Historic Manila

On Saturday we hired a driver for 10 hours for $70! The only extras we had to pay for were gas and parking. In the 10 hours we spent about 3 outside touring Intramuros (meaning "within the walls") and Fort Santiago.

Facts: Intramuros was built in the late 1500's by the Spaniards and consists of stone walls, bulwarks and moats. The walls streched 4.5 km enclosing an area of about 64 hectares. It protected against invasions by the Chinese, Japanese, Dutch and Portuguese pirates.

The British invaded Intramuros in 1762 and ruled for almost 2 years before returning the country to Spain. It was surrendered to the Americans in 1898 in the Spanish-American War.

Here's a map of the area:

We took a horse-drawn carriage ride through Intramuros (the driver thought I was a beautiful Filipino and asked if I spoke Tagalog!). There used to be 6 churches in this area, but only 2 remain standing. Church #1:

Church #2:

Within a corner of the wall is the Baluarte de San Diego, a circular fort.

The oddest thing about Intramuros is seeing the golf course that surrounds one side of Intramuros. It's one long and skinny course.

At the end of our ride, we toured Fort Santiago. The fort is especially significant to the country because it was occupied by the Japanese in 1942 where hundreds of Filipinos were killed. There is a memorial within the Fort for the 600 bodies that were found to be buried a nearby dungeon. I had to pay my respects.
One of the guard posts overlooking the Pasig River.

And me with the guard:

I may look cool, but it was bloody hot outside. Probably in the 90's and the humidity made it feel as if it were in the 100's. I felt overheated. Even my feet, in flip flops, felt as if they were on fire. The A/C in the car was a respite and we ended up driving through Chinatown, took a quick photo of a the Rizal monument and headed to the Mall of Asia.