Manila

The capital of the Philippines. Harry’s Manila is defined by one contrast he keeps returning to: Bonifacio Global City, the polished business district known as BGC, and the self-built settlement pressed directly against it. He calls the inequality crazy while noting it’s no different from the rest of the world, and reserves his warmest description — the friendliest place in Manila — for the poorer of the two.

What Harry did

Spent 24 hours in the city with no money, needing to earn food, transport and a bed from scratch. He asked a stranger for a single peso, was handed 100 within two minutes, then bought fifteen bottles of water and resold them around BGC until an administrator explained that trading there means renting a pitch. With his takings he found BGC’s hotels far out of reach, crossed into the neighbouring settlement, was given chicken adobo by a woman cooking over firewood, played basketball with the kids, and took a room in a guesthouse inside the district.

Practical facts

• Fifteen bottles of water cost 105 pesos wholesale. In BGC they resell at about 50 pesos each — Harry started at 20 and was told by a customer he was underpricing.
• Street trading in BGC requires renting a pitch; an administrator will stop you otherwise.
• A BGC hotel room was quoted at 16,000 pesos a night.
• A guesthouse room in the neighbouring settlement: 300 pesos for three hours, 700 for the night, negotiable to 400 — about seven dollars. Very clean, with a bucket shower, but no aircon.
• Power in the settlement is unreliable; a fire days earlier had burned out the wiring, and cooking is over firewood.
• Joyride motorbike riders work as informal transport.
• Around 35°C, with extremely high population density and, in his words, no personal space whatsoever.
• People say yes. Harry repeatedly notes it was the first person he asked, both for money and for food.
• Getting out of the city: a motorbike taxi is the only reliable way to make a flight, and cost 130 pesos on one run to the airport. The domestic terminal has a bad reputation, but Cebu Pacific has moved to Terminal 2, where Harry checked in and was through in minutes.

Walking the city

Harry crossed Manila on foot in a single day — 27 km from Valenzuela to BGC in 35°C — which is the best survey of the city’s districts he’s put on camera. In order: Valenzuela; Tondo; the Divisoria market, chaotic and good for cheap goods, where mixed flowers cost 150 pesos; Binondo, which he describes as the oldest Chinatown in the world, where a Filipino-Chinese meal of chow mein, dumplings and beef tendon came to 596; the colonial quarter of Intramuros; Rizal Park; the Malate red-light area, where he was quietly offered a woman for the night; the Dakota settlement in Malate, with streets barely wide enough to pass; a Korea Town he found ghost-like and full of homeless people; then Makati and BGC.

Makati is the financial district — rich Filipinos, foreigners, multinational offices, clean streets and malls, which Harry says are not his thing. A first Shake Shack burger there cost 650.

Practical warning from the walk: Manila is not a pedestrian-friendly city. Much of the route had no pavement and he walked along the roads.

Harry’s tips

• Ask a local what to charge, or what something should cost — his water business only worked once a customer told him he was pricing it wrong.
• Cross between the districts. The contrast is the story, and the poorer side was where he was treated best.
• If someone gives you something for free, pay them anyway. He broke his own challenge rules more than once to do it.
• Walk it if you can stand the heat. Harry rates crossing the city on foot one of the most interesting things he’s filmed — but wear the right shoes, since he finished with blisters.

Source

• I Survived 24 Hours in the Philippines with No Money 🇵🇭 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOF4vVxBQ-s
• Looking For Love in the Philippines! 🇵🇭 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToCePYZJ_q8
• Unexpected Encounter with Filipino Police in Siargao 🇵🇭 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2HIe0Urqgc