Ok now I’m starting to get a bit sad about my approaching departure. Spent the morning with Jeepney rides to the post office and am now sitting in a mall cafe, killing time. In my previous posts on Manila I’ve mainly shown the poor and shabby parts of the cities. That’s because those are the parts that are new, strange and interesting to me. Yet there are other parts to the metro as well.

Something a lot of people recommend as a Manila activity is a visit to Chinatown. It is supposed to be an interesting sight and a feast for the palate. The latter was my main motivation for going. Getting there took a while but in the end was quite easy, thanks to good directions by the hostel staff. Trains were a bit on the crowded site. Being at least a head taller than anybody else, I was the only one with fresh air in there.

When it comes to discovering local food, there is nothing better than joining someone local who knows their way around the place. A really big place in case of Manila. The metro Manila area is formed by 16 cities with a total population of I don’t know how many million people. Friday around lunch time I joined Mike, a local food blogger and restaurant owner, to try some dishes at a restaurant specializing on food from the Negros province of the Philippines.

Heat, humidity, smells, street food and ripped off by an incompetent taxi driver. It’s good to be back in Southeast Asia.