Manila, Philippines

I flew from Hong Kong to Manila and am enjoying the hot and sunny weather! Manila is crazy. The people are friendly and kind, and it's a fun place with interesting history and current day dynamics, but it has a great deal of poverty, dirt, traffic jams, sex clubs, and sketchy-looking male tourists. I can't walk around alone at night, and I keep getting bitten by bugs: fire ants on my feet the other day, and other kinds of bites on my legs. I plan to leave Manila early tomorrow to go to see the rice terraces in the northern part of the main island, near a town called Baguio. The walls of the original Spanish settlement are still standing, and the inside part of Manila is tranquil and lovely. I couldn't help but let a local kid take me around in a bicycle with a sidecar (I rode in the sidecar), where he insisted I go in and visit every major touristy place, and pay the $1 or $2 entry fee every time, buy a souvenir from the kid's cousin's souvenir shop, etc. Many interactions to do with money feel like a scam in Manila, but this one was cheap, fun and interesting. I visited the huge Catholic church and museum of St Augustin, Fort Santiago, among other spots. My favorite thing to see in Manila are the jeepney vehicles all over the city, wildly decorated, many with Western person names on the front sign board ("Emma&Jeff" or "Joan"), carrying people in the place of modern public buses (of which there are none). If I could understand how to catch and board one, and where they go, I would love to ride in one. They have no wondows, and are a cross between a jeep, an SUV and a pick-up truck. People hunch to sit in them. I suspect I'll get to ride one when in another city, or when passing back through Manila next week.