While we didn’t explore Manila, in spite of spending our first night there, I would argue that passing through Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila qualified as a check-mark for having experienced Manila! Its chaos is perfectly representative of that of Manila as a whole. Upon arriving late Thursday night from Japan, we enjoyed a good sleep at the Belmont Hotel across from Terminal 3, followed by a breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant, featuring a wait-line that went through the main lobby and out the front door of the hotel! Manila, though, is like that. You just have to accept it and go with the flow.
When we landed in Cebu at lunchtime Friday, it was sunny and in the high 20s - and that held constant throughout our visit. (A little rain fell as we left for the airport, but at that point, it was irrelevant to our enjoyment of Cebu!) The metropolitan Cebu City area, including the adjoining Lapu-Lapu island, form the second largest area by population in the Philippines, next to Manila, with a population of over 3 million.
Lapu-Lapu is fringed with beautiful beaches and high-end resorts, which was unnecessary for the purposes of our visit. We came here to get a sense of the culture and daily life of the “average Juan” (as they like to say here). And Lapu-Lapu merely envelops a tourist in generic First World luxe, without giving a great deal of exposure to the average Juan’s life. Instead, we opted for a (still First World luxe) hotel in the heart of Cebu City’s Central Business District (CBD). However, despite a small concentration of gleaming towers filled with call centers for European and North American companies, within a block of this core, you immediately enter the grit and grime and slog of the average Juan. In fact, the contrast is so quick and so stark, the poverty is quite hard to take in.
We have visited the worst slums of Thailand, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia with the Board of Compassion Canada. So we have had the opportunity to enter the homes of the most vulnerable and poor. But honestly, I don’t think we have seen more extreme poverty than here.
And the traffic. Oh, the traffic… If a person is ever inclined to complain about North American rush hour traffic clog, trust me: spend 30 minutes in a taxi anywhere in the Philippines and your eyes will be opened to the worst the planet has to offer by way of ‘traffic’.
So, poverty and traffic. But beyond those two things, let me say how warm and hospitable the Filipino people are. And calm — they are so very calm! Never was a harsh word spoken to us, and the treatment was simply lovely all-round. And the topography is stunningly beautiful. Oh, and the food is beautifully prepared.
Those are a few overall observations from our visit.
Now, let me walk you through the sights we took in and, in doing so, I think you will gain a better sense of this place.
We arrived at the posh Holiday Inn Cebu City at 1:30PM on Friday and checked into our 20th floor room with a view of the CBD. Soon after, and having figured out the “Grab” ride-share app, we jumped in a car and went to a surprisingly beautiful museum that President Marco opened last fall in the former Customs building for Cebu. The museum tells the story of the arrival of Christianity, brought by Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, and it highlights various aspects of the Filipino culture, flora and fauna, and daily life. There is also an exhibition of the art of Martino Abellano, a celebrated local artist who died in 1988.
From there, we explored Fort San Pedro with its trianglular shape and exciting ramparts. Then it was on to Basilica de Santo Nino, where the masses of people overwhelmed us. We are not talking tourists here, we are talking worshippers! They come from all over to see the icon of the baby Jesus, or Santa Nino, and to attend Mass. Catholicism means something very deep here — it is not just something a person is born into. I will provide an example of that later.
By the time we did that exploration, we were dog tired and headed back to the hotel for a nap and dinner. The Holiday Inn has a wonderful pool deck and restaurant on its 7th floor, with a most excellent menu featuring many Asian dishes. We dined on Mee Goreng (Indonesian) and Masaman Curry and were not disappointed.
The following day (Saturday), we decided that — being one week into our RTW — it was time to have some clean clothes. We walked to a laundry service just outside the CBD and two kind women agreed to wash, dry and fold our 40 items (4kg) for 250 pesos, which is about $6 CAD, and to have to ready by 3PM! Might I add, you have never seen clothes so beautifully folded. Our underwear was folded in such a way it could have passed for Japanese origami!
From there, we visited Casa Gorordo, the oldest home in Cebu, made of Filipino hardwood and showing how a wealthy family would have lived in the 1800s in Cebu. Then we hired a driver to take us up into the mountains to see three key sights: Sirao Gardens, the Temple of Leah and the Taoist Temple. It was a long, windy drive up there, but it showed life in the villages outside Cebu City which, in itself, was quite worth the drive.
With those four sights under our belts, we returned to the Holiday Inn to spend the rest of the afternoon on the pool deck, followed by another Asian dinner at the hotel’s restaurant. Pam had pad Thai, and I had a Filipino dish called, ‘Chicken Isnasal”.
Our visit to the Philippines was just enough time to get a sense of Cebu, and to augment our previous visit (2008) to Manila and the resort island of Boracay.
Philippines has 7600 islands, including this one as we were descending into Cebu.
Upon descent into Cebu.
Although this was taken from the mountains and not from the plane, this will provide an idea of the size of Cebu City.
Cebu City boasts a very modern Central Business District.
The very comfortable Holiday Inn Cebu City served as our accommodation during the visit.
There are three bridges connecting Cebu City to the island of Lapu-Lapu, where the airport and the over-priced beach resorts are located. This one is the newest (2022) and longest (9km).
Designed in 1910, the Aduana Building (Customs House) is one of the most significant buildings in Cebu City. It has been declared a National Treasuer and was turned into the the National Museum of the Philippines, being officially opened by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in 2023.
This painting in the National Museum is very significant, as it depicts the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan being killed by the indigenous people in Cebu. Magellan arrived in Cebu in 1521, under the flag of Spain, and introduced Christianity. Today, the Philippines is the fifth largest country in the world in terms of numbers of Christian Adherents, and third in terms of Catholic adherents.
This is a balangay — the traditional outrigger or dugout canoe of the Philippines. This example sits in the National Museum.
