Manila: A City of Contrasts

I arrived in Manila on Friday, July 11th, in the afternoon.  I smoothly passed through immigration and customs and quickly found my friend Kate in the crowd without any problems.  From there, we hit the ground running so that I could see as much of the city as possible in my 2 and 1/2 days there.  What I discovered is that Manila is a city of contrasts.

I would be lying if I did not say that my first and strongest sense of Manila is the oppressive heat and humidity.  Since I grew up in Florida, I thought I'd be better equipped to handle this.  There is something about the tropics though accompanied by roughly 12 million people that overpowers you.  The contrast to this extreme is the what Filipinos affectionately call "air-con" or AC in my vocabulary.  People flock to the air-conditioned malls and restaurants, and I can easily understand why after experiencing the heat and quickly found myself doing the same thing.

Manila is also a city of economic extremes.  Saturday, we spent the day visiting several market districts (Chinatown, Divisoria, and Quiapo).  There are a myriad of vendors as well as beggars, especially outside the churches.  Sunday, we visited the high-end of the city (Makati and Bonifacio Global City) where expensive brand names abound and there are three Starbucks all within a few kilometers of each other.  One thing that especially strikes me about Manila is the close proximity of the rich and the poor. It reminds me of New Orleans in this sense.  To see the harsh reality of a squatter's life and witness a man bathing just a few feet from the street, shielded only by a make-shift partial shelter, and then to walk into a brand-new, multiple-story mall is jarring to say the least.

It is also a city contrasted by aesthetic differences.  It's much greener than I expected and the beautiful, lush palm trees are everywhere along with varied flowers and trees.  There are also wonderful sunsets.  Yet, people have also marred this natural beauty.  Trash in the river is a common sight, and the fumes of all the transportation for millions of people create a smog.

I suppose you could say that most big cities are full of contrasts, but Manila seems to be an extreme example of this.  I'm glad I could experience it for a few days and catch a glimpse of it.