The overnight ferry was not too bad and although we had set off behind schedule we must have been travelling on some downhill portion of the sea as we hit Manila on time – hoorah! The young guy from our cabin asked if we wanted to share a tuk tuk to the main post office which almost went to plan, that is until the trike actually ran out of petrol just a street away from the building we wanted.
Regular readers may remember that due to some earlier shenanigans involving Air Asia (Boo) I had managed to have my card cancelled so had to have a new one shipped out to the main post office in Manila – easy eh? Well first we had to set up a PO box there before we left it the first time we visited, now it should be full of my card and more birth control pills for my Chicky (Hoorah [again])! It was with great trepidation that we went down to the cellars where the PO boxes were and, bear in mind if our parcel had not arrived it would mean that we would have to come back early from our trip up north to Luzon to check the box out again OR the parcel to us had not been delivered – even worse! However, our fears turned out to be unfounded as the box was full of our loot – hooray for post offices and post-people everywhere and thanks to Ma and Pa in-laws for their valuable help!
Now we just needed to get to Vigan the next stop in our journey which, if we could now get to the bus depot in time, would ‘just’ mean a journey of ten hours. We needed a taxi fast and our flagging down techniques obviously did not look rich enough for the Manilan taxi drivers as they kept passing us by. We finally managed to walk a bit further along and at last got one to stop but he was a slowie and time was a ticking. That said, we still got to the depot by the skin of our teeth only to be told that the bus we wanted had broken down and was presently being fixed so only the mid-afternoon bus was available, this means that if we were lucky we would arrive at Vigan midnight – argh!
Vigan, Vigan a wonderful town!
We now had some time to kill so had a very cheap bite to eat at the diner in the bus station which did a fine line in fine dining – NOT. No but what the food lacked in flavour was more than made up for by the rustic charm of the place! We then camped out in a nearby Jollie Bee as they had free wifi and made a couple of cups of tea last for ages, testing their patience and our resolve methinks.
It was finally our turn to board the busso we shuffled back to the station and boarded and although it was not one of the most comfortable journeys we had been through worse. We were looking forward to Vigan as it had a good reputation as being a picturesque little town full of Spanish-style houses. On the journey out from Manila we saw quite a few volcano shaped hills in the distance as we travelled by coach, they surely do not have volcanoes to put up with along with typhoons, hurricanes and the like!
I would love to say that the journey stood out in my mind but we were absolutely knackered so you tend to be in some kind of living dead state in which various shapes of things pass the windows by you but you struggle to understand what you have seen. Therefore, on our bus trip I do not remember much but I do remember a long bridge and us stopping near a place which seemed to be doing midnight surfing – or perhaps midnight starving lol but this was probably just my delirium setting in! We did, after this very long long journey, finally reach Vigan and it was yet another one of these situations where the trike driver is caught between telling you a massive fib, for which being Catholic he shall probably go to hell and the need to extract money from you. We paid slightly over the odds for our shortish ride to our hotel but not by too much, soap bit of a result there. More worryingly however was the fact that the hotel was in complete darkness – not even the sign was on outside the place! We had to do quite a bit of knocking to wake the young lady up who appeared to be asleep in the breakfast room on the floor. They certainly are committed these girls or perhaps very poor and need the work, not sure which. Once in our room we dropped onto our beds in a nice enough looking room ready to attack Vigan tomorrow when we awoke.
Today we had decided to see if we could actually see a bit of Manila in the daytime without having a blinding headache – you know, see the sights as it were. We decided upon a walk to Fort Santiago taking in some sights along the way and then we would wing it from there. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and off we went.
The first place we came to we took very little notice of when we crossed it yesterday in our much weakened state – Rizal Park. This is a memorial park dedicated to Jose Rizal, the Philippines national hero. After seeing the Filipino flag flying in front of the small obelisk and the Rizal Monument we went to the dedication to Rizal’s execution – it was his execution that sparked the Revolution in the Philippines. The illustration of the execution is in a small separate area – with a small fee (for foreigner only?) in which there are a lot of statues depicting Rizal’s grisly end at the hands of the firing squad.
Rizal bites the bullet and in turn starts a revolution!!
It is quite graphic too so I am not sure whether or not little kids should see it but people behave differently out here and it seems to do them no harm – so what do I know? It also gives Rizal’s last poem, ‘My Last Farewell’ inscribed in granite as you enter and it is quite a poignant piece – not sure what I would have written prior to standing in front of a firing squad – quite possibly gibberish so not too far different from my ramblings now … lol. Next, in a small area fenced off was the Japanese Park so we paid this a visit as it seemed very popular with the locals. Some locals were dressed in red judo suits and had sticks with which they were performing Kung Fu like moves on each other – it looked quite violent but very ‘Bruce Lee’ in the confines of the park.
