We hailed a cab to take us north of the city to the Santa Cruz area to check out the Manila Chinese Cemetery. Not only is it the second oldest cemetery, it's also home to the Chock Hock Tong Temple (which was the oldest temple in the city, until they rebuilt it recently). The cemetery was created out of necessity by the Chinese, who were often denied burials in Catholic cemeteries.
Based on the general consensus of the articles I've read, the graves were initially built 'grand' to best honor the dearly departed. As many believed the spirits of the dead would forever inhabit their final resting spot, many of the wealthier families built the 'graves' to be functional for their dead, with running water, furniture, mailboxes, electricity, upscale chandeliers, AC, gates, security, etc. Many even became full-fledged 2-story residences, with bedrooms, courtyards, fish ponds, etc. Relatives also sometimes use the residences in lieu of hotels when visiting their dead, in order to be closer to them/for convenience.
Over time, the cemetery became a resting area of only the rich and/or famous Chinese of Manila because of the cost of a plot. Though it's said that some relatives have even 'moved in' to some of their residences, it certainly did not seem the case while we were there. It seemed like an abandoned ghost town, with not a single other tourist/visitor, and just a few caretakers hard at work. While I'm sure some people have made the tombs their regular residences, we didn't see evidence of that. So though I'm sure there are permanent living residents there, there don't appear to be many...
We did, however, see one creepy vision- two tombs resting side by side had large holes in them, and both were empty. Our guess is that the bodies/caskets were moved, possibly because all of the plots only have 25-year leases. (The grounds are owned by the City of Manila, and plots can easily run 50 million peso, or $1 million US dollars, for a lease.)
A few pics from the cab ride up there, so you can get a sense of a few of the streets of Manila:
We entered the cemetery, and just inside the gates, sat a group of a half dozen people having a rowdy karaoke competition. Odd setting, but well...captive, non-complaining audience, perhaps? (The dead are the only ones who would listen to me sing.)
I believe we may have walked straight onto Millionaire's Row. Again, the entire cemetery looks like a wealthy neighborhood, and NOT a graveyard. Some 'streets' had nothing but large mausoleums, but there were sections with more humble tombstones (though none qualified as small).
The next three pictures are of the Chock Tock Hong temple within the cemetery grounds:
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| Difficult to see, but these carvings grace the walls of the temple interior. |
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Taken from Wiki- Liat See Tong Monument
Built in the early 1950s in honor of the Chinese community leaders who were executed by the Japanese during World War II. Japan invaded the country in 1941 and one of the first things they did was to round up prominent Chinese community leaders and executed them. Having been enemies even before World War II commenced, the Japanese were wary of the trouble the Chinese community would cause on the plans when they invaded the Philippines. |
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| His first encounter with a well pump |
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This was one of the larger plots we saw, with a two-story pagoda and a massive courtyard (there is no way I could capture the entire plot on camera, but this about half of it).
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One thing that amazed me is that the cemetery is in the middle of a very poor, run down area. Homes (see below) were crumbling, and built with scrap pieces of metal and tarp. We saw well pumps on the street (which indicate no indoor pluming) and children playing in the streets in the middle of the day (not in school). A major metro line passed by above with cars PACKED with commuters who look out over this opulent splendor for the dead, while the living struggle in far more modest circumstances right outside the cemetery gates. It's truly an odd reality that is hard to stomach.
Since we were north of the city, we caught a tricycle cab over to the well known Divisoria shopping district. We caught the cab of a kind dad who clearly has to take his very young son to work with him each day. This little cutie (who we gave every snack we had) had no helmet or shoes on, but was calm and happy as could be with dad dodging and weaving the clogged streets of Manila. Because fares (even the higher visitor fares) were so cheap on cabs and tricycles, we were often able to tip 50-100% of our fare and get the biggest smiles from our drivers. It felt both wonderful and horrible at the same time.
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| This little guy couldn't be much more than a 1-1.5 years old... |
After cruising more than a few stories of the Tutuban shopping area (meh), we decided to get lunch at another big chain we kept seeing along with Jollibee- Chow King! They had limited vegetarian fare (I will say that we ate A LOT of fried rice and Thai food on the trip, as pork and chicken appeared in nearly every entree in town. Though I wasn't a Chow King fan...Ryan loved it. The food was white, starchy and had very little nutritional value...so of course he'd love it!!! :-D
After lunch and some shopping at the Robinson's department store (our go-to place to shop), we hit the streets of the legendary shopping district of Divosoria...for about ten minutes. Holy smokes, it was absolutely jam packed, pure madness and insanity. We quickly bought a few apples and Asian pears, and then high-tailed it out of there, seeing only about 5% of the area before suffering claustrophobia. Just not my scene anymore. You could barely wade through the thick crowds, booths, jeepneys, cabs and non-stop honking, yelling and pandemonium.
My photos do not capture this insanity at all...but here's a stock image from Google, that is only missing eighteen stray, dirty dogs, a few terrified tourists and fifty honking jeepneys plowing through the middle of the crowd:
I climbed up a set of stairs to get this shot of the madness (but failed as the crowds were beyond the jeepneys). After I snapped a shot, Ryan pointed out a baby hanging on a homemade hammock right next to us (that I somehow missed, as it appears people were living or at least camping out on the stairs for the day).
Again, I took those two photos before we really entered the madness. Once we were in the thick of it, I was clutching Ryan and my bag for dear life and wouldn't have dared tried to take photos. I'd have been plowed right over and run over by a jeepney. I've been to many crowded markets/festivals in my life, but there was nothing like this. I'm sure I could've handled it better in a balmy 75 degrees, or perhaps if I were ten years younger, but I'm a sticky, old person now, and I was done.
It took so many city blocks to get away, that once we did escape, we had major trouble trying to hail a cab. After 20+ minutes or so, we finally hailed a tricycle out of desperation...and that turned out to be QUITE a ride. It was a solid 25-30 min. harrowing ride through the most heinous traffic and poverty of Manila (through boatyards, under bridges, major freeways). We had a courageous driver, but Lord have mercy, on at least 3 occasions, we went down a crowded one way street in the WRONG direction. We also made two U-turns on crowded highways/roads in the middle of traffic, I've never seen anything like it! At points, we were wedged between massive semi trucks inches from my face. At another point, we were up against a wall 5 feet tall of stinking, rotting trash...which was right next to little 'squatting' tent cities and kids running barefoot. It was the saddest, and most dangerous ride of our lives. I desperately wanted to capture images, but it would have felt insensitive and disgusting to whip out a camera so I could capture evidence of other people's obvious poverty.
Once we got off the tricycle, we were all a bit nauseous and covered with sweat. We figured we'd walk off the motion sickness and heat stroke in the mall near our hotel before the boys cooled off in the pool.
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| Guess where someone ended up? It became a tradition each day...if he didn't complain during the 'boring' parts of the day, he'd get to play virtual reality games later. ;-) |
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| Father - Son Bonding while mom gets to read quietly in the room (took this shot from our balcony) |
He had his first diving lesson from a friend who was once an Olympic-caliber swimmer a few days before we left, and then a short second lesson with daddy at the hotel pool. Not too shabby right? I'm more of a belly flop-diver, so he didn't get it from me!
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