Day 56 – March 12, 2011 – Manila, Philippines

Today we took the tour to Corregidor, the Last Bastion.   It was an all day tour but one of the best we have done.

In the morning we took a smaller, fast ferry from Manila to the Island of Corregidor.  The ferry was just the 3 buses from the Voyager so there was plenty of room.  It was about 1.5 hours over calm seas.   We got off on the South Dock and into the special open-sided buses that they use to transport people around the island.   Since it was a beautiful day, not too hot, but sunny, it made it easier to get everyone on and off the bus quickly as everyone had their own way on or off.

We first went to the Hotel Corregidor for lunch which was a nice buffet with Philippines food.  There were chicken, fish, pork, rice, and vegetables to choose from.  They also had a soup and salad.  The pork was the best of the dishes.

Our guide had asked if we would take a shorter lunch so that we could be first away and be able to see more…the entire bus cheered!   So we quickly ate lunch, reboarded the bus and off we went.

Our first stop was one of the gun batteries.  A battery can be more than one gun and this one had four guns.  They were large mortar-type guns and standing next to them, you really saw how really large they are.  After visiting that battery, the guide took us up a direct road that he said he wasn’t supposed to use to visit the hospital.   Most of the military buildings on Corregidor are completely destroying and the decision has been made not to reconstruct them or protect them in any way so they continue to fall down.

The hospital was huge but in very bad shape.  Most of these buildings had been constructed in the late 1920’s of concrete and steel.  The concrete had to cure for multiple days/weeks in order or it to become strong in this tropical climate.  So all of the buildings have the concrete pillars standing with the concrete floors either intact of falling down.

We saw the Middle Barracks, the Mile Long Barracks, multiple smaller buildings and sometimes just a foundation covered by the jungle.  Our guide told us that after the war, the island was almost completely bare of any plants.  In the 1950’s they dropped seeds from the natural plants on the part of the islands that had fewer buildings, i.e. the tail of the Island which is shaped like a tadpole.  Now the island is covered with lots of trees, vines, and all of the plants you would expect in this area.

We visited the lighthouse which was actually built by the Spanish but is still in use.  The next stop was the small museum and the monuments, including the Eternal Flame sculpture dedicated to the men and women who lost their lives defending the Philippines and especially those on Corregidor.  We also visited the Japanese memorial which was the cemetery that was discovered under all the foliage in 1986.  There are not any burials there now as they exhumed all the Japanese, cremated them and return their remains to Japan.  Our guide told us they have separate tours for the Japanese with the story more aimed at their side of the story.

The last stop before the visit to the Malinta Tunnel was the North Dock where McArthur left the island on the PT boat.  According to our guide, the PT boat first docked at the South Dock but because that dock was under the control of the navy and the north dock was under control of the army, McArthur made the PT boat circle the island to pick him up.   Sounds pretty stupid to me!

The Malinta Tunnel tour was interesting if a little difficult to walk through.  You start at one end of the tunnel, stopping every few feet at an opening to one of the side tunnels.  At each tunnel, there was either a panorama depicting an event, such as the Philippine President and his family arriving at the Tunnel for safety or McArthur telling his second in command that he had been ordered by the President to leave for Australia even though he didn’t want to go.

While there were only about 50 people, it was crowded enough that it was hard to see all of the panoramas or films.  Sometimes you wonder what people think they are doing when they stand right in front of the screen and don’t move….or when the 6 foot men stand on the front row and the rest of us vertically changed folks try to look around them.

At the end of the tunnel, you get back on your bus and are taken to the dock for the ferry ride home.  The ride home was a little bit more bumpy than in the morning but not too bad.

Back on the ship, the Captain told us that we would not be leaving on time but would be delayed until at least after midnight.  While the tsunami did not hit Manila or anywhere in the Philippines, because of the warning they had not allowed the fuel barge to load the fuel we needed.  So the barge will not be along side until late afternoon at least and it will take 5 hours to load the fuel we require.  So we will be docked here in Manila until the fueling is completed.   We did finally leave probably around 1-2:00 am, I didn’t get up and look at the lock.