Cebu City has just over 1 million inhabitants. Its growth has been exponential. This photo, from the National Museum, shows the city in 1936, with a population of just over 10% of what it is now.
The National Museum has a wonderful collection of paintings by Filipino artist, Martino Abellana.
One of our favourite paintings by Abellano in the collection.
This is the entrance to Fort San Pedro in Cebu City, a fort originally built by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, a conquerer of the Philippines, in1565.
The ramparts of Fort San Pedro. The version that exists today is a trinagular version finished in 1738.
A guardhouse in the ramparts of For San Pedro.
Walking the ramparts of Fort San Pedro.
This painting in the entrance to Port San Pedro shows Ferdinand Magellan and his party planting a cross in Cebu in 1521, marking the colonization of the Philippines and the conversion of the country to Christianity. It is quite amazing that, in stark contrast to what Canada is living today, with colonization seen as a horrible fact, from our conversations, there is no such move afoot in the Philippines towards the conversion of the country to Christianity.
Plesant ‘Plaza Independencia’ sits adjacent to Fort San Pedro, as a quiet spot in an otherwise chaotic city.
Cebu City’s City Hall.
This gazebo in the square adjacent to City Hall contains a replica of the cross Magellan planted in Cebu in 1521 to claim the country for Christianity.
This is the Basilica Minore del Santa Nino, which is the holiest church in Cebu. It houses a revered Flemish statuette of the Christ Child that dates to Magelan’s time. This relic is deeply revered in Cebu. And, late on a Friday afternoon when we were there, the church and its surrounding areas were packed with worshippers. People were praying in the Basilica, filing past the revered statuette of Santa Nino and kissing the glass that protects it, and gathering well in advance for a Mass in the huge outdoor pavilion where Mass is said, as the space is required to accommodate the thousands of people who attend regularly.
The interior of Basilica del Santo Nino.
A worshipper files past the statuette of Santa Nino, kissing the protective glass.
The delivery of the statuette of Santa Nino (the Christ Child) to Cebu in the 1500s.
A water fountain in the garden adjacent to the Basilica.
The large outdoor pavilion which accommodates Mass at the Basilica Minore del Santo Nino.
Worshippers lighting candles outside Basilica Minore del Santo Nino.
And just to show how important Santa Nino is to the people of Cebu in this modern age, every taxi driver has one of these mounted on the stick shift in their car: a replica of Santa Nino. I asked one cab driver about it, and he told me it was for protection as he drove.
Casa Gorordo, a beautifully restored house in Cebu, dating back to the 1800s.
The wide veranda of Casa Gorordo.
The small chape inside Casa Gorordo served as a place of prayer for the residents.
This grinder was an essential tool in the 1800s, used to mill grains, make flour, etc.
Most of our Saturday was spent driving into the mountains north of Cebu City, to see a few sights there. These photos show the terrain.
On December 21, 2021, Super Typhoon Rai slammed into Cebu, killing many, and destroying homes and infrastructure. On our journey into the mountains, we passed the site where a key bridge had been washed away. They have been struggling to rebuild it since 2021.
One of the main sights to see in the mountains is also — in our opinion — one of the tackiest! Sirao Garden may be filled with kitsch, but it was certainly colourful, with lots of flowers.
Sirao Garden displays a strong connection to Holland, including these Dutch shoes!
And behold, the golden hand of Sirao Garden! Every garden should have a golden hand, don’t you think? :-)
…And a giant sunflower that you can climb? I mean, why not!
There are Volkswagen relics all over the Garden.
I like these two photos, because they strip away the kitsch and show the beautiful flowers on the mountain hillside.
This is the Temple of Leah. Built in a Roman style in 2012, it was built by Teodorico Soriano Adarna to honour his late wife, Leah Albino-Adarna. Nicknamed the Taj Mahal of Cebu.
The plaza at Temple of Leah, overlooking the city.
And this is Leah, portrayed as she was crowned Queen of her Alama Mater at the University of the Southern Philippines. Kitschy? Yes, But hey, it’s hard to poo-poo a man who loved his wife so much that he wanted to honour in this way.
On our way back from the mountains, just before we made it back to the city, we stopped at the Taoist Temple. It is located in the Beverley Hills Subdivision of Cebu City, 300m above sea-level. It was built by Cebu’s Chinese community in 1972.
The view of Cebu City from the heights of the Chinese Taoist Temple.
A variety of interesting things about Cebu and the Philippines
This is a Jeepney — the way most Filipinos travel! Jeepneys were originally made from Jeeps left by the Americans when they departed after WW2. Like the Cubans did with American cars when they pulled out of Cuba in the 1950s, the Filipinos also kept those old Jeeps going for decades. Today’s Jeepneys are longer, but are still known for being outlandishly painted. Some, like the one above, still appear to have a Jeep front-end, while the new generation (like the one below) are manufactured specifically for the role of public transport. Whatever the design, Jeepneys are everywhere, and they are always packed with people.
Imagine a Canadian construction crew traveling like this to a project site!
Cebu is a contrast of the old and the new, with individual wealth dictating the end of the spectrum. Here, a poor young man is pushing along a massive cart of flattened boxes.
Apart from India, nowhere have we seen a tangle of telephone and power lines as we saw in Cebu! This is the norm all over the City.
Our hotel had a wonderful restaurant on the 7th floor, overlooking downtown. It served excellent Asian dishes, all beautifully prepared — such as Pam’s pad Thai on our last evening in Cebu.
The Mactan-Cebu International Airport is just a few years old and accommodates the masses of tourists (mostly Chinese, Korean and Japanese) that are flooding into Cebu now.
And one last view… This is the island of Lapu-Lapu, where the best beaches and high-end resorts are located.
Comments
Post a Comment