I land at 3am and have a 9 hour wait.

Where can I go for within 3-4 hour walk? Somewhere interesting and cultural?

intramuros if you want cultral thingy.. about 12km away.. i don’t advise you to walk from airport to there though.

Where about are the local shops area? i.e. non-mall

there is this place called “Baclaran” and “Divisoria” this is local shops as it can be (non-mall version)… you can google it.. but again I would strongly advise you “NOT” to go there… but if you do , dont wear any expensive watches, jewelry with you and put your wallet in front pocket of your trouser/jeans

I spent a week there, it was depressingly one of the poorest cities Ive been to. Ive never seen so many child beggars in my life, and Ive spent a long time in Africa, ME and FE. Only Sudan was worse.

I cant recommend anywhere to be honest, it was all shite. I can recommend that you take your personal security very seriously.

Its a shame you have so little time, the south of the country is quite nice.

Just go visit some shopping malls at Makati about 1hr drive from the Airport … 😆

Not sure about you visiting places on your own coz you might just be the next news headline, high value victim of kidnap for ransom, if you are unlucky coz I don’t know how’s the security nowadays.

If it is at night just drive around to see their red light district … try not to venture alone.

😛

Do not walk anywhere.

Only get in taxis booked through a concierge service.

Do not use public transport.

Other than that no idea.

My mum went to mindanau and was given her own personal SWAT team by the state police to accompany her around. She said other made hagling in gift shops a lot easier

wwaswas – Member
My mum went to mindanau and was given her own personal SWAT team by the state police to accompany her around. She said other made hagling in gift shops a lot easier

^^^ 😛

My personal taxi driver (company paid for it) drove me around carrying his Bull 9mm (1911 9mm local made imitation). He did not want to drive me around without his Bull 9mm … 😆

Wow, been to Manila a few times on business and casually walked around between hotel, shops and bars without too much worry,just keep your wits about you.
You are landing at 3am, bar some bars/clubs which I would not recommend at 5am in the morning I can’t think of anything open. I would keep your head down at the airport till after 9am and then maybe head to a local mall if have too, rush hour traffic is a nightmare.

Oh ya when I was there on business I was travelling between towns with some areas strictly as no go for tourists. 😮

stewartc – Member
Wow, been to Manila a few times on business and casually walked around between hotel, shops and bars without too much worry,just keep your wits about you.

Ya, I did that too but did not venture too far from my hotel coz the staff told me it was not a good idea. At night my place became a red light zone … location is opposite Merican Embassy btw. 😛

One of our guys was doing training out there.

One of the trainees didn’t turn up one morning, she’d been shot dead in a failed bus hijack attempt as she’d traveled home the previous day.

Yes people get away with stuff all the time but if you’re only somewhere a few hours and near the airport then a) there’s rarely anything worth seeing near an international airport and b) being an obvious foreigner in a place that few go on foot is likely to make you a target for opportunistic bad people.

Get a metred yelloe taxi and ask him to take you to Airforce one for a massage /shower and clean up , food and drink there as well nice release for breaking up a long flight .

I’d recommend the Manila Marriott Hotel as a nice place to spend some time but there is no way I’d walk there from the Airport even though you can see the hotel reception from the terminal.
Just in case you haven’t worked it out Manila is a scary place even before it gets dark.

It’s not that scary a place. The traffic however would stop you getting more than about 1K from the airport in about 9 hours…

richardk – Member
It’s not that scary a place.

You have been lucky on that day.

The traffic however would stop you getting more than about 1K from the airport in about 9 hours…

Yes, true, true … 😆

I got stuck in one bad traffic jam I thought I would have to spend the night in the taxi.

I got stuck in one bad traffic jam I thought I would have to spend the night in the taxi.

haha funny this, reminds me ages and ages ago when I was there in far south of the country “Mindanao mainland” ..me and my mate took a taxi from one city to another and there is a landslide en route, literally slept overnight in the taxi 😆

Interesting some of the replies here..I spent a bit of time in Manila a few years ago..sure, it’s a very sad mix of extreme poverty and high rise shoppng malls (a result of being demolished at the end of the war and being built back up)…BUT it’s not the most dangerous place if you are sensible…in fact we found it really friendly…(and we weren’t staying in secure hotels either but hostels for travellers)..probably spent four or five days there before we went travelling around the rest of the country..

However, 9 hours available and with the city traffic the way it is I wouldn’t stray too far fron the airport..can’t recomend anything BUT dont think its a scary, dangerous place..it’s not if you’re sensible…although sensible does mean not walking around at 3am..!

i wouldnt leave the airport. in fact id hope to never be in the city again.

Our office had an armed guard in reception with a sawn off shotgun. He was not there as a luxury, we were a charity offering help to the poor.

edenvalleyboy – Member
…although sensible does mean not walking around at 3am..!

