Manila and the Palau Archipeligo

Air Asia is the Ryan Air of the East and the youth culture airline. It seems to be primarily for transporting labour between the phillipines and other countries in the region. There is a real party atmosphere as people are travelling home after long periods of work in Kota Kinabalu. We arrive in Clark Airbase which is still used as a military base and runs a few airline charters through it. There area around is littered with the remains of the American part of the airbase, hundreds of bunkers and camoflagued underground stores are strewn around, but no Americans.
We pass one of the many volcanos that dominate the skyline along a smart highway south to Metro Manila. Manila was quite a small town and then ballooned after WWII as people arrived on the promise of wealth and glitter in the metropolis, engulfing many of the surrounding towns like Quezon City to form the Metro Manila. It is clogged with traffic, confusing concrete structures meet in multilevelled transport hell and at night it is 'Bladerunner' city. The bus terminal has a gaggle of taxi drivers who loiter waiting for the gravy train, and we are it! the taxi is f*£%ed but the fellow is charming and well, he can't afford a merc with a back axle.
We are slumming it in the Hyatt Hotel and Casino which is surprisingly cheap and a very welcome sight in this traffic and vendor swill! Unfortunately our plane for Palau doesn't leave until Wednesday and Manila's sights are out there waiting to surprise and astound us.
Intramuros really turns out to be interesting. The old centre of the capital, Spanish of course, a great fort, an old prison, a visitor centre and a strange mercury like river running past the forts battlements. There were a few seminal moments in Manilas history and now it stands as a constantly teetering democracy. It is incredible that a country so near to Malaysia, Japan and other countries that show a propensity to honesty in the highest ranks (relative of course) is so steeped in corruption. It runs rampant through every level where the currency is hard cash, dollars. Payoffs, bribes, handouts so that consequently you never get anything at face value. If you spend $10 on a window, the money that reaches the budget for the window is $2.20 after you have 'dashed' the principles and the middlemen that make, sell, market or deliver the window not forgeting the officials that sanction it! Incredible. So a small elite group pocket millions while the average person in the street sees none of the benefits that should be heaped onto them from development...its mindboggling!! But despite all this the people are resigned to their world and are cheerful through it all...i think i would have shot up at least five Mcdonalds outlets in frustration by this stage.
Continental airlines take us to Palau. The security in the airport is multilayered, even down to checking my lucky stone and the crack in my flip flop. We leave at 11 and arrive to an island welcome at 1.30am. It was dark so we couldn't see the famous island chain shots and had to settle for a tropical rain storm arrival at Koror, the capital.
Whisked to the Waterfront Villas by our 'Betel nut' chewing chauffeur, a welcome bed and our first meeting with our host and personal safety executive, Arnold. He and his lovely Palau-en wife, Jamie, run the hotel which is on the south east of the island with a picture book view and a wealth of fascination in its pivotal position to the lives of many people who make it their home here, be it a holiday or a years working on the island.
Palau is a soup of fascinating people thrown together in a large broth of intrigue which is the local politics, people, extranejos who work here, visitors and people who came and never left. Everyone has a story and most of them would do justice to a W.S. Maughan short story collection which a slither of Hemingway. There are too many stories to tell and too many fascinating people who we are lucky enough to spend a little time with.
Needless to say that the main attraction, the outrageous scenery and totally breathtaking diving live up to the bang they are given in the marketing tosh. Each Island is a piece of sea floor lifted up to the surface of the sea and then sprinkled with vegetation. The sides of the islands are generally shear with small occasional inlets with tiny beaches where you really have to have a picnic for 10 years and grow a beard! We venture out each day in the dive boat, dive another incomparable dive site, loll in awe at the scenery on the way home and pinch yourself that you are in the film.
Downtown Koror is fascinating and gives up few secrets until you visit the museum or get to talk to some of the locals one the dive boats or when they give you a guide of the island. Even then the underlying fabric of the island and the people who populate it is never really exposed. There is a recent history of population and inter island fighting at the private museum which is a great feature, the variety of the peoples looks is amazing within such close proximity. There was terrible battles here during WWII as well and hideous losses on the American and Japanese sides. Both cultures leave their marks here in different ways.
A mixture of the fascinating, the macabre, the tragic, coupled with the undeniably unique scenery makes Palau a great spot for a dive in to the unknown...now back to the known in Manila and our shrine to Western Fascism...the Hyatt Casino and hotel...ciao Palau