Asia trip Day 10 - Manila, Philippines

Tuesday March 7

The daily "Currents" called it Marvelous Manila. We docked at 8 am. We had not booked an excursion because we thought with a big city like this it would be fun to do things ourselves for a change. Complimentary shuttles were organized and we took one at 10 am with a map in hand. No T-Mobile connection but we are pretty good map readers.

In the shuttle bus.

At 10:26 we were at Robinson Mall and took a photo to remember where we need to take the shuttle from to go back to the ship. 

There was security with machine gun right at that spot and security check point to go into the mall. We had asked at the ship how to go to the old town and they had pointed it out on the map. We asked the guards at the mall in which direction to go and they were petrified. We could/should not walk there. We should take a taxi. But we needed peso. US dollars would not do. We could not believe this whole thing.

So we gave up and went into the mall. That was not really satisfying. We came to another door and saw people walking and decided to try. To be honest the streets looked not that nice. And then a person told us in good English (he did not look native) that we should not be walking. Not safe. Change your backpack to the front etc etc.

We had had enough. We turned around and back into the mall. 

There was no bus at the stop and we were pointed to the tables with shade but a minute had not passed and the shuttle arrived.

Some photos from the bus. Could not get a good one of the machine gun man.

Twice I saw a mother with a baby sitting on the sidewalk nursing it.

The map was not the problem. It had looked good. 

We were back on the ship before noon and enjoyed a leasurely afternoon. We played our cardgame. And James solved my wordle today.

It was a nice day to sit on our balcony and read. I got caught up with the blogs too.

We were leaving at 6 pm and we watched 3 pilot boats to come to our side. We have never seen more than one in all our travels. Not sure what was going on.

The city line from afar looked nice and you have no idea how the streets between the highrise really look like. Sad.

Wow, and this was the moon at 6:14 pm.

I could not understand why we were going south along the coast. So we turned the TV on in the room which has a channel were you can see the position of the ship on the map. Now I understood. Manila was on a gigantic bay and we had to get out of it and then go north with land on the right.

There are several places on the ship were you can go for dinner. Today a special dinner was announced in the Terrace Café where we usually eat breakfast and lunch. It was buffe style and the theme was "Southeast Asia". The food looked nice but I did not enjoy it as much as a sit-down dinner. 

We were done soon and in time to listen to the Primavera String Quartet which we had already enjoyed at different times on previous days.

The show at 9:30 was again the "Nautica Production Company" which were the six young people (dancers and singers and really quite good). 

Since it had been a quirky day we decided to go up the the "Horizon" for a nightcap were the "Nautica Showband" played "Latin with a twist" and that was really excellent. Too bad we didn't have the right shoes on for dancing.