Manila experience

It was a great trip to this Asian city of Manila (Philippines)

Great realization is the Taipe airport, they got so many connections across the globe, lot more than what our Indian cities have got. Being a small island nation, I thought this airport won't be that big, but it has got really good connectivity. Even the connecting flight to Manila,I thought it will be a smaller one with less capacity but it was full blown Boeing 747 400 with huge capacity. China airline runs flights twice a day to Manila.  Big crowd travelling all the time.

Another interesting thing about Taiwan is about its identity itself. It looks like it is an independent country but China thinks it is part of mainland china. It needs some deeper understanding on the political conflicts.  Taiwan (Also known as ROC - Republic Of China) and China (People Republic of China/mainland china) terms are interesting for people with interest in geography and contemporary political history.

Some interesting facts about Taiwan:
Capital city: Taipe
Currency    : New Taiwan Dollar (NT$)
Follows multiparty democracy system (unlike mainland china)

For an ordinary indian, it(Taiwan) looks like Srilanka of India for China.

Back to Manila, the moment I landed in Manila, first thing I did was to take a SIM card with data plan (I was told for 7 days of data $500 pack will do with 800MB of data), so I paid $12 at the counter and took "SMART" company SIM card.

Was expecting cab driver to be waiting for me, moved in the pick up area for some time and few people tried to help me, looked at the emails and called the driver number and he arrived to pick up location after 5 minutes.  It was around 30 to 40 min drive to "One Pacific Place" service apartments in Makati from the international arrivals at Airport.

Took some break and after 1.5 hours, wanted to have lunch in an Indian restaurant (Queens Taj Mahal on Jupiter St.  Ordered Chicken Biryani, but the food I got seemed some kichdi with few chicken pieces. Completed the lunch ritual.

Wanted to go to Intramuros for historical walk in the Manila city, was trying to grab a Uber, but the waiter at the restaurant suggested to pick any taxi as it is sunday and it is normal rate only. She helped by waving at a taxi which promptly stopped and the deal was to drop me at Intramuros, but I eventually landed up hiring him for quick visit across multiple places (all for quick photo ops :-) ).  Agreed for $40 for the entire trip for 3 to 4 hours.  The driver (Rolendo) was really proficient in english and as per him, most of the people speak good english in Metro Manila (Internet said the same as per my research).

 The pictures are attached below.






















It's really cool to travel and do few things that reflect thoughts about future with a book "The Age of Aspiration" a book that reflects Indian story from 1991 May 21 events (RBI selling gold and Rajiv gandhi's assassination till date with major focus on Modi and North Indian companies growth. I say this because I see no reference of south India. The other thing that impressed me is the movie on Steve jobs. 

Only the winners and leaders are remembered and who are just first in something are going into the history. Repeated success can make you rich and can make you contemporary limelight but I seriously don't think they make it into history.


My little brain thinks about the future and I think it lies in Asia and USA and Europe are done with their role.

The little countries like Japan and Korea made damn big advancements and China is the factory of everything while India is manufacturing the brains of the world. Combined together Asia makes the future and it is going to be different future in which we will not have a single leader but like EU probably we need a bigger group for Asia and we need to disperately invent something that is damn cool and super necessary for the world. I am sure we are working on alternate energy and something new for every man can use.

Some how this trip to Manila is exciting to me for some reason and some how i feel it is just the right thing to do







Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Mumbai trip

Garden Arbor

Indiatoday book club lottery - a 419 cheating