A week before our departure on the Sharing the Point (STP) tour, Dux and I met over a pho lunch to do some planning and hatch some promotional strategies for the tour.  It occurs to me now that it’s kind of ironic that, as I type, I’m in the airport in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam writing about a lunch of Vietnamese noodle soup that I had with Dux in Reston, VA, two weeks ago … and in our all-too-brief time in Vietnam, there was no time for pho.

As we were walking along the top of the wall, a couple of us took the opportunity to take Ivan aside and say that, no, seriously, we’ve seen enough of the standard tourist stuff, and we’re ready to see the real Manila, walk through the areas that wouldn’t be filled with tourists, visit a market where we could sample some street food, etc.

After the second one of us said this to Ivan, he believed us, and we were off to Manila’s Chinatown where our tour of the real Manila began.

 

While wandering through the streets and alleys of Chinatown, Ivan led us on a series of culinary adventures, including salted egg (hardboiled egg that’s been buried in the ground fora number of days, hundred-year eggs, lumpia, mung bean cakes, the juiciest mango I've ever tasted and, ultimately, the “number five” soup, which the bravest among us (for the record, not including yours truly) were excited to try, as it involved … well, it’s probably best if you just watch the video, but I need to get the link from Mark, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, have some salted eggs and mango:

  



Following our visit to Chinatown, we were off to the Chinese Cemetery, and our drive to the cemetery itself was both very real and very colorful. Especially colorful in that we saw chicks for sale that had been dyed all the colors of the rainbow.  Alas, I missed that photo op as we drove past, but here's a taste of the neighborhood.

Ivan explained as we were en route to the cemetery that the mausoleums involved quite literally houses for the dead.  These houses included a number of styles, including traditional Chinese “sparrow’s peak” designs, and ranged from ornate to modern, and even deco.  Most were gated, some had patios or balconies, and many had carefully tended lawns and landscaping.  Ivan told us that families will often spend the night in the house with the bodies of their departed loved ones as a means of communing with their ancestors.

As we were making our way back to the hotel following the visit to the Chinese cemetery, we traveled via surface streets through areas that were every bit as colorful as we’d seen earlier, but by this point in the day, there was the added bonus of it being dinnertime, so plenty of street food was available.  When we passed a grill that looked especially tempting to our adventurous eaters, led by Joel and Michael, a stop of the van was called for, and grilled treats such as chicken heads, gizzards, and intestines, and pig’s ears were enjoyed.