Everybody was Kung Foo Fighting – haw ha …. Kicks as fast as …….
I have looked it up and this is the ancient art of either Arnis, Eskimo or Kali – take your pick.
From the park we went over to the Intramuros, the historic centre of Manila. As we entered through one of the arches you got a first hand impression of just how thick the walls were (2.4m thick) making it one impenetrable place. First up was to grab a bite at one of the locals more ‘rustic’ cafes then on to Casa Manila which has been renovated to look as it would have ‘back in the day’.
Casa Manila – looking not unlike our lodgings … lol
This was a lovely building complete with courtyard and the original (period) furniture in each of the rooms. Across the road from this was San Agustin church and we had arrived just as the mass was nearing its end, so the throng outside the church were somewhat excitable to say the least.
San Agustin Church – a peek through the gates
We did not stay long with the congregation as it seemed wrong to intrude but we looked instead around the museum next to the church. There were a great deal of art and artefacts some of it very good, some not so and some downright gruesome – a priest with an axe in his head! To keep the religious theme up we went from here to Manila Cathedral which was also enjoying a few ‘bums on seat’. This was okay but not as ornate or old as some of the other religious buildings we have seen on our travels. Next was our original intended destination – Fort Santiago which again played a part in the last few days of Rizal as it was where he was held captive.
A former relative of mine helping Rizal out – I believe it was my relative who tipped off the police about Rizal – gulp!
The fort was well worth a visit as it had large exhibits as well as some cannon and in one of the older buildings it had an exhibition on Rizal explaining his life as well as his final days. Intramuros done, we walked along the Manila’s bay front which is quite a walk in the heat of the day so we soon decided to search out a shopping mall with the intention of taking in a film or at least cooling down. The shopping mall itself turned out to be better entertainment than the choice of film as lots of ‘young ‘uns’ were there done up in various sci fi costumes – not sure I knew any of the characters they were supposed to be! In my day you were either Star Trek or Robbie the Robot!
No idea who they are supposed to be – any of them! Distant relatives of Spock?
No film to watch we watched the Sci fi nerds and then decided a drink was in order so went round the corner to a Sports bar. Upon entering there were a lot of screens up with a couple of football matches on – one from the Premier so we ordered some beers and sat down at the bar. It was at this point Liz pointed out the ‘ladies’ in their appeared to have an agenda to chat up guys but as I was with her this was no problem … was it? We had been sat for about 5-10 minutes when an older Filipino woman who seemed to be somewhat worse for wear sidled up to where we sat. She started making smalltalk but whilst doing so was looking me up and down in what I supposed was her best ‘come to bed’ look. This was not only embarrassing but also there was a match on and it was quite difficult to concentrate on it. Liz was finding the whole situation very funny and decided to engage the woman in conversation asking what she was doing at the bar, her reply being ‘I am here fishing, fishing for men’!!! Now she did not look like Jesus or even one of his followers so I had no idea what this all meant but when Liz said she needed the toilet I told her she could not go! This was getting more and more uncomfortable and Liz was loving it more and more and finally a good samaritan came to my aid – a bouncer kicked her out. After the quiet drink we went off to an Indian recommended by the LP which was quite a good eat and cheap to boot – good day ended by good food.
We woke later than we intended to as we needed to get to both the Post Office and the Immigration Offices by noon. Why were we so late – we were both suffering and badly folks. I was feeling like someone was trying to break out of my head using a sledgehammer and Liz was not faring any better. If San Miguel was a Saint why could he not save the hangovers for the evil doers – okay it may be a fair cop .. lol. I was not laughing today though folks, I did not have time and could not even muster one if I had the time, we needed to be off and fast.
The walk was still, by what we had been told, achievable, however our good friends who explained the route must have been thinking that it would have been easy for two able-bodied people and at this moment we were far from that. The Sun was not helping by making everything ten times brighter than it really needed to be so this was really hurting folks.
Argh it is all too bright … it burns!
Through Rizal Park and around Intramuros we went, our cunning plan was to extend our visa to two months and change our journey to one that double backed a bit earlier to Manila AND then we needed to open a PO Box and have my new ATM card sent to that address. Even in our bedraggled state we noticed that there were ALOT a few homeless on the roadside and they would pester us for money, not persistently so but side did happen regularly, this was quite new to us. Even in Jakarta which had seemed by far the poorest city we had visited we had not seen any homeless but here they were many. Prize for the strangest being the woman who lived up a small tree who nearly scared me witless (spelt with a ‘sh’).
