Everyone Warned Us About Manila (we went anyway)

Philippines the Philippines for the first time last year in August of 2022. we had an amazing time and fell in love with the warm and friendly people and the beautiful nature of Cebu but we never made it to the country's capital until recently when we had a stopover in Manila my brain is like you are in Latin America and I'm like no I am in Southeast Asia and our visit sure was an experienced from beginning to end for better and For Worse [Music] [Music] these people look at out over here [Music] we landed in Manila we're back in the Philippines we were honestly a bit scared about arriving at Manila airport because we've heard so much trash talk about it but so far it's been really smooth they didn't really have a lot of immigration booths but they were very efficient with the ones they had [Music] my bag is in quite the squeeze oh my God there's the terminal I'm here this Oscar we're so tired like I'm about to just fall down on the ground and sleep right now [Music] oh it's our first minute out in Manila it is it is so hot we're gonna try to walk into this mall because it can't be outside so we're in this mall and they even have more suspenser this is a very different feeling from our trip to Cebu already definitely a pretty rich part of Manila this is really the way to survive in Southeast Asia you walk from One Mall into the next Mall you only get about 10 seconds outside which is the way to do it heading down to the supermarket random is exciting but it seems like it's more of a there's like tons of restaurants foreign [Music] I mean terrible for the environment but how beautiful is this presentation this is giving Japanese grocery stores a run for their money [Music] I love this presentation of the green beans it looks like a giant green also we're obsessed with these tiny limes look Swedish style balls oh my god oh look they have all these actually Filipino type of products but the prices are insane like this is much more than Sweden or anywhere else thank you one thing I just have to point out is that in the grocery store there were so many workers just standing around like no one really had anything to do and it's just really crazy how much of a surplus of Labor or people there is here in the Philippines which is why there are so many Filipinos who work abroad because there's just not enough jobs here in the Philippines we read this article a while back that essentially compared Thailand and the Philippines and their population growth and talked about how Thailand is in a much better economical position right now than the Philippines largely just because of the promotion of contraceptives whereas here in the Philippines which is uh largely Catholic country because of Spanish colonization the public has generally been more opposed to perception so for that reason the population growth has been a lot uh bigger here right to go to the toilet and get us really just need to go I don't know like where's the buttons across the street it's hidden here it is [Music] so at a vegan restaurant for lunch it's coconut water I thought they were going to do something it was a bit awkward to record in there because it was just us and two other people so uh yeah hence we didn't really talk about the food but we tried a local dish adobo that we haven't tried before it was so lame for a little Filipino food we had last time we were here because we were mainly in Mount blah and there wasn't really much vegan Filipino through there so we're so happy we could finally try it because adobo was amazing it's pretty crazy how much it varies here in Southeast Asia how vegan friendly like naturally the food is here uh in the Philippines it's very meat heavy like every single dish and so finding you know vegan Renditions of it can be a little tricky but now we managed to find some here this bus is literally moving as people are getting on what [Music] after a quick stop back at the hotel we decided to visit a recommendation from some of you guys a food market called good food Sundays a decision that ended up leading to one of the highlights of a manila stopover we'll show you why in a second this Market was a recommendation by one of you guys and supposedly there should be a lot of vegan options there which is and to get there we are also using one of the recommendations we got from you guys which is that we should take crabs everywhere and not even bother with public transport actually the number one recommendation we got from Manila from you guys was uh don't which I think is pretty sad [Music] all right we made it to the market it looks a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be but maybe it's a more intimate local at least in the shade yeah that's just like tiny not this being like our Excursion of the day and it's like five states we did [Music] right now what you didn't tell me this is some like vegan did you see that stand too that's it's vegan there too actually I didn't know everything was I knew there was going to be a lot of them but wow [Music] I love this this is what's so cool about the Philippines a vegan market is something you'd expect in Bali you're not a Southeast Asian Capital all right we are about to dig in to be honest eating fried food and whether this hot is like kind of a nightmare but this looks super good it's so funny there's a cooler next to us it's not cold I don't know why we're so shocked by the temperature we got one Ube Empanada one uh classic which is like mixed vegetables and some soy meat and I want to be eating chicken ones so I'm breaking them all up to show you guys as well it's really good this is not what I expected from vanilla I think this place really shows the difference in social classes in Manila and in the Philippines in general because this place is kind of kind of it's ice cream time and this year last year our food was eggplant our new discovery this year our food is corn and this is corn ice cream everything's good beautiful thing you really you like it I'm very intrigued it's not yellow I thought it was going to be yellow in color that's vanilla oh can I try the corn the vanilla is good though I mean corn is really sweet so it goes well with dessert like I don't know why it's not more commonly used in dessert [Music] so we're just sitting here in this market random things one thing we realized is that vanilla proper is the most densely populated city what in the city yeah in the whole world vanilla is the most City exactly what that means [Music] that was so crazy we were just about to leave this place I was just gonna place the order for the crab and this woman comes up to us and she's like hi my name is lo I would like to invite you to our uh like art what is an art therapy session it's for free like just come upstairs and join us so uh we're checking it out foreign for the next hour we got to share some of our toughest struggles and deepest fears with a group of complete strangers and it