Manilla is a colourful place.
I'm playing over cautious.
It's a new role for me.
I keep on getting followed by Loonies.
Only yesterday I had to leg it, an old man trying to sell me Viagra was hot on my heels, and Carlos, from the Pony Express, was also humbugging me to take a tour of the old part of town.
They weren't separate issues, they were both confronting me at the same time.
You don't go to the slums in Manila, they come to you.
Watching people sleep on the side of the pavement has whiffs of the voyeuristic express.
A street urchin wanted me to buy her food, 'no give me money, buy me food.'
A five peso coin got rid of the beggar.
This place is full of scam city.
Keeping ahead of the game is a full-time job.
'You did well,' says Chris, 'that's another popular scam.'
It's the ones that are not popular that I'm worried about.
I wondered wide and far yesterday.
It was meet and greet my neighbourhood. One girl rested her head on a bottle of a coke, while her sister had her grubby foot on her face while mum was spread-eagled on the pavement.
The bright lights of Manila attract the moths from the provinces.
It's more humans stacked up together in a lump of humanity on the sidewalk.
At least down at Manila Bay, you get an ocean breeze and can take a piss and a crap behind the wall, where the dirty waters of the bay at least offer an illusion of the great outdoors.
If you catch a shitty smell on the wind, you have most likely just walked past an open toilet.
To cap the day off, an old lady demanded coins.
I couldn't shake her off, I went down alleyways and back up them and all I could her was witchy shrieks, 'give me money.'
I ran into her one more time.
'Not you again,' I said.
It was a wrap. I decided to hibernate the rest of the evening in my hotel.
There was a risk of suffering sensory overload. And where's the fun in that?
I'm playing over cautious.
It's a new role for me.
I keep on getting followed by Loonies.
Only yesterday I had to leg it, an old man trying to sell me Viagra was hot on my heels, and Carlos, from the Pony Express, was also humbugging me to take a tour of the old part of town.
They weren't separate issues, they were both confronting me at the same time.
You don't go to the slums in Manila, they come to you.
Watching people sleep on the side of the pavement has whiffs of the voyeuristic express.
A street urchin wanted me to buy her food, 'no give me money, buy me food.'
A five peso coin got rid of the beggar.
This place is full of scam city.
Keeping ahead of the game is a full-time job.
'You did well,' says Chris, 'that's another popular scam.'
It's the ones that are not popular that I'm worried about.
I wondered wide and far yesterday.
It was meet and greet my neighbourhood. One girl rested her head on a bottle of a coke, while her sister had her grubby foot on her face while mum was spread-eagled on the pavement.
The bright lights of Manila attract the moths from the provinces.
It's more humans stacked up together in a lump of humanity on the sidewalk.
At least down at Manila Bay, you get an ocean breeze and can take a piss and a crap behind the wall, where the dirty waters of the bay at least offer an illusion of the great outdoors.
If you catch a shitty smell on the wind, you have most likely just walked past an open toilet.
To cap the day off, an old lady demanded coins.
I couldn't shake her off, I went down alleyways and back up them and all I could her was witchy shrieks, 'give me money.'
I ran into her one more time.
'Not you again,' I said.
It was a wrap. I decided to hibernate the rest of the evening in my hotel.
There was a risk of suffering sensory overload. And where's the fun in that?
