Living cemetery in manila. Cemetery city in manila

Housing is hard to come by in the Philippine capital of Manila, as thousands of residents have found an alternative to their housing problems by making the cemetery their home. Manila is a bustling city with a population of approximately 12 million. It is the eleventh largest metropolitan area in the world and the fifth largest urban area by population. It is also ranked as one of the most densely populated cities in the world. But the vast majority of the city's residents are poor. As many as 40% of the population live below the poverty line, living in slums with very little chance of a better life.

North Manila Cemetery, the oldest and largest in Metro Manila with an area covering 54 acres, provides the city's underclasses with ample space to live in peace. Wooden and corrugated iron shacks, perched on top of hundreds of old graves against the back wall of the cemetery, are their living quarters. Stone and marble sarcophagi in the mausoleums became beds. Electricity is supplied from a nearby street, while drinking water comes from one among a dozen wells dug around the cemetery grounds.

Hidden from prying eyes, the cemetery is a thriving city with a vast and intricate network of streets and alleys lined tightly with tens of thousands of mausoleums and graves. There are basketball hoops, kiosks fast food, with snacks and cigarettes for residents and those attending funerals or their loved ones. There are karaoke, restaurants and even Internet cafes. However, it is still a fully functioning cemetery with 80 burials taking place every day.


Many residents of the cemetery found work here. Teenagers carry coffins for 50 Philippine pesos - about 50 US cents. Children collect scrap metal, plastic and other rubbish to sell. Others look after the graves, keeping them clean and protecting them from robbers who steal bones and ornaments.


It is difficult to know when the first people settled here. Those who arrived in the 1950s say there were already many residents by that time. The population increase occurred in the 1990s, during the urbanization of the Philippines, when migrants flocked to the cities. As of 2012, approximately 6,000 people live in the cemetery permanently.

I flew to Manila in August, after three wonderful weeks spent on the island of Borneo, where I first gave myself a serious jungle test in, and then rested from the equatorial forests on beautiful landscaped streets and. I flew to the capital of the Philippines with the local airline Cebu Pacific and landed at the third airport terminal. Right next to the exit from the terminal there is a bus stop that goes to the Taft metro station for 20 or 30 pesos, I don’t remember exactly. It makes no sense to overpay and take a taxi - buses run regularly during daylight hours. At night, I don't know.

Due to the cancellation of an Air Asia flight from to Manila, I had to change my Cebu Pacific ticket to a different date, resulting in 6 full days in Manila. From the first minutes, the city struck me with its scale, mega-contrast, multi-lane highways, excellent concrete roads and extremely little greenery on the streets. And also crowds of Filipinos and terrible traffic jams. A huge number of homeless, beggars and slums, occupying any free space. The population of the Philippines has passed 100 million and continues to grow rapidly. Manila is an anthill, a giant anthill! One of the most overpopulated cities in the world. Much bigger and busier than Bangkok. On the other hand, there are quiet, fashionable areas that compete with Singapore in terms of amenities, and the number of skyscrapers in Manila alone exceeds the number of skyscrapers in all of Russia. And such contrasts are everywhere and in everything. The Philippines is a very polar country.

At the entrance to the subway there are brave policemen, poking thin sticks into the bowels of backpacks. Looking for dangerous items, like. Oh well. Go find something here. The people in the subway darkness-darkness! Moscow rests during rush hour! The subway is almost constantly overloaded. The fare compared to Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur costs mere pennies: 10-20 pesos (7-14 rubles). But the quality is appropriate - everything is shabby, not fresh and battered. Well, okay, the main thing is to go.

Not far to go, here is my station, Guadalupe, I crawl out, weave to 1 River Central Hostel. Housing in Manila is not a fig, not a budget one, and even a bed in a dormitory costs 450 pesos - 300 rubles! I found the hostel colorful. It is located by the river, and on the roof there is a covered terrace, where in the morning the hostesses Elsa and Sarah prepared a delicious and plentiful breakfast, included in the price. It's also nice to surf the Internet and work. The room has 2 bunk beds, clean and tidy. But wi-fi does not catch.

In Manila, I had only one thing to do - to exchange traveler's checks for pesos. The rest of the time I spent walking and exploring the city. In addition to the well-known Intramuros, there are epic slums in Manila, where I first went. I got off at the Carriedo metro station and went through Chinatown to the pier.

On the way came across the old church of Binondo, the end of the 16th century. Surrounded by modern high-rise buildings, it looks mega-killer!

Unlike the exterior, the interior of the temple is fresh, clean and conducive to prayer due to very pleasant soft light and silence.

Poor neighborhoods

Near the temple there is a large crossroads and a square with a square where the poor and the homeless hang out. Including children. A bunch of kids came up to me with an offer to give them money. I did not see any arrogance and aggression in the behavior and eyes of the children.

