Arriving in the Philippines

Dear friends,

I didn't expect to be writing a post with this title as we thought that our arrival would just be one smooth ride, straight up to the north. But this is the story about our first 48 ish hours in this country.

After spending the night at Kuala Lumpur airport, nicely tucked in a corner on the hard, coldfloor, we arrived at Manila airport around lunch time. After passing the border control quiz, answering questions such as:
"Where are you going in the Philippines?" "With who?" "Is it your first time?" "Why did you choose to come here?"
We found a lady in the tourist information who wrote us a little note of the bus station we had to get to so we could catch a bus to Vigan in the north. We were told it was only 2-3km so off we went walking in mid day, 30 degrees and with about 15kg on our backs. We walked through the area of Pasay, one of the many poor areas of the city which has a mixture of slums with high rises in the background and large air con shopping malls. The buildings are all mixed and next to a fancy restaurant there might be shed like home.

We made it to the bus station just before 16 and the next bus to Vigan would leave at 16 and as long as the traffic was good arrive at midnight in Vigan. We paid 680P (120 SEK/€12). But on the bus we came to speak to a fellow passenger, his name was Doman, 32 years old and has spent the last two years working as a masseuse in Saudi Arabia. He told us that due to the traffic we wouldn't be in Vigan until 3am and instead he recommended to get off near him in, we believe it might have been San Juan but not entirely sure. He said his friend had a hotel that he could negotiate a good price for us. So off we went only to find that it was fully booked, apparently Obama is in town so everyone is fleeing Manila to avoid the craziness of the convention he is attending. Thanks a lot Obama! But he found us a different place, but as the room was meant to sleep 4 it came to 700P (180 SEK/€18) per person. It was approaching 1am so we just took it, was shown downstairs to the basement where the hallway smelled of pee. Were shown a room with two double mattresses on the floor (they were actually made of wood, ouch). A bathroom with cockroaches and a nasty smell. I sort of had the feeling that we were staying in one of those basement prisons where all those kidnap children lived. There was also a painting on the wall of a beach with a palm tree which freaked me out as in the shadows of the night I woke up thinking the palm tree looked like a rasta man. To say that we had a rough night sleep is an understatement.

The next morning we showered with cockroaches, it was so nasty I couldn't bear to wash my hair even, and went to the only wifi restaurant in town and research a new game plan to take us out of kidnap central as we renamed the place. We scrapped Vigan and decided to head back south to Baguio instead. We waved down the first bus that came by with a sign for Baguio and paid 140P (25 SEK/ €2.50). We were lucky to get seats behind a guy that sang along to every single 90's love song that came on, which was about 90% of the songs,but ununlucky in the sense that there was a bag of eaten corn of the cobs that stank up the place. Turns out I have a fear for eaten corn on the cob, who knew?

We drove through winding roads up the mountain to Baguio city. After arriving we were told that most of the hotels were fully booked, again, thanks Obama! But we found the buss station where the bus to Sagada would go from the next morning, found out that we should be there at 5am so decided to stay within walking distance. One problem though, the bus station was in a shady area and what we found can only be described as Hooker Hotel. But we found a room for 450P (90 SEK/€9) with literally only a bed, no windows, no sink, no chair, no electric plug to charge or phones, no nothing. We were given what can only be described as a kitchen towel style "blanket" and shown the very questionable shared bathroom.

We decided to locate the nearest mall with wifi so we could book a hotel for our next destination, after spending an hour on a dodgy wifi we finally gave up, purchased a sim card from a not so very helpful lady that Therese almost lost it at after calling her mam one time too many. But we manage to get a room booked in the end and decided to go to the cinema and watch the Mockingjay part 2, all to postpone our stay at Hooker Hotel for as long as possible and to use the toilet facilities in the mall so we wouldn't have to use the hotels. That was a good thing seeing that when we got back to the hotel we had to try three different toilets until we found one with running water so we could brush our teeth. Though the sink wasn't fully working seeing that the water leaked out on the floor and down the drain in the middle of the floor instead. Good thing we wore shoes!

We woke at 4.30am after an even worse night sleep at Hooker Hotel then in kidnap central. We arrived at the bus station only to find a massive queue of people already. The first bus arrived at 5am and started loading people on, we were 4 people away from making it. Instead they organised us in a new queue and left us. People were  arriving by the minute and we had no idea when the next bus was arriving, all we knew that there was no way we  were not getting on it. At this stage we were not to be messed with. A bus arrived at 5.30ish and the people at the back of the queue started running for it. Before I even managed to get out the "hell no" that I was thinking a man with a whistle went crazy on them and told them to stay and made sure that we, the people in the front got on first. Oh, how I have never been so happy to hear to the sound of a whistle at 5am in the morning before. They packed the bus to the max, the even had seats in the aisle!

We paid 220P (40 SEK/ €4) for the 6 hour journey that was not only going through the zig zag roads up in the mountains but was a bumpy one, on leather seats meaning you were sliding and bumping and basically just holding on for dear life. At the first rest stop we took the opportunity to sleep and somehow I managed to continue to do so on the road with my head flying all over the place, only waking up as I bumped my head on Therese's shoulder, then back to sleep, on to her shoulder and so it went until she thought my neck might break and she gave me her neck pillow, now that's true friendship. In all honesty if it wasn't for the arm rest I would have been on the floor within minutes!

As soon as we stepped off the bus and breathed the fresh air we felt relived and arriving at the homestay which we pay 900P (160 SEK/ €16) per room per night for and smell the cleaning products was simply heaven and I was able to wash my hair for the first time in 3 days! The smiles on our tired faces were of pure joy.

As traumatic as these first few days were we couldn't help but to stop and laugh at the situation we were in several times, laughing at the relief that at least we had each other! A few lessons has been learned though:
1. Don't visit a country at the same time as Obama! (Apparently several flights, international and domestic were cancelled because there is no where for people to go so we were lucky to even make it)
2. Don't plan your journey so you arrive in the middle of the night
3. Research the place you want to go and ensure you book in advance if it looks as it is filling up.

But for now,  we are happily tucked away up in Sagada in the north of the Philippines. Things are looking a bit brighter now.