There are plenty of strip joints / clubs between the airport and the city centre if that takes your fancy? Ya? 😆

I think the nearest strip joint is about 10 mins from the airport …

Trimix – Member
Our office had an armed guard in reception with a sawn off shotgun.

That’s a rather common sight there. 😆

He was not there as a luxury, we were a charity offering help to the poor.

Yeap. Wanna see poor people try Manila slums …

Some of my “corporate clients” were located not far away or inside the slums and when the workers saw me they thought I was going to make them poorer i.e. to sell them cheaper products or to replace them …

When I was there the “trendy” thing was to kidnap people for ransom and I wonder if that is still one of their favourite pastime. I know the Southern part of the country is still having such pastime. 😛

edit: yes, the people are friendly but they are friendly for a reason because life is extremely tough over there.

I was there last week (Saturday night to Tuesday night). It’s best described as ‘mixed’, but I wouldn’t leave the airport to go for an explore at 3am.

I was staying in Makati, which is the business district and feels reasonably safe. There’s some surprisingly ok malls that feel like walking in to Westfields, and decent restaurants in the area (Blackbird was great).

However, central Manila – even in daytime on a Sunday – was pretty depressing and a very uncomfortable experience. I decided to try walking around for 3-4 hours on Sunday afternoon and felt about 6 feet from being mugged for most of that time. Lots of stray dogs, loads of people sleeping on the side of the road, hawkers everywhere. I eventually managed to find a taxi who told me it wasn’t wise to be walking around on my own, and I was glad to leave.

Oh, and yes, the traffic is awful – 90 minutes to travel a mile or two near the airport.

Best to get a good book and stay at the airport!

Nick

Was only there for 1 day whilst back packing in 04, and without doubt was the most dodgy place I have ever been – the local coffee shop had a guard packing an automatic shotgun… Was constantly being told not to sightsee alone. Flew to Zamboanga in Mindanao to catch a ferry to Malaysia and the landed plane had a squad of troops escorting the passengers to the terminal

Not done Manila but done plenty of crap long layovers. I end up doing about 7hrs in Sydney and even then I can’t really be bothered to head into the city. The time gets eaten up with travelling in and out, security and the rest. Arriving at 3am and probably being on a very different time zone I’d be looking for a Shower and a bed for a few hrs. Maybe some real non airport food and then another shower before heading back to the airport. That will eat the time up nicely

nickb – Member
I was there last week (Saturday night to Tuesday night). It’s best described as ‘mixed’, but I wouldn’t leave the airport to go for an explore at 3am.

Makati is much better by comparison to many areas as it is the business district.

I remember wearing a tie when visiting customers, looking like an arse tbh, coz my taxi driver told me I stick out like sore thumb inviting trouble. When my customers advised me to avoid certain areas I knew I was an arse. 😆

You are adventurous to walk around Manila by your own. I did too but after walking a few blocks from my hotel, searching for something to eat at around 4pm, I had to turn back because I slowly ventured into the unknown area with hardly any “tourist” around … prime target to be harvest. 🙁

At around 5.30pm I went back to my hotel instead because the pimps have started to approach me. 😮

The largest slums in Manila is really not far from the Merican embassy and I can see them from my hotel. Plenty of people sleeping rough on the street or hawker stalls. Traffic was practically at standstill at that time and I can still remember the poor people sitting on the pavement on the street smoking their cigarette. The air quality was so bad as it was filled with exhaust fume and I had to escape back to my hotel.

Very depressing place to live …

Takes Manila of the list of places I’ve no chances of ever going to even if I wanted to…

loddrik – Member
Takes Manila of the list of places I’ve no chances of ever going to even if I wanted to…

If you want to understand hard living that’s one place you can visit.

Just be aware of your surrounding when there … be alert.

oh ya … if you order/buy something from Philippines the amount of bank charges, transport, tax etc can be expensive. I ordered a charcoal stove from there before and ended paying quite a bit more than I wanted. Won’t be ordering from there anymore …

I lived there for 6 years and loved Manila. I did have a luxury lifestyle there in an ex-pat bubble to a certain extent (2 full time maids, 39th floor condo, private drivers etc) but loved it and would happily walk around most of the country and city by myself.

Divisoria is great. Of course you need to be wary of pick pockets but not really about anything else.

You aren’t a high value target (probably). Many, many people there are helicopter rich ie. when the road near our school was partially closed, the headmaster sent an email to all staff and parents telling them that despite numerous requests, the lower playing fields wouldn’t be available for landing personal helicopters. Parents of children in my class own islands, banks, airlines, malls. You aren’t a target for organised crime.

Yes, most shops like 7/11 have armed guards. 99% of them don’t have ammunition and are so old that firing a shotgun would probably knock them over backwards.

