My Philippines blog!!!

[fernando]

sorry camchennai , forgot the list i promised you. Yesterday when i saw your Tlog i remembered. Will send it soon. Have fun.

[camchennai]

So continuing the journey....

So boarded my connecting flight from HK and Reached Manila airport on Saturday afternoon, it was a Cathay Pacific flight and as usual wonderful service, however crowd was little different and not that great to talk about.

Manila international airport is called "Ninoy Aquino International Airport" and its located in the suburbs of Manila. My first impression of the airport was not that great, it looked like an old structure and was dirty, it was similar to old airport what we have in India. Immigration office who was manning the airport entry acted funny with me, he threw too many questions and frustrated me. He took my passport, return tickets to the immigration office and after 5 minutes he came back and I got very annoyed with his attitude, he came back and told have a pleasant stay sir....I was like

After clearing the immigration and picking up my baggage proceeded towards the Nissan taxi lounge to check on my taxi, here airport taxi' will be in yellow color and the normal ones will be in white color. Airport taxis are expensive compared to the normal ones, Airport taxi meter starts from 70 pesos and normal ones start from 40 pesos. Here in Manila all taxis are AC ONLY, there is no non-ac cabs.

My taxi was a Nissan Sentra and it was very very spacious, driver was a lady(read - straight) and hospitality was awesome, she wished me and introduced her, showed her id card and finally "Welcome to Manila". She was so pleasing and started explaining about the city.

Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities that comprise Metro Manila. Metro Manila is the most populous metropolitan area in the Philippines and the 11th in the world with an estimated population of 16,300,000. Manila is attracted by tourist from Korea, China, US of A and other Asian countries. Filipinos are generally soft spoken and they are very helpful, place is known for its hospitality. English is commonly spoke here. Philippines got its independence from Spain with the help of Americans, so people love to be an American, and they try to adapt to their culture. Americans don't need Visa if they are arriving to Philippines and you can see many Americans out here travelling either for business or pleasure Female sex ratio is very high in Philippines and I guess ratio is 65:35, you can see males dressed in female costumes and females dressed in male costumes. Also you have a official status called single mother. You can see females working everywhere, from 24 hours shops to toll plaza to petrol pumps.

One good thing about this country is that they invest heavily in infrastructure, you can see many sky scrapers here and new construction everywhere. Roads are pretty wide, neatly laid and very clean, there is no dust of pothole in the roads which I have traveled. Manila has too many malls and every mall is very huge and they also have one of the Asia's largest malls.

The retail industry in the Philippines is an important contributor to the national economy as it accounts for roughly 15% of the Philippines' total Gross National Product (GNP) and 33% of the entire services sector. It employs some 5.25 million people, representing a significant 18% of the Philippines' work force, which means roughly 2 of every 10 workers is employed in the retail industry. You can see lot of malls in and around Manila each one will be very huge.

SM Mall of Asia is the 2nd largest mall in the Philippines after SM City North EDSA, 3rd largest shopping mall in Asia and the 4th largest shopping mall in the world. It has a land area of 42 hectares and has a gross floor area of an approximate 390,193 m² (4.2 million square feet) and 407,101 m² of total area. SM group has more than 5 malls in Manila. Other than SM group we do have couple of other major malls in Manila, some of it are Ayala malls, Glorietta, green belt, Market Market and Bonifacio High Street. I visited Market Market and its very huge, you have lot of stores and you get everything from imitation jewelry to furniture’s to cars, all malls will house a big food court. For some reason I find these malls have more and more of ladies items, you get lot of replicas and good looking handbag will cost around 300-400 pesos, also you can get lot of beauty products. All malls look crowded always and people in Philippines keep shopping endlessly.

[camchennai]

Spotting a sky scraper in Manila is very easy, I guess government has completely opened up the construction industry to foreign players. You can always some tall building construction happening round the clock and the best part is there will be no smoke or dust.

Below are the couple of tallest buildings in Manila and few images.