- No money, guys, let's take a better picture!
My proposal was received with great enthusiasm.

The children no longer asked me for money, but they looked at their photos on the camera with pleasure. Well, let's move on to the river. With every hundred meters, the buildings deteriorate, cars are replaced by motorbikes, motorbikes by bicycles ... Some kind of plywood ghettos clinging to the walls of houses have gone. The dwelling here is made from everything that comes to hand: sheets of tin, construction waste, and even cardboard covered with polyethylene.

Wooden barracks by local standards - palaces!

Cycle rickshaws in such places are kings. They have a bike with which they can somehow earn.

The locals looked at me with surprise, but quite friendly. I did not have time to reach the slums near the river itself, since the distances in Manila are not small, but it gets dark quickly in the tropics - I had to return.

On the way back I taxied to the largest Manila market - Divisoria. A very colorful place. Winnie the pooh and Nutella are the perfect combination!

Walked a little in the other direction from the Carriedo station. Here is the modern church of Quiapo.

There are always people inside. Who comes to pray, who just sit in silence.

I also visited the main Manila attraction - the Spanish fortress of Intramuros, founded back in 1571. The fortress is not small and encloses several city blocks with a thick wall with cannons.

Inside the fortress, the old colonial architecture in a restored version.

There are also several old temples here. This is the Church of Saint Augustine.

This is Manila Cathedral.

In general, there are a lot of interesting things for the historian in Manila - a rich colonial past affects, as well as Active participation Philippines in World War II. But I'm a wandering naturalist - therefore, I don't stick on architecture and tablets with dates and long descriptions for a long time. Nevertheless, if you are not in a hurry, you can spend half a day, or even the whole day, on Intramuros ...

Wander through the colorful streets near the old walls.

With new lanterns on the buildings.

Find a clear example of the principle “if you want to live, you won’t get so upset.”

There are pretentious places for tourists with expensive restaurants and cafes, and there are simple back streets with local eateries and a modest Filipino way of life.

The key place in the fortress of Intramuros is Fort Santiago. Entrance there is paid - 75 pesos (50 rubles). The place is quite popular and I saw a lot of tourists here. Both whites and Asians.

Entrance to the fort.

Cells for prisoners.

More prisoners.

Slums are visible from almost all observation points in Manila, and Fort Santiago is no exception. The opposite bank of the Pasig River is almost entirely covered with slums.

Home-made foam boats dart back and forth across Pasig, steered instead of oars by two pieces of plastic in thin boyish handles.

In the direction of the Ermita area, everything looks more or less safe.

But the ghetto is there too. They stick to the roofs and walls of houses with bizarre multi-colored designs.

Manila continued to reveal its mega-contrast as I went to cash a $500 traveler's check in Makati, the wealthiest area in the city. I had the feeling that I was in Singapore - there was not a speck around, every 20 meters there were policemen and guards with machine guns and shotguns. Well-dressed Filipinos in expensive cars. Expensive restaurants, boutiques, clubs… There are no slums – only skyscrapers sparkle.

And even some kind of green appears in the frame.

And on neatly trimmed lawns - sculptures.

Pleasant neighborhood. But the price tags are Singaporean... I cashed a check at PNP Bank after a series of failures at other banks. When I showed an American Express check and asked to cash it, I listened to a variety of excuses - sometimes I even had the feeling that bank employees had seen such a footcloth for the first time.

Rizal Park is located not far from the Intramuros fortress. There is nothing particularly interesting here. A park without a twist.

I was amused by the huge department of tourism. But it was closed. And the trees that grew on the parapet and the roof said that it had been closed for a long time. Although, that may be the intention.

There is also a monument to the man who soaked Magellan in 1521.

Lapu-Lapu is called. Local leader and founder of the idea of ​​the struggle for independence. Wow, there is no Lapu-Lapu in our time on the numerous McDonald's and KFC that have filled the whole Philippines! The only thing I could not come to terms with in a month and a half in the Philippines was their obvious pro-Americanization. Especially in food!

Chinese cemetery

And I liked the old Chinese cemetery the most in Manila. You can get there by metro. Get off at Abad Santos station, walk back a little and turn left. Further, it is better to ask the locals for directions, since an unremarkable street without any identifying signs leads to the entrance to the cemetery.

A huge plus when traveling in the Philippines is that most of the locals have good English. Even in the slums, you can ask any granny: “How do I get to the library in the cemetery?” And you will be answered in understandable English in 90% of cases. And if suddenly such a misfortune happens that you don’t understand, they will simply take you by the hand and take you to the cemetery. It's good that they won't.

