Travel Blues and Bliss

This is my first attempt at describing our vacation to the Philippines. It may take more than one post. As we set off on our "cheap" and "easy" adventure to the Philippines, we realized that it was a little more complicated than we thought. First off, the ferry to Macau. The ferry takes an hour and a half. Then, there's the taxi to the airport - 20 minutes. Then, the wait for the plane - 2 hours. Finally, we were onboard the plane, on our way to our first stop, Manila - 1 hour 45 minutes. All this plus passport controls and frustration = a long time.

On the ferry. Sophia was not being her best little self.

We had a scheduled two-hour layover in Manila before our flight to Cebu, but as we walked down onto the tarmac, I had that sinking feeling. Crap, it was not the airport that I thought we were going to be to. It was another airport also listed as Manila, but Manila (Clark). Sophia's teacher, who is Filipino, was on the flight with us. I asked her how long it would take to get to the other airport. Two hours. Um, yeah...our connecting flight was in two hours.

We exchanged money, hopped into the first available taxi, even though it was double the price, and hit the road, knowing there was no possible way. We had to stop for a new sim card for our mobile and a phonecard so we could call the airline and reschedule for the next morning. My hotel reservation was no good to us now, either.

There we were, riding along, Sophia hungry and nothing but Oreos to give her (She didn't mind too much, of course) We stopped at a gas station and the taxi driver got out. "Lock the doors," he told us as he went into the gas station. He was the first of many drivers to tell us that. Finally, we arrived in Manila, on a dark and crowded street.

We had asked the driver to take us to a hotel. Of course, he didn't. I knew he wouldn't. Instead, he took us to a travel agent. Hmmm... there we were told we could chose from many hotels. They suggested one hotel. Joe asked, "Is it nice?" The agent replied, "It's a standard room, sir." Guess where the hotel was? Right across the street, and it was not worth the price we paid. It had one dingy bed with surprisingly clean white sheets and no blanket, an unusable cold-water bathroom, and an old-fashioned elevator from maybe the sixties. The door opened with a key and the chain was broken. I knew I'd be sleeping on my wallet. We were all starving and stressed-out. Then, it started to pour.

We began to wonder, what the hell had we done? We should have stayed home! We ate a gas-station junk-food dinner and attempted to pile into the one bed together in order to get some sleep before our 6 am flight. Of course, when everything was already terrible, Sophia was an absolute nightmare. Not just a little, a lot. Poor kid was probably as stressed out as we were.

Sophia being a little devil at the hotel room.

So those were the blues. Manila was crazy. We barely saw the city, except for a few steps from our "hotel" and from our car, but it was so active. It felt a bit like Mexico. Crazy hustle bustle would be the best words for it. It was congested, with jeepneys everywhere. They are these "buses" with jeep fronts. People ride in the back on benches. They are bright, vibrant colors or shiny silver. I didn't get a chance to take a picture, so I put one from the net. The other big form of transportation are tricycles. They are bikes or motorcyles with sidecars attached. They are constantly running along side the road. There could be two people riding in one or seven, basically as many as can fit.

In the morning, our "wake up call" was someone from the front desk knocking on our door. We got up and to the airport on time. We were so happy when we flew into Cebu and picked up our trip from the arranged part. It took three more hours by car to get to the little port of Maya on the north side of Cebu island.

Sophia, being a good girl for our morning flight.

The country side was amazing. I think I will save my next blog to share all the details because it was so rich in images. We were very sleepy on the way up, and thank goodness Sophia slept for most of the ride. We finally got to Maya and took our boat to the island. The ride was another hour. Finally, when we started to approach the island, Joe said, "This is awesome." The horrible day before was forgotten once we saw the white sandy beach and blue, blue waters.

Typical boats in the Philippines.

Off the coast of Maya.

The approach to our island. Thank God!

And that, is where the bliss comes in, but I'll save that for the next one as well.