• The Gramercy Residences – 73 storey
• PBCom Tower – 52 storey
• GT International Tower – 47 storey
• BSA Twin Tower 1 – 55 storey
• BSA Twin Tower 2 – 55 storey
• St. Francis Shangri-la Place Tower 1 – 60 storey
• St. Francis Shangri-la Place Tower 2 - 60 storey
• One Rockwell West Tower – 55 storey
• Petron Megaplaza – 45 storey
• UnionBank Plaza – 49 storey

There are more than 100 buildings which are more than 30 storey.

[camchennai]

Liquor and Cigarette aren't taxed so they are inexpensive, a 20' pack of Marlboro costs 30 pesos and a bottle of Jack Daniel costs 1000 pesos, beer is sold either in Pint bottles or in 1 liter bottles, a pint of beer costs 23 pesos and locally made hard liquor are very very cheap here. A locally made bottle of Rum costs 70 pesos. Liquor and cigarette is sold in all shops and you can get it round the clock, there are shops like 7/11 and stop shop which are open 24 hours and you get everything here. Other than these shops there are couple of McDonald and KFC which are open 24 hours, there is a restaurant called jolebee which has the same format like McDonald, these also run 24 hours.

Drinking and smoking amongst women are very common here, you can find more females smoking than men. People here love to party and when I say party they party till death!! You can find discs and bars everywhere and apart from it you have live bands in malls and near restaurants, there will be live band playing music till 2-3 am and people can drink, specifically in Manila there is no liquor ban in the night, its available 24 hours and all shops can serve and there is no law which says that shops should close by this time. Parties start at 11 pm and peak crowd will be at 2 am and it will last till 6 in the morning!! Even in bar liquor is pretty cheap, you get a large of JD for 150 pesos, restaurants also sell beer and they sell bucket beer, a small plastic bucket with 6 pint beers which will be in ice cubes.

Couple of strange things I have notice with respect to drinking

• People drink beer with ice cubes!!
• Flavored beer is available here
• One part of city has no liquor ban however in other part of city liquor cannot be sold from 2 am to 5 am
• All shops sell liquor (even potti kada)
• I haven’t come across any person here who says no to drinking
• MRP or price will not be there any liquor bottle
• Each shop sell at different price

I tried one of the locally made drink and its name was Borocay Rum, this comes in different flavor, I tried coconut and cappuccino flavor, both were pretty good and the coconut flavor tasted like Malibu. Price of this Borocay rum costs 80 – 100 pesos depending upon the place, you can either drink it neat or mix it with water. I was able to finish one full bottle in one sitting

San Miguel is pretty famous beer here, you get this brand in every shop and its price starts from 23 Pesos. It come in 330 ml and 1 liter bottles, there are also couple of flavored beer which comes both lite, mild and strong. I guess this brand is locally made and it taste like our Kingfisher.

The best part of Philippines is that you get all brands that are available in this world at a very cheap price, I have seen blue label, grey goose, Remi Martin and couple of other expensive brands here. There are 3 things which are cheap in this part of the world, liquor and tobacco are on of it, other one is a secret

[camchennai]

Philippines Automobile scene

Manila has a metro which serves as the public transport, government doesn't has any bus transport, long distance buses and intercity buses are operated by private companies and again everything is AC. Locally people travel in Jeepney, this is the lifeline of Philippines and these jeepney drivers rule the road!! You can spot funky colored, decorated, musical Jeepney in each and every corner of the road. I am trying to get as much of information about Jeepney, when I am done I will start a dedicated thread about Jeepney. Other than Jeepney there are also AC cabs(read - shuttle) which serves as share auto and they travel only from point to point. Shuttle cabs look like a Tavera and they too transport people, people who can afford for AC transportation will travel in these Shuttle cabs. Jeepney along with these shuttle cab is widely used in Manila and they can be termed as a life line for their transportation. We do have AC taxi which is again another mode of transport, you can spot lot of taxis in and around Manila. Toyota is the most used car in the Taxi followed by Nissan, nowadays you can spot couple of Kia, Hyundai taxis. Honda and Mitsubishi are not permitted to run as a taxi so they are ruled out. Hiring a taxi is pretty cheap here and most of the office goes prefer taxi.