I walked around Manila at any time of day or night and felt much safer there than i did in Kilburn! Taxis are safe and cheap and very unlikely to try anything dodgy. If you want to really make sure that they won’t drive the long way, offer ‘meter plus 50’ or ‘meter plus 100’. That’s a lot of money to those drivers.

At 3am, I’d just go to Resort World. Pretty boring but nice restaurants there.

Glorietta / Greenbelt and Parksquare Malls are about an hours taxi from the airport. They’re huge and have everything from Primark type clothes to a jewelry shop can’t remember the name), where they had million pound necklaces in the window and locked the door and shut the curtains if you wanted to buy something. Lovely places to eat too.

Intramuros is a good place to walk around. One of the few places where there’s traditional architecture as the city was bombed to oblivion by the Americans and Japs.

Yes, you’ll see real poverty there. Our school took all new teachers to visit a slum when they arrived in the orientation week. A shocking experience. Mothers’ breast milk is actually toxic from all of the toxins the mothers take in from living on the rubbish dump. A teacher from our time there, Andy Mulligan, wrote a book, later turned into a film, based on his trip there. “It’s like one of the circles of hell. You are watching seven-year-olds crawling through the rubbish right next to 70-year-olds – and you have in that vision the absolute solid image of what that seven-year-old will become. You just think this can’t really be true and you are overwhelmed by your own impotence – there is not a thing I can do about it.”

The Philippines is a fascinating, interesting, beautiful and saddening place. From the most beautiful hotels you can see slums but “…6 feet from being mugged”? No way. I lost my wallet once with about £100 in it. We paid our maids well. About £40 a week. It was handed in to the police station with a note saying they had taken 20 peso (10 pence) for the bus fare to the station!

For such a short visit, stay in the bubble and go shopping or visit a fancy hotel. Resort World is literally across the road from the airport (probably still worth getting a £1 taxi though).

If you were able to stay longer then it is a wonderful country and city.

The people are amazing. Very nosey though. Within 2 minutes of meeting someone, they’ll ask if you have children, how many, a wife and/or girlfriend, how much you earn, if you’re Catholic, what did your father do… hilarious after a while. I was in a taxi once and had the conversation

driver: are you married, Sir?
me: yes. for 6 months now
driver: children?
me: no.
driver: don’t worry. It’ll happen for you. Do you take vitamins? Do you wear baggy underwear? Do you exercise properly? When I couldn’t make my wife pregnant……..

edit:

“When my customers advised me to avoid certain areas I knew I was an arse”

There’s something in the Pinoy psyche that makes them think ‘home’ is safe but the area over there isn’t! If you talk to someone from Cebu and tell they you’ve been to Bohol, they’ll tell you it was a dangerous thing to do. No idea as to why they think that, but they do. Perhaps because they have such large extended families and have often lived in the same small part for generations and generations that they simply don’t know any different.

The envelope factory is pretty cool

@makecoldplayhistory – I’m glad you posted that. I was really disappointed in all the posts about how bad it was….. due (probably) to tourists staying in hotels and being told not to venture out…if they had ventured out maybe they’d have had a different view of the place….we only had four five days there but really enjoyed it and explored lots if what it had to offer…lovely people…

Also really pleased to see some more rational replies
My experience is much less dramatic.
I would agree that the real story is not how poor the poor are- everyone can understand that – but it is how rich the rich are.
I was at a wedding out there on a tiny traffic free desert island trying to make conversation with the guest next to me, I was surprised he had not visited the island before as he said he said he holidayed in the area. He then explained how his family owned the next door island and proceeded to show me a video clip on his phone taken from his helicopter that showed the yacht moored in the lagoon that they had excavated. 🙄
we really did not have a whole lot in common – we didnt even have a nanny or housekeeper FFS 😳

Doh1Nut – Member
Also really pleased to see some more rational replies
My experience is much less dramatic.

Nothing is rational over there if you are poor. If people like to help then they can help until their heart content because the situation will never end … over there.

If you are not “valued” you will not be targeted but the problem is mistaken identity as I was told. You all look the same …

I would agree that the real story is not how poor the poor are- everyone can understand that – but it is how rich the rich are.

Yes, their rich are so rich it is beyond comprehension because they are all politically connected and yet still want more even after accumulating their wealth. They rather live in a place where their richness actually imprison their lifestyle with no freedom of movement without fear of being kidnap etc. Many (rich ones) have second homes oversea (English speaking countries) in Merica, OzLand, KiwiLand, CanadaLand, BritLand and other part of SE Asia like SingLand using the wealth they generated from their home country liken to that of money earned from slavery. 🙄

The south on the other hand is so fanatical that they trying to resurrect their ancient empire by fighting the central govt to break away to form a new country. In the past they fight under the “red flag as commies” but now under the religious banner. Go there and you will definitely be the headline. Try it if you think it’s not real. They are even willing to do the cross boarder raid to kidnap and the victims are not even high value but citizen of neighbouring country.