Part I: "You Leave an Asian, You Come Back a Spirit"

It seems as if the return to school (and that's the physical return to school, not necessarily the return to academia) has delayed the documentation of the whirlwind trip through Southeast Asia ...

We arrived first in Manila, mostly as a stop-over for our trip to the other islands, Bohol and Boracay. Interestingly (which will probably warm the shackles of my parents' hearts), our hotel, the InterContinental, went to great lengths to ensure the safety of its guests: each car was search, each person lightly frisked with a metal detector, and each bag opened and searched.

Our hotel, incidentally, was located next to the mall that had a curious explosion under one of its escalators in October/November 2007. Some say that the explosion was a terrorist act, others say that the escalators malfunctioned. Far from me to comment - I didn't see many escalators in the mall that worked anyway.

[The above picture is not of the mall.]

The mall itself had stringent security measures put in place as well; every entry point was guarded by security and required a walk through an airport-like metal detector, while bags were searched. We speculated the probability of inoperable metal detectors to be close to .65.

In full disclosure, in a desperate fit of hunger, we succumbed to familiarity - our first meal consisted of the Filipino versions of the blooming onion, buffalo wings, french fries and beer ... at Outback Steakhouse. Nonetheless, there was an important revelation, in spite of the fact that we were resorting to American food, BEER WAS CHEAP. As seemed to be a common occurrence throughout all three countries, beer was often cheaper than water.

Miguel (born and raised) drove seven of us around Manila in his Honda Accord; I had no idea how uncomfortable a ride about a traffic-jammed city, lost, with Shruti's bony but on my leg. Manila in general was far different than I expected - a lot of the older parts of Manila were destroyed by several wars/uprisings over the years. The cityscape reminded me a little of developed areas of China, where the shopping centers/markets are shoddily thrown up in post-Communist architectural design. I was quite surprised by the lack of character. According to Miguel, Filipinos love their air conditioning, hence the big-box local retailers literally constructed like a big air-conditioned box.

There is an area of Manila that still holds on to the Spanish influence from the colonial area - the cathedral below is a UNESCO site.

Miguel's parents were instrumental in planning our quick trip through the Philippines and were extraordinarily generous while we were there. Miguel's mother, who planned all of our flights and ferries felt strongly about all of us flying on Cebu Pacific Airlines rather than Asian Spirit, as one popular adage says: "you leave an Asian, come back a spirit."