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Once, its creek was home to thick forests of mangroves, but now most were gone, the victims of past environmental disasters and encroachment of invasive nipa palms, brought there long ago by the British.

I rode carabao instead of horses, played in a nipa hut instead of a jungle gym, and my canopy bed was really just a mosquito net draped over a worn-in mattress.

Extracted from sugar cane or the sap from coconut trees or nipa palms, it was originally a necessary preservative in a warm climate.

Where nipa palms and coconuts grew, vinegar could be made from sap and water.

In fact they drew the foundations around the little hut of nipa that they had between the Parian and the city of Manila, and built a large room accommodating twenty beds.