Possibly Rizal Park … by the time I took this my head was pounding and I could have been anywhere!
Even with all this hassle a final spurt and we finally reached the Office of Immigration and – hoorah – it was shut and would not be open till Monday and the security guard also pointed out that even if they had been open Liz would not have got in due to her choice of clothes – he neglected to comment on our grey pallor. It was good information to have got but we now needed to hotfoot it over to the Post Office which was just along the road, so we could at least get one of our jobs done and it was ten to twelve – by the time we got there though this was also shut. Despondently we walked home – we would now have to stay an extra day in Manila than I had expected – my spreadsheet would be very mad. Oh well back to the digs for some much needed rest and sleep.
When we awoke (much) later we decided we were rejuvenated enough to go and find the bus station we would need to get to our next port of call – Taygaytay, to see the Taal volcano. We decided the best course would be to get the Underground/Overground (Wombling Free!) trains to get to near the bus station and then hunt around from there. Manila metro is the first I had seen with ‘women only’ carriages and travelling at night on it, although it did not feel unsafe, it did make me feel somewhat more wary than I had felt in other cities I had thus far travelled.
Looks quite quaint from this photo … do not be fooled … lol
When we got there, only a few stops down the line from our digs, the actual area felt no better either very bustling and lots of people but it was all dark, dingy or dim and this added a bit of a surreal ‘Morlocks’ feeling to it all. Again there were lots of homeless about but they were being ignored even by fellow Filipinos so although this did not particularly ease my conscience, at least I had a benchmark I suppose and used this to justify my own actions.
We finally reached the bus station and getting the bus seemed to be a relatively easy affair so, hanging round the area no longer than we had to we went back to the MRT station and high-tailed it out of Dodge.
Time to leave Sepilok and the Orang Utans (and Sun Bears) behind and get back to Kota Kinabalu in order to make preparations to move on to another country – the Philippines. The bus ride was not a bad one in terms of time and had all the usual suspects turning out for viewing – more Palm Oil trees, more Mount Kinabalu and more cloud covering the mountain so that we could not actually see it! This time we even had some major rain when we passed the mighty mount.
We booked in – back once more to the Victoria Hotel and as their WIFI was not too bad, if a little unpredictable, we decided to get our travel arrangements resolved first. We had decided that we were going to spend two months in the Philippines so we would need to get an extension to our one month visa arranged and we also wanted to find out if we needed to have a ‘outbound’ ticket from the Philippines. It was quite difficult to find a single definitive answer on the latter and as we read the information we found online, the airlines say you must have one yet the Philippine authorities do not bother to check for it – great eh! First we booked the flight to the Philippines and at this point cock-up number one occurred because we (by ‘we’ I mean ‘I’) went through to a screen which ‘looked’ legitimate until it suddenly started asking for more card information than I wanted to give out, unfortunately by this time I had already provided much of the card information. So, change of plan, I then had to cancel my card – argh! First I had to contact my bank then I tried to contact Air Asia to inform them that their systems may have been corrupted but both communications were like knitting fog. In the end, we had to book our flight to Manila using Liz’s card but, mistake number two, rather than book an onward flight from the Philippines to Hanoi – we had seen a reasonable flight through Cebu Pacific – we decided to hang fire until we got to the airport as the worst that could happen would be that we would have to book the flight over the net at the airport. Or at least that is what we thought the worst could be!
We now only needed to have a ‘Blackadder-style’ cunning plan to get a new card over to us whilst in the Philippines – as my card had no charges attached when used overseas. We decided we needed some brainfood and the only food to choose had to be the humble Roti. This time the restaurant owner ignored me completely and to be fair I did him too as some serious thinking was required. We would have to re-route the Philippines to come back to Manila earlier than I anticipated, so rather than go up to the North of Manila first we would have to do that last and if we were lucky it should not affect our chances of seeing a Whale Shark in Donsol too much as we would hit there just a bit early – it just would not be happening, as I had originally planned, on my birthday.
With respect to the country we were to be leaving for the second time during our trip – what can I say? Malaysia, both parts, are excellent places to visit, the people are friendly, the food a good mix of Indian and SE Asian styles is really some of the best on the trip thus far, there is loads to see and do too – remove the Palm Oil trees and this would be perfect but I am sure I am asking for just a little too much.