You can spot all types of car in Philippine and since they lover American culture, people buy big SUV, pickups & MUV's a lot, it’s very difficult to spot a hatchback in Manila, most of it would either be a sedan or SUV or and MUV. There are lot of brands in Automobile and top selling brands are in the following order....Toyota, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Ford, Chevrolet, Subaru and Mazda. Strangely Mitsubishi has a bigger presence in this country and every 3rd car will be a Mitsubishi, other than cars they have a strong presence in AC, home appliances and Elevators. Nissan is mostly used as a taxi and as per my conversation with couple of cab drivers, they feel Nissan is cheaper to maintain and its gives out a good FE compared to other models also another reason which I found today is that Nissan models here are bare bone ones, in another words only base model just to concentrate on taxi segment or people who prefer economy cars, they don’t have any of their expensive cars here. People are mostly Petrol heads and I see very few Diesel cars, even taxis are Petrol cars except Hyundai Accent and Kia models (First gen Verna is used as a taxi here). All cars are FWD, only pickups and SUV are RWD.

Toyota, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Isuzu and Honda have a factory here is Philippines, most of the models are either CKD or CBU. Most of the models are imported either from Thailand or Japan, like India Japanese cars have good value here and people prefer Japanese cars first.

In Toyota, following models are very common in the roads and they are top sellers. Innova, Fortuner, Vios, Avanza, Altis, Hilux and Hiace. Fortuner, Hilux and Hiace are imported from Thailand and rest are manufactured here. Toyota Avanza looks exactly like Xylo and the very first day when I came here I thought it was Xylo however on close inspection found it was a Toyota. I thought M & M made Xylo from their own warehouse but looks like an shameless copy!! Vios rules the taxi segment and there are some private cars as well, Toyota should have brought this model instead of Etios, this looks more up market and costs around 6L Pesos, Avanza is also available as a taxi and so is Altis. Even the previous generation Corolla is sold as an Altis here. Camry is not the same model which is sold in India, front is completely different while the rear is the same. Fortuner and Innova are the same which are sold in India.

With Mitsubishi, Montero sport and Adventure are pretty common here followed by Strada, L300 cab, L300 Versa van, L200 pickup and Garland. Lancer can be spotted but not that very famous here. Mitsubishi has a bigger presence in commercial vehicles as well, most of the haulage trucks, buses and mini pick up vans are from Mitsubishi, recently many truck and buses operators are buying China makes due to cheap price tag.

The most successful model with Nissan is Sentra, they can be seen everywhere in the streets, Sentra comes with different engine option and as per some drivers they are very cheap to maintain, it offers acres of space in the rear which is a primary consideration for any taxi, albeit the design of Sentra is very boring!! Sentra is sold in huge number and most of it cater taxi market. Serena and Grand Livina MUV can be spotted but not in huge numbers, also there are couple of Patrol both in SUV and pickup format. I haven’t spotted any Teana or X-trail so far.

Honda City, Jazz, CR-V are the top selling models for them, I haven’t seen any Civic till now!! All generations of City can be spotted here, even the old gen VTEC’s. Honda is not a big player and their sales are pretty low when compared to other Jap products.

Ford Everest which is sold as an Endevour here can be spotted easily, they are next to Fortuner and Montero sports. Only hatches which can be spotted in streets are Ford Focus and Fiesta. Explorer and Expedition are more high end segment and they are sold in small numbers, both these SUV’s are too huge and long.

For Hyundai, Accent is their flagship model, Accent is also the only diesel model running as a Taxi while all other taxis are Petrol. Both old gen accent and the current fluidic one run as a taxi. Another big bread winner for Hyundai is Tuscon and SantaFE. Also Hyundai starex can be seen here and there though not in big numbers. I haven’t spotted any i20 till date, though I have seen 1 or 2 i10. Fluidic Sonata and Elantra is sold in less number.

