As we were walking through Rizal Park we came across a Calesa, a horse-drawn carriage. We thought this looked like fun, but we made the mistake of not determing the fee before we took off. I had read that a 15 minute ride should be about 100 pesos, so I wasn’t too worried. But after our driver tried to drive us all over town and get us to stop at tourist attractions in Intramuros, we told him we just wanted him to take us back to the park. As we pulled up to our vehicle, he tried to tell us our trip would be 2,500 pesos. Whoa!!!! How stupid do we look? We said no way, we’ll give you a 100. hehe Then he pulled out this little card that said a trip was 250 per person for a 45 minute ride and tried to tell us we had been clopping around for 2 hours. We did not know the exact time, but knew for sure it was not over the 45 minutes. He had said our baby would be free, so the most it should have been was a 1000 P for the rest of us, which I still think was the “American” rate and way too much. He seemed very upset, but we gave him 1000 P plus a 100 tip for himself, his boy, and the tour guide we picked up along the way and refused to pay more. He still was protesting, but we just said no and walked away. I think we still got ripped off.

Here is another story I found after we visited the park.