Our wakeup call this morning was to music and dancing by a huge number of Philippine performers on the dock, right outside our veranda. We had a briefing the day before about not wearing jewelry or bright colors. Leave passports, cell phones, tablets in stateroom because city is full of pickpockets. Use zippered pockets if possible. Don’t give any money to children, because you will be surrounded by lots more who won’t let go of you. So after breakfast, we cautiously head out for a city bus tour. Manila is known to have some of the worst traffic in the world and we now have experienced it firsthand. This was a Sunday so you think everyone’s in church, maybe it won’t be so bad, wrong. Every bus leaving on a Viking excursion had a motorcycle escort with lights (sirens only when necessary). We’d park, get off the bus, do our walking tour, get back on the bus and like magic these motorcycles would reappear to get us to our next destination. Actually, it was pretty cool.
The tour itself, not so much so we asked to be dropped at the Mall of Asia. You’ve never been to a shopping mall until you’ve been here. It’s only the 4th largest in Manila, can’t imagine what the other 3 are like. This place has 8,000 parking slots divided into 8 separate buildings, 600+ shops and 217 dining establishments. As a first time visitor, we were concerned about remembering where we came in so we could return to that spot to catch the shuttle back to our ship. This place weaves up and down and around and actually crosses roads. You’re so overwhelmed you just don’t know where to start so we walked and walked and then ended up having lunch in a Philippine restaurant which was very good. The food was very local with no English translated menu. We walked some more then caught the shuttle back to the security checkpoint.
Rather than getting back onboard, we decided to walk to the Manila Hotel whose penthouse served as the residence of General Douglas MacArthur during his tenure as Military Advisor of the Philippine Commonwealth from 1935 to 1941. This is now a 5-star hotel and the Generals penthouse now goes for $500,000 a night. We spent 3 hours having high tea, listening to the piano player and watching ladies with long gowns being escorted by gentlemen with suits and tux’s. Just something about this hotel made you feel like you were really in a special place. Since we were walking, we thought we should get back to the ship before dark. Viking contracted with The National Folk Dance Company of the Philippines to entertain us for the evening. What a performance!
Many of our crew members are from Manila so Viking allowed each crew member to bring 4 family members on board. They were given a tour of the ship and taken to the World Café for lunch. Viking also rented a ballroom in a nearby hotel so they could all get together without having to drive anywhere. Most of the crew had not seen their family since the ship was floated out in November and won’t get back home until we reach London so what Viking did for them was extraordinary. Everyone was smiling.
Even though our tour was, how shall I put it, mediocre – it was another fantastic day. We are now headed to Shanghai for the christening of the VIKING SUN – OH BOY!!!