So here is the Chinese cemetery, so yes. The second oldest in Manila after La Loma Cemetery, was founded in the 19th century. At the entrance, I was immediately offered a tour and a cycle rickshaw. But I prefer to explore everything myself, and I always feel sorry for the cycle rickshaw - that he will strain for me, turn the pedals.

The Chinese cemetery is a whole city for the dead. With streets, signs, house numbers…

For the ashes of the dead, the Chinese build real houses with a beautiful interior and exterior.

The windows are barred, but through the bars you can see the interior of the room. It turns out that some dead Chinese live much better than most living Filipinos.

Even the water is on.

And these are still very modest houses by local standards - large two-three-story mansions did not fit into the frame, since the streets here are narrow, and I don’t have a wide-angle lens ... But only in parts if.

Most of the houses are decorated in Buddhist style.

But among the Chinese there are both Catholics and Protestants. So there is also enough Christian symbolism in the cemetery.

I wandered around the cemetery for about three hours - there is where to roam and even get lost ... There is an even more colorful place in Manila - the Northern Cemetery. There, among the graves, people live - poor Filipinos. But getting there with a camera is not so easy - you need to get permission from the city administration.

To visit the Philippines and not say a word about the jeepney is a bad form. So I say I'm impressed. There is just darkness in Manila! And the vast majority with a bright individual design a la "who is in what much."

That is a jeepney, and this is a jeep.

Filipinos are very musical people and you can often meet a small ensemble on the street. They play something like jazz fusion. And they play well. With soul.

Despite its size, dirt, crush in the subway and the small number of trees on the lawns, and these lawns themselves, too, I liked Manila. It is interesting for its contrasts. Poverty, on the one hand, and fashionable, on the other. There are not so many sights here, but it is easy to see the life of ordinary Filipinos on the numerous side streets massively branching off from busy jeepney avenues. And often, for some reason, it happens that best frame it hits the lens precisely in places far from Intramuros, Makati and other tourist places ... Manila is just a starting point on the way to exploring the whole country. Thousands of islands, hundreds of interesting places... Not many bloggers cover this country. I recommend the friendly resource Palawan Days where you can find a lot of useful information on the pearl of the Philippines - the island of Palawan.

How to get there

Manila is the capital of the island nation. Therefore, you can get here from other countries only by plane. There are no direct flights from Russia yet, but among the transit ones it is not a problem to find a flight for 30-35 thousand rubles.

Where to live

The capital of the Philippines has a huge selection of hotels and guesthouses. The aggregator Rumguru will help you find the best prices, which searches for all booking systems at once.

Manila is similar to Jakarta - a huge contrasting metropolis, where there are super-elite residential skyscrapers and slums by the river. Houses, studios, apartments, apartments - thousands of all kinds of housing throughout the city and at a variety of prices. Airbnb's private accommodation search service will help you find your cozy corner in the capital of the Philippines. You can find options both in the center and on the outskirts of the city. By the way, if you are not registered there yet, you can use my link to get a $20 gift bonus, which can be used on your first booking.

.

Another service that allows you to find and book private accommodation is. More than 1000 offers of private housing in the city are available through homeway.

Few people have decent housing in the Philippine capital of Manila. Manila is a rather bustling city with a population of about 12 million people. It is considered the eleventh largest metropolitan area in the world and the fifth most populous. In addition, Manila has one of the highest population densities in the world. The vast majority of the city's residents are poor. Up to 40% of Manila's population lives below the poverty line, they often cannot afford anything better than living in the city's slums. Thousands of poor people are not able to buy even the worst housing for themselves and are forced to look for an alternative. And some residents of this city arranged for themselves housing right on the city cemetery.

Manila North Cemetery, the oldest and largest in the city, covers an area of ​​54 hectares, provides a haven not only for the dead, but also for people from the lower strata of society. Huts made of wood and graveyard wrought-iron fences are built on top of hundreds of tombs. Stone and marble sarcophagi serve as beds inside the crypts. Electricity is supplied from a nearby street, and drinking water comes from dozens of wells dug around the cemetery.

In fact, this cemetery is a hidden, prosperous city, with an extensive and branched network of streets and alleys, along which tens of thousands of crypts and tombs are densely lined up. Currently, there are many basketball courts, fast foods, kiosks serving cigarettes and all the little things needed in everyday life, as well as for use in funeral rituals, or for visiting graves with relatives and friends. There are restaurants, Internet cafes and even karaoke parlors. However, it is still a fully functioning cemetery with up to 80 burials per day.

Many of the inhabitants of the cemetery found work among the graves. Teenagers help carry coffins for 50 Philippine pesos, which is about 50 US cents. Children collect scrap metal, plastic and other rubbish to sell. Others look after the graves, help keep them clean, and protect them from burglars who are known to steal jewelry and valuables from the graves.

