I heard a lot about how bad traffic in Manila is – and it was just as bad.

The Uber dropped me off right in Intramuros at around 8am and I started to wander around. Due to its Spanish colonial history, the area reminded me quite a bit of places in Latin America. While the city was heavily destroyed during the final stages of World War II, Intramuros is in good shape – I assume a lot of restoration work has been done.

The Manila Cathedral – Catedral Basílica Metropolitana de Manila

Inside the Manila Cathedral

Inside the Manila Cathedral

The San Agustin Church ( Iglesia de la Inmaculada Concepción de María de San Agustín), a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Street scene in Intramuros

Street scene in Intramuros

Street scene in Intramuros

A jeepney – the national mode of transportation in the Philippines. They originally originate from modified US Army Jeeps.

Memorial for the civilian victims of the Battle for Manila in the final stages of WWII

I was getting really tired at this point due to the lack of sleep but still made an effort to visit Casa Manila, a museum that depicts the lifestyle of the former Spanish colonialists. Not too shabby I must say. Unfortunately they don’t allow any photos to be taken inside.

Courtyard of the Casa Manila

Courtyard of the Casa Manila

Courtyard of the Casa Manila

Walls of Intramuros (which means “inside walls”)

From Intramuros, Rizal Park is just a short walk away and a pleasant place to spend some time away from the horrendous traffic (which isn’t bad inside Intramuros).

Rizal Park

Rizal Park

After some lunch (I am not a big fan of Filipino street food), I went back to my AirBnB in Pasay. After catching up on sleep, I wandered around the area but as expected there isn’t much to see. An exception was the Shrine of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, a church right across from the airport.

Shrine of St. Therese of the Child Jesus

After an early night, I left the next morning for Singapore. During takeoff you realize just how huge Manila is and I got some great views:

Outskirts of Manila

While I only had just over 24 hours in Manila, I didn’t really feel the urge to stay longer. Traffic is bad, the city is huge and there isn’t a whole lot to see for tourists. I guess it can be different if you really stay longer or have a local friend showing you around though.

Sepaktakraw differs from the similar sport of volleyball in its use of a rattan ball and only allowing players to use their feet, knee, chest and head to touch the ball.

So we got tickets for that and drove out to Singapore Expo where the event would be hosted. Again, security was very tight with metal detectors. Not sure what kind of crowd Sepak Takraw normally attracts. When we were there it barely attracted anybody. We specifically went for the final of the day, but even then, it was hardly 50 spectators and we soon found out why.

The Sepak Takraw hall

The show surrounding the game was well organized, yet there weren’t many spectators – this is the Thai team

Turns out there are different disciplines of the sport. There is a action-oriented, competitive version where you drop kick the ball over the net (which is what we wanted to see). And then there is the not-so-competitive variant called Chinlone (originating in Myanmar) that we happened to catch. Remember playing hacky sack in high school? Was kinda fun, right? Remember watching others playing hacky sack? No? Right, because that was boring.

Yea, so Chinlone consists of two team separately passing the ball in a circle with the team winning that can complete more circles in 2×10 mins. Long story short, Thailand dominated the final against Malaysia and won 264-200.

The Malaysian team lost…

…against the Thai team…

…in a game which was very clear from the beginning.

Time was running out until the kick-off to the big football game at 8.30pm so we hopped into a taxi over to Jalan Besar Stadium. With Myanmar playing, we expected a full house and were not disappointed. In fact, it was so full that the stand that we were booked in was full already and we were directed to another stand.

A packed Jalan Besar Stadium

National Anthem of Myanmar

Myanmar fans during the national anthem

While I won’t go into details of the game, here are my take-aways:

• Myanmar fans make up a fantastic crowd – the stadium was sold out (8’000) and I would say at least 7’000 were cheering on Myanmar
• We were wearing Myanmar jerseys and got numerous high-fives – our sector was really excited to see foreigners support their team. We must haved been photographed over 50 times
• 80 minutes into the game, some fans started going around with big plastic bags collecting the trash. Really? Yes, really. I wouldn’t say the stadium was spotless when we left it, but quite close to it.
• Philippines as the underdog scored the first goal after 10 minutes… and ended up losing 5-1 in what was a one-sided but exciting game

Myanmar about to score

The game’s over – 5-1 Myanmar!

All in all a great evening. While we’ll probably give the next Chinlone sessions a pass, we bought tickets for Myanmar’s last group game against Cambodia.

• Brunei
• Cambodia
• Indonesia
• Laos
• Malaysia
• Myanmar
• Philippines
• Singapore
• Thailand
• Timor-Leste
• Vietnam

While some of the sports are rather international (such as football), there are some very SEA specific sports on the schedule, for example Sepak takraw (stay tuned for more on that).

Since I live right next to one of the football venues, the Jalan Besar Stadium, I couldn’t pass up to catch a game or two.  Unfortunately I was too slow to buy a ticket for the Singapore games. The first match I went to see with some friends was Philippines versus Cambodia, generally ranked as the weakest two teams of the group (the other three teams being Singapore, Myanmar and Indonesia).

We sat on the Filipino side of the action, along with about 200 hundred supporters. Football is generally not the most popular sport in the Philippines and accordingly the fans weren’t was well organized as other teams. The Cambodian community not being very big in Singapore, the stadium was far away from full. Security was (almost) as tight as at a high-risk game in Europe with metal detectors etc deployed and no alcohol served.

A rather empty Jalan Besar Stadium

In the first half the Philippines started out weak and then further deteriorated. The game went in one direction only and the half-time score should have been higher than 2-0 for Cambodia.

Filipino supporters while it was still 0-0

The Philippines came back a bit stronger but didn’t manage to turn around the game and ended up losing 3-1.

The first half went mostly in the direction of the Filipino goal…

… and the second half mostly continued where the first half left off at.

The Cambodian fans celebrating their fans

The game is over – 3-1 for Cambodia

While some of these might not attract a lot of fans in the stadium here, you’d be surprised at the number of viewers online (all games are broadcast via Youtube). This is the number of viewers for Myanmar vs. Indonesia 12 hours after the game finished:

That’s right – over 170’000!