Tuesday 26th September - after saying goodbye to John, I made my way to Manilla Pavillion Hotel. where i will be spending my next 4 days.

walked around the hotel which was in the old part of Manilla, and a very poor aera indeed - everybody seems to be staring and never really felt at ease in this part of town - the funny thing was that i was very often approached by Phillipinos and even American asking me if i was US military staff - i took it as a compliments! LOL

I spend one day shopping / then the next day, i took an afternoon tour of Manilla which took me via the financial district / the residential area where rich and famous lives / the American Cemetery where over 17,000 soldiers are buried and another 35,000 names are inscribed as their body are either missing or been returned to the USA - it reminded me of Normandy - then we went to old part of manilla called "intramuros", built by the spanish - really interesting place with lots of history, especially around the prison which was used over the centuries to torture and kill any oponents - japanese including!

unfortunately, i had organised to spend the following day on a tour of a fortified island used by the japs during WWII, but instead, we got hit by the worst Typhoon of the last decade - that was impressive! i had to stay in the hotel all day despite not having any electricity and so no AC... that was not pleasant! especially i had to go to the Casino to keep busy and lost more money! LOL... I manage to leave the hotel later on that day to see the damage done by this Typhoon - which went up to 150km / hour - i believe over 50 people died that day!

finally after 4 days in Manilla, it was time to make my way to Nepal - but why not make my last day even more miserable!