Mar 18, 2025
Decided against going to Auntie Half-Half’s store next door for breakfast, and instead went back to yesterday’s cafe and had another honey latte. Over breakfast we were assailed by ads including one for a shower head, the big selling point of which, we were assured, was that your husband will no longer have to hold the nozzle while you wash your hair. Dang! They take all of the fun out of life.
Checked out, and caught a Grab (filipino Uber) to the main bus station and then our 1st class, leather seated luxury coach back to the big smoke. Unfortunately the on-board entertainment was no better than coming up, so we listened to a Kylie impersonator singing her greatest hits of the 80s whilst we descended the mountain. (Does anybody else remember her perm?)
It took almost an hour to descend the mountain, which was so high that our water bottle and packet of chips had both compressed with the change of air pressure by the time we got down. Another 3 hours back along the tolled motorway, and then onto the Skyway once we hit the outskirts of Manila. You can see why it’s called that. They just build it over the top of anything in its path – roads, rivers, railways, houses. At one stage as we sailed over a large 3 level cloverleaf, we realised that we were as high as the sixth story apartments we were along side of.
From the depot we called a Grab and headed off to our Manila hotel. Later we walked down to the large (well, huge actually) Robertson Mall, and took the opportunity to have lunch/dinner amongst the hundreds of choices. Then a long walk back through Rizal Park. Apart from the dancing fountains and Chinese Friendship gardens, Rizal Park principally commemorates the Filipinos executed by the Spanish for agitating for independence – some by firing squad in the park, others by various types of strangulation. Plaques and statues abound.
The park is located just outside the old city walls that contained the occupying Spanish garrison and community. The execution of Filipino patriot Jose Rizal on December 30, 1896 in the same area fanned the flames of the 1896 Philippine Revolution against Spain. The declaration of Philippine independence from the United States was also held here on July 4, 1946, as well as later political rallies, including those of Corazon Aquino, culminating in the people’s revolution of 1986 and the deposing of Ferdinand Marcos.
Pearl Manila Hotel
Our bus back to Manila
Fountains in Rizal Park
Rizal Park
Chinese Gardens
Pearl Manila Hotel