or McDonalds. You can imagine how shitty the other food looked like, cuz we ended up with McDonalds... We won't bore you with shitty details, but... It sucked. Do'oh!!!

Anyways, our flight to Manila was fairly uneventful but finally landed around noon local time. Seeing that our flight didn't land in Manila, but rather in the cheap airport in a city called Angeles, meant we had a 3 hours bus ride to get to the city. 3 hours may sound like a fair amount, but by now, 3 hours feel like a quiet travel day. It's really weird how time "changes" when you're travelling..

Now, this is where the fun starts. By the time we reach Manila it had started raining and seeing that we were both really tired from the early start, the prospect of a nice cozy place to stay sounded fantastic. As the bus dropped us off in a shabby part of town, we jump on the subway, and finally, after being denied access on the fist subway due to our huge backpacks, got to a "nicer" area of town. By this time the rain has intensified and the non-existent sun has set already. We do however end up finding a decent, yet pricy hotel a 15 minute walk from the subway station. We didn't really like the place, but because of the rain, we figured we'd take it for the night.

The evening was pretty quiet as the rain just kept pouring down and most people stayed at home. No worries right, the rain will stop by tomorrow.. HA HA, when we wake up next morning, the rain had doubled in strength and the gusts of wind were shaking the whole building. Oh shit.. As mentioned earlier, the place we stayed at was not the coziest hotel, so we packed up, put on our raincoats and moved in to another place called "Friendly's Guest House" which was literary just across the street. The guesthouse was on the fourth floor, with a perfect view of the surrounding areas, and by the time we had put our bags down we could see how the winds were getting stronger and stronger. Nice... After a chat with some of the other people staying there, we find out that we have arrived just in time for a typhoon and the authorities projected it to reach full force around noon that day. (it is around 10 in the morning). Ok, no worries right. But here's the bitch of it all.. We had absolutley ZERO money, had not eaten breakfast and were starting to get really hungry. So what to do?? Yeah that's right, we have to go to the bank. WTF MATE!?!? There's a typhoon going on and we have to battle our way to the bank.

We bundle up, put our travellers cheques in a plastic bag and head outside. Damn.. It was pouring down, the gusts were throwing us around and signs and trees had started falling down all over the place. We were not going far, but it was absolutely crazy. At times we had to take shelter by the side of the road, as we were scared of getting decapitated by a flying branch or road sign. The wind was so strong at time that we could not move forward, and when we'd look up, we would get hit in the face by what felt like small water projectiles. Anyways, it took us about 10 minutes to walk the 500 metres to the bank and we are super excited to get there. Well, tough luck. The DAMN bank is closed due to inclement weather. What the hell... What do you mean bad weather!! ha ha. We are retards.. Of course it was going to be closed, there's a bloody typhoon going on and everyone but us knew about it from before. Oh well. The scene however, was unreal. Right outside the bank, a huge tree (about 5 foot diameter) had fallen across the road while this group of homeless kids were huddled under a roof across the street. We felt so bad for them. They were wet, cold and probably scared shitless. Just wanted to take them home...

The way back to the guesthouse (GH) was just as bad as our journey to the bank. Shit was flying everywhere and the 20 or so trees that were in a park right by our GH were all torn out of the ground. And remember, this is at 10.30 ish in the morning. The typhoon is not supposed to reach full strength for another hour or two.

We finally make it back upstairs at the guest house and explain to the owner that he's shit out of luck for money. No worries though. The owner, a Philipino named Benji, turns out to be super cool and tells us that we can pay later and that he has noodles if we are hungry.

For the next 4 hours or so, we do nothing but watch the typhoon. Roofs started tearing apart, huge metal plates were being thrown around, trees were breaking and streets flooded. It was unlike anything we've ever seen. The typhoon was just toying with the city. At one point, the roof of our old hotel across the street started tearing apart and a 2 metre long opening appeared. It was absolutely mental. We were doing great though. By this time, Benji had given us noodles, we had changed our clothes and Haakon had started drinking San Miguel (local beer). What else to do during a storm than get drunk, right? It sounds really bad, and it was really bad, however, to us it was like watching a movie. It turns out the the typhoon, named Typhoon Millenium was the strongest to hit Manilla in 11 years. The gusts reached 230 km/h and 20-30 people died. Afterwards, the typhoon hit Vietnam and China, where several hundred people were killed. What a way to start our trip in the Philippines.

Due to all the trees that had been knocked over, the whole city had lost power as power lines were cut. It was soo weird.. Manilla is a place that is never quiet, but the whole evening was absolutely dead.
Seeing that our guesthouse was not a 5 star hotel, there were no generators, which meant no power, no fans and no AC. It may sound really bad, but it was actually kinda cool. We got to know everyone that were staying there really well and it created a kind of cabin feeling.

By late afternoon the typhoon had died down and we could finally venture outside again. We had met this super nice American girl, Mary, who was nice enough to lend us some money, so we went out for some late night food and sheesha. It was really weird and scary though. Only a few places that had generators had lights on, there were trees, sheets of metal, garbage and shop signs dumped all over the streets and there was barely anyone outside. Really a surreal setting. Anyhow, we found a small Korean place that was still open and sat down for dinner, Mahta, Haakon, the American girl and a Norwegian guy named Erlend. The food was so so, but again, the setting was awesome. When I think back on the fact that we sat in a small Korean Restaurant, having a candle lit dinner while the city outside was destroyed, I feel like we were in some sort of screwed up movie. I think it'll forever be one of those nights we'll never forget. We ended the evening with sheesha in a cozy arabic place drinking COLD beer that we had just bought from one of the few shops that had generators. What a day!!!!

After a really hot a sticky night (remember we had no power), we woke up in the morning just to find out that we now had run out of water as well.. YEAH. See, we were on the fourth floor, and with no power, the pump that transports the water from ground level and up was not working, and the tanks on the roof were empty. HE HE.. The people at the guesthouse were really cool though. One poor soul had to run up and down with buckets so that the guests could take cold bucket showers. He he interesting when there are 20 people staying there. We spent the day mostly looking around our little area call Malate. The Typhoon had caused quite the havoc around town, so we decided that sightseeing would not be the best idea. It was however a pretty nice and relaxing day.

It was not until our third day in Manilla we decided that it was time to go back to our roots and start sightseeing. We walked all around town partially looking at all the sights and partially looking at all the destruction.

Check out this perfect "cartoon" looking well

In the evening, our guesthouse owner had what is known as a wine night. In simple terms this means that he buys a bunch of wine and the guests get to drink free wine. What a place guys!!! Anyhow, we had an evening with free wine, before, Haakon left Mahta behind and went drinking with a German dude. We found a street cafe in a popular bar street and had 50 cent beers all night. It was a pretty good night, besides the plate of liver we were served. See, at one point, we went to the grill to find some food, but didn't really see anything we liked. However, ten mintues later, we are served this plate of what looks like some really weird chicken. At that point it was all too late to give it back, so we ate it only to find out it was liver half way through. "Oh well" we said and finished the plate.