Now it is difficult to know when the first people moved there. Those who settled in the cemetery in the 1950s say that there were already quite a few residents by that time. A large increase in population took place in the 1990s, when, as a result of urbanization, a large number of migrants flocked to the cities. As of 2012, the most rough estimate is that about 6,000 people live in the Manila City Cemetery.

In the Philippines, people are mostly buried not in the ground, but in family mausoleums. Often these crypts look richer than the houses during the life of these people.

Here is an incredible neighborhood of the living and the dead.

1. The surname of the family is necessarily written above the entrance to the crypt.

2.

3. Those who are poorer build a canopy from the rain instead of a crypt, and sometimes concrete coffins-sarcophagi simply lie in the open.

4. Multi-storey mausoleum.

5. But the most amazing thing is that because of the incredible population density, people live in the cemeteries of Manila.

6. The population of this cemetery is about a million dead and about 10 thousand living and completely happy people.

7. Each mausoleum is a separate house, some of which are even two-story. One of the tombstones is most often used as a kitchen table, the rest as beds. If there is only one tombstone, then during the day it is a table, and at night it is a bed.

8. Most often, a family occupies several crypts at once, and each is equipped for different needs. The couple are watching a series in the living room.

9. A man is preparing dinner in the kitchen.

10. Bedroom.

12. Clothes dryer.

14. Crypts-garages.

16. Crypt-aviary for a dog.

17. Crypt-shops!

18. In addition to shops, there are eateries and even Internet cafes.

20. Some people live on the graves of their loved ones, and some rent crypts from relatives of deceased people.

21. Sometimes people do not live in crypts, but in small huts, which are attached to stacks of sarcophagi. The mother calls the child to the house:

22. Chickens are grazing.

23. On the roofs of the crypts there are cages with fighting cocks.

24. Playground.

25. We enjoyed talking with the locals. Most of them were born in the cemetery and have been living here for many decades.

26. Many people work here in the cemetery. They help carry coffins, dig graves, build crypts, keep order in them and protect them from looting, sell flowers.

27. Plumbing in this locality is missing, so women walk the streets and carry canisters of water in makeshift carts for sale. 3 pesos for 5 liters.

28. Manila North Cemetery is an entire city with an extensive and complex network of streets and lanes. In general, the standard of living here is higher than in.

29. People walk in clean clothes, the territory is cleaned of garbage. The cemetery is so big and there are so many people that it even has its own bus route! Children go to school. It is, of course, outside the cemetery.

30. Life is everywhere...

34. It's amazing how Filipinos, even very poor ones, look neat. In snow-white T-shirts they go even in the most trashy places.

37. Despite the fact that local authorities from time to time try to expel all the inhabitants of the cemetery, they still return - the cemetery provides housing and protection from outsiders, as well as some kind of income, which cannot be said about living in the slums.

38. Finally, we watched the funeral procession. Cheerful and not at all funeral music plays, what is happening is more like a wedding. Above the entrance to the cemetery hangs a banner with portraits of the mayor of Manila and his deputy.

39. This is life in a cemetery in Manila.

Living cemeteries in the Philippines are an unusual social phenomenon. Of course, it would be more correct to say residential cemeteries in the Philippines. Yes and no plural, but the only one. But it sounds less enticing 🙂

Be that as it may, the Republic of the Philippines (Tagalog Republika ng Pilipinas), or the Philippines (Pilipinas) is a state in Southeast Asia. Consists of many islands located in pacific ocean between Indonesia and Taiwan. More than 11 million people live in the overcrowded capital of the Philippines, Manila. In the center of the city is the Northern Cemetery, the last resting place of several Filipino presidents, celebrities and hundreds of thousands of dead Catholics.

In addition, about several thousand local residents live in the cemetery.

Filipino poverty has crossed an extreme barrier. People are forced to live in cemeteries. Coming from the provinces, unable to break through in the harsh conditions of the metropolis, people with might and main use the temple of death for life.

For example, in the Philippines, approximately 40% of the population lives below the poverty line, and since the problem of overpopulation in Manila began to rampant, the cemetery has become a convenient place to live and work for hundreds of Filipino families.

By the way, if you think that our cemeteries, especially on major church holidays, differ from the Philippine cemetery, then you are mistaken. There people even live, clean up after themselves, clean. And our homeless people just eat. But let's not talk about sad things and look at the karaoke at the grave:

So, the destitute Filipinos eccentrically disposed of the mausoleums inherited from their grandmothers and great-grandmothers. They live in them.

By the way, in Cairo also many people live in cemeteries. But, again, we do not deviate from the topic and return to the Philippines.