Chevrolet Cruze and their big SUV Suburban are sold here but not in great number, they are again a fringe player in Philippines. Subaru forester and few other models are sold here but again not in big number. Isuze sells one MUV model which is nothing but re-badged Tavera,

In the commercial vehicles, Mitsubishi and Isuzu rule the market, they both form 80% of the market. Chinese makes are entering the market now and they are slowly expanding their market.

[KRRaj]

Wow, that's pretty exhaustive information . Keep 'em coming. Looking forward to pics...

[k a s h]

Lovely TLog Cammy.. I'm glued to this one..

[lazybrain]

liquor and tobacco are on of it,

Liquor and tobacco i knew about this, since in my previous company i worked 90% of employees were from Manila and these guys told me about this. But was not aware of.....

other one is a secret

[camchennai]

lazybrain - Secret is out now

KRRaj - I want to keep this as a blog with more and more information rather than filling it up with pics, but yes pics will come out but not sure whether it would be a detailed or eye catching

Burgos Street

Anyone in Manila will be able to take you to this place, this place is full of bars, strip clubs, night clubs, hotels with rooms, restaurant and forex. So basically you change your money in this street, book a hotel here and spend all your money in the clubs out here. There are serious of bars stretched out in the P Burgos Street go-go bar area and its epicenter for all foreign nationals.

Every shop here will either be a club or bar!! Whatever you have seen in English movies can be seen here, I actually wanted to give more description about the bars and things out here but since this being a open forum and we do have many female members, I am restricting myself here, if many member wish to me to open up then I would for sure post it here.

Each bar would employ about 50-200 girls depending upon the size of the bar, location and their foot fall. All bars in this street would start it operations from 7 pm and its open till 3-5 in the morning based on the crowd, at 7 pm bars would almost be empty and crowd will start pouring in after 11 pm and in weekends almost every bar in this locality will be full. All bars in this street will play good music and will have dance area will lot of couches and bar stools, they serve all types of liquor.

Its advised to deal and carry cash in all these types of bars, its always advised not to use your credit card in any of the bars out here due to reason which you guys well known of

So once you enter these bars, you will have a great welcome and you will be taken to a seat and they will make you sit there, waitress will take your order and if you are a foreigner then around 5 girls will surround you. After sometime most of them would bug you for a drink and you need to be careful here, the drink what they order will be charged on the higher side, it will be charged 400 pesos in some bar and the cost might go higher depending upon the atmosphere of the bar. The bars don't allow the girls to order the drink of their own choice, they are either given red wine of bailey drink and the cost will be very high, so basically there is a portion of this cost goes to the girl and the bar. So if you buy them a drink they are all yours Also girls out there would tempt you to take them to your room, BE CAREFUL!! If you pick up a girl in these bars then it would cost you 3000-4000 Pesos again based upon the bar, you should be smart enough to get her number and pick her some other day outside of this bar so that you spend only 1000-1500 Pesos. Some bars are little descent while some are complete nuisance!! I was told there was a bar in the end of the street where even foreign girls from Russia, Serbia and Libya were working but I guess it is closed now.

Music played in the bars are pretty good and they have excellent music system, they also have couple LCD which would play the video of the song which is played in the speakers. Here Karaoke type bar is pretty famous and they call them KTV.

Strangely there are many hotels in this locality which rent out rooms only for 3 hours and you know for what it is!!

Other than Burgos street there are also couple of other bars in other areas, there is one called Liberty Island which is located in the other side of the town. It offers similar service and some erotic dance shows which will happen in the stage and if you want they will arrange a similar one in one of the private room they have with girl of your choice. Next to Liberty Island there are couple of other places which offer similar service.

If anyone need more information about this post, feel free to ask

[lazybrain]

^^ Excellent philippines I am coming.....