30 Minutes in Manila

Arriving on the Philippines, our first stop was Manila. Although just spending one day there, this was probably enough for the rest of our lives. In no other city we have felt like this before and will not forget the minutes we had walking down the streets.

In the internet we found out that Chinatown is supposed to be the oldest Chinatown in the world and so after having some other stuff to do we decided to take a taxi there. Our driver was already saying in a very serious manner that we should take well care of ourselves when dropping us of - something I have not heard from many taxi drivers.
We were hungry and the first thing we wanted to do is getting something to eat. After finding a restaurant on the maps we would like to go to, we had to walk for about 15 minutes. The streets did not look so safe and we felt a bit more uncomfortable compared to other Southeast-Asian cities.
In front of every bank and many supermarkets you can find guards and police officer protecting these places, sometimes with “only” a small gun, sometimes they carry a big one-meter-long machine- or shot-gun with them. They are not standing for no reason and also do not choose this big armour out of nothing which frightened us to see but also gave back the feeling of protection. These guards men were all very friendly and helpful so we could fairly easily find our way to the restaurant.

Turning right into main street, police man tries to make sure that we come home safely, everywhere police with big weapons, traffic super aggressive with many people beeping the whole time but also driving like madness, feeling of no step being safe when walking, everywhere around us are people who live on the streets, this is the standard there (homeless, slums), crazy diseases in people's faces and bodies, animals too (dog with open belly), seeing the unfriendly faces everywhere as the danger is in everyone's mind, extremely hectic vibe of everything happening very fast and so even any robbery or murder feels possible any time, open streets everywhere, bag check, every 10m a guard with weapon, forgot wifi password