Not only were we awakened by the whir of the mooring line motors, but our alarms went off at 6:30am as we were to assemble with our group at 7:30am in the Ocean Bar. This was one of the few ports for which Bruce would announce when the ship was cleared and we could go ashore. While eating breakfast we could see some 30 buses assembled to take guests on shore excursions. Plus there was a local dance troupe greeting us as well as the Volendam gently slid into its position at Pier 15. It was shortly later joined by the Silver Whisper (a ship of the Silver Seas group). We made our way into the port where several hundred of the families of the Philippine crew were waiting to board the ship to re-unite with their relatives. It's a nice touch that HAL does for the crew!
We easily found our guide, John Eldon (yes named after the famous singer/composer). His brothers and sisters also have singer names as well. John was a good Tours by Locals guide and the small group of 6 of us fit easily in the small Toyota van.
The port area is very very close to the Intromuros (walled old city), but our tour took us to the the very south end of Manila to the Subaro Jeepney factory. A couple of us are car guys and this was totally fascinating to see how they literally build the iconic Jeepney's from the ground up based upon the basic design of WWII jeeps. They put a new frame under them, fabricate all new sheet metal and weld the panels together with spot welds, install 4 cylinder diesels and "doll" them up. All of this is done with lots of hand tools, a couple of sheet metal brakes, a bead roller, hand grinders and use of arc & gas welders without any shielding helmets. It was truly fascinating!
From there we went to visit the Bamboo Organ Church. There was a wedding about to start so we didin't get to hear the organ, but we certainly got to look at it up close and take a tour of the little museum as well. It's a worthy stop. Our next stop took us on a traffic choked drive across town to the meticulously manicured American Memorial Cemetery which holds the largest number of American servicemen & women's graves outside of the United States. it was somber to view the headstone of young Americans who died shortly before I was born.
After spending about 1/2 hour at the cemetery, John told us it would be about 1/2 hour drive to the restaurant where we would have lunch. Because of the traffic it took us over an hour to get there. There's no easy fix for their traffic situation. It was a Saturday, and it was almost a gridlock situation. At the Aristocrat Restuarant, we enjoyed local food and $1 San Miguel beer, and while we were waiting for food, John took me to a local money changer to exchange some money. Our meals cost approximately $10US each.
From the restaurant we creeped over to Rizal Park where Jose Rizal, founder of the modern Philippine nation who was falsely accused of treason and executed, was buried. Chinatown was our next stop and it was very, very crowded. It's the oldest Chinatown in Asia (outside of China). We took a walk around it and through narrow streets and past venders selling many types of produce and other items.
Fort Santiago and Intramuros was our next stop where we got to watch a video on the history of the Fort and see the cell where Jose Rizal was held before his execution. They even have replicas of his footsteps leading from his cell to his execution point. It was very chilling. Our last stops were at the Manila Cathedral and St. Augustine's both of which were having weddings. That made 3 weddings that we crashed today and unfortunately we couldn't go in the churches!
Back at the Port we said our goodbyes to John and made our way back onto the ship. We ended up watching the local band seranade us as the ship went through its final disembarkation procedures. There seemed to be a delay until a piece of luggage was delivered to the ship. With that accomplished, the gangway was stowed, the mooring lines released, and the Volendam slowly slipped sideways away from the dock, backed into the harbor, rotated 180ยบ clockwise, and sailed out of Manila Bay under the watchful eye of an accompanying fire boat.
We ate a very light dinner in the LIDO before watching Rikki Jay, a British comedian, at the 8pm Main Stage show. His show was clean and funny. Afterwards it was back to the room (or statecupboard as an earlier comedian called our staterooms), for a quiet time and a chance for me to update this blog. I should add that we lost our internet access this morning when my wife accidentally used all of our data by downloading a book from Amazon which triggered some further downloads until our data was used up. So we'll have to wait until Taiwan where a new data plan will kick in.
Tomorrow is another sea day, so I'm looking forward to several lectures and leading the Sunday interdenominational service. Stay tuned for details.
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