Sampaloc

The thrilla from Manila, Manny Paquiao is from here. We stopped for 30 hours after a problem with our original flight and managed to get our hotel, breakfast and dinner sorted compliments of the airline! Win.

The hotel was actually really decent place as well! It had a pool, sauna and Jacuzzis so we took full advantage of that before heading out to see the night life of Manila! After dinner we managed to hail one of the colourful personalised trucks to make it closer into the city centre.

I remember aiming for a recommended live music venue that was actually really entertaining. Cowboys / girls serving drinks and food before taking their shot on stage to cover classic rock and county ballads. Funny thing was they did really good versions of the originals, just with a little bit of an Asian accent. Great joint though. I think we wandered some more to see what we could find and definitely walked past about 4 or 5 marriage proposals.

The thing that did surprise me though was the amount of homeless people though, people lying at the side of the street, on the ledges next to the river, all over the place. The climate at the time was actually quite hot and comfortable at night so I guess not many needed insulated walls or even blankets, but it was still a shock to see. Walking through that kind of environment really makes you see how lucky you are to have a phone, a car, a roof over your head etc.

We ended up at a casino at the end of the night to practice some of the pro tips the only other guy on the flight had told us. We found the roulette table and set up. I think I ordered a whiskey and then sat to watch and wait. The tip was to wait until a consequence of the same colours landed in a row before betting against. So I waited, longer than I actually thought I’d have to because each spin took a good few minutes, and eventually there was a run of 5 reds. I bet black. It landed on red. So the tip was, if you lost, stick with it, but double your bet. So I doubled. Red. Okay, no biggie, double again. Red. This time was the last amount I could make reasonably so I didn’t quite double the amount but I had to blow the money anyway I figured cause we were leaving early in the morning for the flight. The spin landed on green and I was out. The first and probably last time I’ll play roulette, I’ll stick to my policy of no gambling.

The next morning we jumped on the next plane to Darwin.Read more