Monday, October 4th …..

Geoff picked us up yesterday morning as arranged and we drove to Santa Rosa to pick up Chit and one of her staff. We found a dim sum restaurant just around the corner from their Manila house and walked home after lunch. There was some talk about a massage but we put that off until today.

It was nice to have a quiet meal at home, especially as Chit’s son, Mark came around with his 2 year old, Franco. Mark is moving with his family to the US. He is a US citizen but his wife and children will need visas. No problem for wife and Franco but the consul official is refusing to issue a visa for their young baby girl. It’s ludicrous.

Chit’s houses are both two-storey with good-sized rooms and high ceilings. In Manila, we were allocated an upstairs bedroom which was very comfortable, until early morning when the next-door roosters became active. What a racket!

Cock-fighting is very popular here and many of the citizens breed cocks. In the villages, a man might be lucky to have 1 bird, but in the wealthier areas, people could have several. When driving around, we pass numerous areas, which can often be identified by the cluster of tricycles outside. Marilyn is ready to strangle the ones next door but the 12-foot fence is proving to be a bit of a barrier.

Chit was going to work at about 11 so we took the chance to get a lift into Makati. To try and control the traffic problem, the government has limited the times when cars can come into town. It all depends on the last digit of your number plate. Even numbers have certain days, odd numbers have others. There was a window of opportunity today and we were able to travel between 11am and 3pm. If we were earlier or later than that, we took the risk of being fined.

We wandered around an exclusive mall called Podium, then went to the famous Greenhills Market. This is unbelievable. You can buy almost anything from pirated software to clothes and dodgy watches. With all the illegal stuff on display, you can’t buy pirated DVDs inside and have to go to a street vendor outside.

There’s a double standard at work here as you can see masses of pirated DVDs on display at Metro Walk.

All these markets are controlled by Muslim families who seem to have a monopoly on these activities around the Philippines. Apparently, they haunt the tourist beaches trying to entice tourists to buy watches and pearls

At home and the masseurs arrived at about 4. It’s not much fun when it’s happening but you feel terrific afterwards. They havc extraordinary strong fingers for such tiny people. For dinner, we went to a popular restaurant called Mesa, in Greenfield 5. The Greenfield complex is an upmarket shopping precinct in Makati. It consists of 5 buildings, linked to each other and numbered from 1 to 5. Kit drove up from Calamba to join us as we wanted to talk about computers. The wish list from Cayucyucan Elementary School asked for two used computers and I promised to see what I could do. Rhoda has found a place where we can pick up a couple for $250 each but Geoff has had an email from Tasmania asking whether he can find homes for some donated by Aurora Energy. Things look under control and Geoff has agreed to make sure that Kit gets the two she wants.

So, home again, where Geoff pulled out a bottle of 18-year old Chivas Regal - gorgeous stuff but perhaps the nip was a little larger than it miught have been.

We have no plans for tomorrow and will pack in the morning and plan to be at the airport by 4pm.