NEXT DAY:
First we were up and off to KK’s ‘International’ airport for our flight to Manila we had left a bit earlier than required in order to give us a bit of extra time at the airport should things be more difficult than we expected. We tried to book in at the Air Asia desk and no sooner had we handed over our passports then the lady from AA asked for our onward flight tickets – argh. We explained we had none because we were going to extend our visas so could not book a flight until we knew when we were going to leave the country. She said (my translation, not a transcript) ‘No Sir, even if you do not know when you shall be leaving you still must book a flight’ – I could not speak such was my exasperation. We skulked away from her desk and thought, okay onto plan B. We tried hooking up to the WIFI – this did not work so we asked an older Malaysian airport lady – and possible IT technician, if she could look into the matter quite urgently. She picked up her IT tools (consisting of a yard brush) and proceeded, after a couple of swipes and mishits, to turn off the router. We waited and waited then she directed another couple of hits at the poor machine before it groaned back into life. We tried to connect again and this time eureka! We pulled up the Cebu Pacific website but (oh deary me, I said) their website had gone into major meltdown. We swiftly moved onto plan C and went over to the Air Asia booking desk and tried to book a flight with them but this proved more difficult than expected because the lady there seemed reluctant to actually do it AND to add insult to injury, the only flight she had would fly to Ho Chi Minh City rather than Hanoi my initial destination of entry! I tried to explain to her that we were in this pickle because Air Asia, her company, needed an onward ticket from the Philippines. She finally relented and so we had two tickets to leave the Philippines on a date we did not want to go, to a place we did not want to fly into in Vietnam – PERFECT eh!Take note dear readers of this Lemony Snicker-Style Unfortunate Chain of Events!
The flight was a breeze and can you imagine my delight when upon reaching the Philippines when they did not even enquire as to whether or not I had an onward ticket – argh! I am really not sure who is taking the Mick out of who here but if anyone from the Philippine government is reading this (!) please make your rules clear, either you expect everyone to have an onward ticket and you will inspect this or you are not bothered and you do not inspect – do not let the airlines benefit from this and have people coming to your country annoyed with the way you deal with these things!
Manila Ninoy Aquino airport proved to be another source of frustration as we had been warned against using the white taxis due to unreasonable charging and to instead pick the yellow taxis. Now the queue seemed big for the yellow taxis but we had on our most determined faces and decided to stick it out, and stick it out, and … well you get the picture. Well it was at the point where our taxi wait time had actually surpassed our flight duration time when we finally neared the front of the queue. Manila, at last, here we come. Our host was known to us only as ‘Bob’ and had cheap accommodation. So leaving the driving to the taxi driver and trying to take in as little of the action of the cars on the exterior of the taxi trying to bounce off our carriage (well nearly), we were off.
‘Bob’ – real name Ariel, turned out to be a real cool guy and the room although not done up in the most decorous manner sure was big and had a dead cockroach nearby – what was not to like! Even better, Ariel said because it was a Friday night he usually cooked a BBQ and invited friends round and that if we fancied it we were welcome to join the throng. We slept first and then popped out for a beer and the beer in the Philippines is both big in size and as it is San Miguel, more than palatable.
Me next to a Filipino beer and a pint glass next to us both … lol
Ariel then started cooking and one after another small groups of his friends started appearing at the door.
One of Ariel’s mates reluctantly agreed to try my hat on – this guys could speak at least five languages – not including dialects. I was so impressed I would have taken my hat off to him .. but he had it on!
They were a really good crowd and asked about us and our plans as well as telling us all about themselves – all could speak English really well making the whole task so much easier for us but yet again reminding us just how fortunate we are to speak a language everyone else wants to know. We explained that we were going to extend our stay in their country by another month tomorrow at their Office of Immigration and they let us know how to get there – as it was quite close – and also gave us tips on the best places to go to in the Philippines.
As you can imagine the beer flowed, as beer does and the food was finally all eaten when (man after my own heart) Ariel suggested we all go to a bar he knew where there was live music and we could have a dance.
The Band
The band at the bar were excellent playing a lot of soul tracks that me and Liz both knew well and so we got up and had a bit of a dance. One of the ladies in our group let us know she was turning lesbian but this was because she had just recently been let down and that truth known she only really liked women’s breasts!
Taken just before the lady in the picture turned Lesbian! – I am sure the two events are NOT linked … lol
This gives a you a flavour of the intellectual level of conversation we were having folks – what next, would we be discussing Socrates, Plato? The band completed their stint and the singer came over and asked if I liked Northern Soul – which I do – as he recognised my dance moves were on that kind of vein. He let me know that they would be playing classic Northern Soul the following week but I explained we would be away by then – boohoo. All in all it had been a great night and as we all went back to the digs before going our separate ways. We said Goodbye to each and every one of them and thanked them for welcoming us so well into their country. As they each went their separate ways to the odd cry of ‘I AM turning lesbian’, I thought to myself that I was going to like this country.
lizandpatsexcellentadventure 