was one of the most beautiful and cathartic experiences we've had in a long time one of the participants was an ex-convict who was going through a rehabilitation program and we got to speak with locals from all walks of life um okay a hundred countries later I don't know how many years of full-time travel at this point and that is the first time something like that has ever happened for us I mean we love those types of things and the fact it happened on our first day out in Manila is insane what an amazing experience that was and it was so impromptu so unexpected and I think that speaks a lot to just Filipino culture but also I mean so many people here speak English which makes everything a lot more accessible to us of course as tours but then secondly Filipino culture is just so open and kind and warm and you know everyone is just like invited everywhere I feel which is just amazing thank you foreign guys it's another day in Manila we're in a different part of the city today I feel like you just have to embrace the heat like we have not traveled in Southeast Asia for six months and that is very noticeable why are we walking in the middle of the road Oscar so we have two options squeeze through there here or just the middle of the street today is our real touristing day gonna go out and explore as much as we can of old Manila and the surrounding areas [Music] things don't really mean much here that was so interesting so the Philippines obviously has a bit of a crisis with lack of jobs given the huge huge population that huge crowd we just walked by was some sort of makeshift work Fair because there were a bunch of people holding different signs like urging need shipping person this or that so maybe that's like a hot spot where people come super interesting but we just entered restaurant Park and I hope to have a swimming pool thank you foreign [Music] [Music] but we've now made it to the old world city uh intramuros which is from the Spanish colonial times but we're trying to figure out where to enter because there's just like another wall outside of the old wall it's kind of blocking down here perfect okay you don't even want to see here and down this is the reality of being a tourist in Manila let's not even speaking about it [Music] to be honest this kind of reminds us of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic as a very similar Vibe except the people are very different just trying to imagine what type of tree was growing here before they cut it down also I wish we were wherever all these AC units lead when I was younger I never used to sweat on my face at all like my body could be drenched but my face was completely dry it's changed a bit as we got older but when I took Accutane for the second time from 2021 to 2022. it was like some button was switched on and suddenly I can now be like not sweating anywhere but my face it's like somebody just activated that my face is now the worst part which is so inconvenient I just cannot wrap my mind around what this place is because my brain is like you are in Latin America and I'm like oh I am in Southeast Asia we went into Starbucks for a second just to take shelter from the heat but it's not even cold in here so there's no respite whatsoever on our phone it says it feels like 42 degrees outside so it's not kidding around we usually get everything hello guys today we ordered extra ice all right we are going back outside after 20 minutes of cooling down although that's probably the warmest indoor Cafe we've ever been to which I guess is good because the contrast isn't too big when you go outside [Music] Thiago the main stronghold of the Spanish when the Philippines were part of Spain so Spanish colonization of the Philippines started in the 1500s and they were here for almost 250 years until the Americans liberated the Philippines but it quickly got pretty clear that the Americans did not have the Filipino people's best interest at heart and then the Japanese were here for a few years during World War II but the longest lasting influence of the Philippines is of course the Spanish influence and it's really quite insane because between one-fourth and one-third of all words in Tagalog the national language of the Philippines are lone words from Spanish up to one-third and the table I was sitting at to record that history lesson was covered in like those fire ants or like the golden ants so that was um very paranoid that I was going to get bitten the whole time it's terrifying to walk here in Port Santiago because there's mango trees all above us and we just see all these mangoes that have fallen down don't want to hit you in the head [Music] so we originally wanted to walk across the river and into Chinatown the Manila Chinatown which is the oldest Chinatown in the world allegedly but it's it's just too hot like we can't do it and I hate to go on and on about the heat I can literally feel my organs like there's pain in my chest and I feel like they're not working as they should it's kind of scary yeah so we're gonna go back to the hotel now and try to decompress a little bit I think this is for doing laundry on the road looks like all right today it's time to head onward we just spent the day walking around Landmark Mall because we were told they had cheap stuff to be honest not a lot of great stuff and not super cheap not kind of light we're excited to fly somewhere a little bit colder and we're excited to see if the departures experience up in airport is as bad as they say as you saw our arrival was a lot smoother than we would have thought so um surprised again well first up there's a pretty long line to even get into the airport so that's the first hurdle [Music] okay security passport control and Champion pretty smooth I'd say it's so hot inside like there's no AC whatsoever yeah there is I feel like there is [Music] we took refuge in the lounge which was thankfully quite a bit cooler so we weren't sweating the whole time [Music] and on that note guys our short stop over in Manila was over thank you for watching the whole video and stay tuned for our next one which will be a really really exciting adventure and until you hear from us again in that video as always see you around the world I'm Oscar and I'm Dan and we're on a mission to see as much of the world as possible during our youth so far we've traveled to a hundred countries to show that anyone can travel off the beaten path regardless of who they are however we realize that constantly chasing new countries isn't necessarily the most fulfilling way to live life so now we're finding a balance by exploring more of our favorite countries and seeing new places at a more sustainable Pace we'd love for you to come along for the ride see you around the world [Music]

Channel: Oskar and Dan

Views: 142,790

Keywords: oskar & dan, Oscar and dan, oskar and dan, Oscar & dan

Id: JMU9UA9FG9k

Length: 18min 43sec (1123 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 13 2023