Touring the slums in Manila’s Smokey Mountain - in pictures

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  A woman sorts through pagpag which is made by picking through thrown away junk food and packaged into a meal.

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  A boy poses beside his father’s Calesa carriage which he uses to bring tourists to the nearby Intramuros — the Spanish walled city in the centre of Manila.

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  This man worked non-stop for 24 hours to make 12,000 lumpia wrappers, used for Filipino spring rolls.

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  Children playing on the street.

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  The slum runs along the Pasig River.

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  People live in the streets as it is too hot to stay indoors and electricity is too expensive.

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  Some live in between the scaffolding under the bridge in Tondo as it provides shelter.

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  A dark alleyway in the slum areas.

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  In the Smokey Mountain slum area, old tyres are bought from lorry owners and sold to fishermen who use them for their nets.

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  Remy, a Smokey Mountains tour guide, comes from the slums and still lives there.

As many as 4 million people live in slums in Manila either in cemeteries, shantytowns along the Pasig river or on top of a huge burning rubbish dump known as Smokey Mountain.

For tourists who are interested in seeing this side of Manila, Smokey Mountain tours runs guided walking tours that take you into the depth of these slums, allowing you to talk to the people, learn about how they live, eat and earn. All photos by Aya Lowe for The National