Manilla

Almost one third of the crew on the Viking Sun, including the Assistant Cruise Director, are from the Philippines.  Most have been away from their families for at least 7-9 months.  Viking recognized this and made special arrangements.  The bought all the rooms in a local hotel for families who were not from the Manila area and opened the ship for families to visit.  Over 350 family members came aboard to see where their family members worked, to tour the ship and to be reunited, even if only briefly, with their loved ones.  One of the kitchen chefs who is about my size introduced us to her sons, 12 and 16, who were close to Darrell's height.  She was so proud of them.  While they were on board, we were out and about in the city.  It was Hot and very Humid.  Our guide gave us lots of time to rest and made sure we were in shade as much as possible when she was explaining the sights.

There is a monument to one of the national heroes in the fight for Independence, Jose Rizal.  The monument, near the place of his execution for inciting revolution against Spain, is the beginning marker of all roads in the Philippines.  An honor guard is always stationed at its base.





A great deal of Manila was destroyed during WWII, either by the Japanese trying to take the city or by Allies trying to retake the city.  The fortress was among areas hard hit but partially restored.  This area is now a national park, and the police who work there wear uniforms designed to look like Spanish soldiers in the 1800's.  The main gate has  carvings related to the Spanish occupation which lasted over 400 years until after the Spanish-American War.

As part of the surrender terms, Spain sold the Philippines to the US.  Although what the local people wanted was an independent nation, they had to wait almost 50 years before that came true.  Under the US administration (occupation)  there were massive reforms including opening education for all students and work on infrastructure.  Even now, English is the language of education, but spoken English is not stressed.  Most people, upon leaving school could read English, but not speak it fluently.  Like any other language, if you do not use it, you lose it.




In order to get a feel for life under Spanish rule, we toured a typical house of an aristocrat from that time.  Everything was either beautifully restored or donated by people whose children did not want any of that "old stuff" but who were reluctant to sell the items (plus they got a tax write-off.)  You have seen such things in museums, so I'll only show you one scene -- a double bathtub, the smaller one for children, the larger for adults.. Both drained out into open sewers, as did all household waste.

Another gift of the Spanish was the Roman Catholic faith.  Most Philapenos are practicing Catholics.  We were not able to enter the church we saw because it was closed  to us.  Hourly masses are held on Sundays (when we were there) from 6:00 to 11:00. From noon until 3:00 the church is reserved for weddings.  We saw a wedding party waiting their turn for the church in the one church which withstood the WWII bombing.









The Chinese have been trading in this area for centuries, long before Western explorers "discovered" the spices and other riches of the area.  When the Spanish took over and built their fort, all trading came through them.  The Chinese established a settlement on the other side of the river, but were only allowed to trade in the fort if they became Christian.  So they did, in name at least.  Their settlement is still "Chinatown" and is one of the largest in the world.







The national dress of the Philippines has beautiful hand embroidery on extremely fine material.  All this is hand done on the best costumes.






Modern Manila is a large city of about 15 million.  In addition to all I have mentioned, it has the Mall of Asia, largest in Asia, with a dome visible for miles.  The skyline shows skyscrapers and construction cranes.  Despite all this, and maybe because of the speed of the growth of the city, the infrastructure has no kept up.

The day ended with a performance of the Philippine National Folk Dance Company, winner of numerous national awards.  They deserved them.  Just to show you how much influence (or money) Viking has, the troupe performed twice in the Star Theater.  Folk dance performances are extremely popular with the passengers.  The first group packed the theater, so they scheduled a second performance and delayed sailing until they went ashore.  Next they tried having performances in the pool area where people could be seated, stand on an upper deck to watch and/or see it all on a big TV screen.  There was still not enough room for everyone, plus, who wants to sit outside and watch when it is 95 degrees with high humidity?