Cebu to Clark: A Great “Manila By Night” View

This is a short one and just a teaser really for those of you who like looking at city lights from a flying witch’s perspective!

Okay, the Cebu Pacific flight from Cebu City is at about 5:50PM so you expect to arrive at 7:40PM over at Clark. Dark enough when passing by the Metropolis, right? The return flight is even mighty better, leaving Clark at 8PM and arriving at Cebu by 9:50PM – you get to view the night scenes of both Metro Manila and Metro Cebu!

The flights (both ways) use an ATR72 aircraft. It’s a turboprop, not a jet so that it does not fly high enough over the clouds. Thus, you get a very good view of the cities below. Whichever way you take, your flight will be passing somewhere above Manila Bay so you have a fantastic view of the whole metropolis at night. The street, house and building lights are so nice to see criss-crossing the vast urbanity. It’s like a mesh of arteries and veins made of lights. Some are too bright, some are faint and others are just specks. But those lights all compose a very nice memory of Manila By Night! The color is generally yellow but there are touches of red, white, blue and even green colors. Plus, if there happens to be a place beaming their “batman lights”, those could also be clearly seen!

I particularly like Roxas Boulevard with its hotel row and other buildings. The place is so bright viewed up above and it runs from the north harbor through Manila Hotel, Luneta, CCP Complex, MOA, all the way to the end of Coastal Road! Oh not to be outshone are EDSA, C5, NLEX and SLEX – even Commonwealth, Aurora Blvd, Ortigas all the way up to Antipolo, sucat and Alabang-Zapote roads! The industrial hubs of Bulacan, Las Pinas, Cavite and Laguna – even Batangas do command your curiosity since their roads and buildings are very clear amidst bright lights.

Hey, those of you who are good at photography and have gadgets that can take good night shots, this is a fantastic opportunity. Unfortunately this does not seem to be my cup of tea even if I love photography – since I only have my old Fuji E550 hehe! I did try to click some shots, tried various modes/settings, even tried video – you guessed it… to no avail, argh!

Now, now… which area in the metropolis do you think is mighty brightest?

I know the answer but am not telling here! Go fly and see for yourself!




For a chronology of stories on this trip, click the following article numbers:

01   02   03   04   05   06   07   08   09   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18
19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35