Getting everything squared away at home was a major task. I haven’t been that stressed in a long time but I knew that the moment I got on the airplane all of that would disappear. Whether I got everything done or not, it wouldn’t matter any more. Fern’s dad watched as we went through security at the airport and it was simultaneously very emotional, sad, exciting, a little bit scary, and a huge relief.
We were going on a pitifully small amount of sleep but it would be quite a journey before we could really rest. 24 hours later, after three flights and two lengthy layovers, we landed in Manila, Philippines, around midnight local time. So that we wouldn’t be navigating a huge chaotic city in the middle of the night, we wrapped the straps of our bags around our limbs and slept on the floor of the Manila airport till morning. When it started to get light out we got up and set out to find the place we had booked through AirBnB, following directions that we got from a friendly local at the airport. It took us roughly 8 hours, two jeepney rides (jeepneys are a very peculiar form of cheap Filipino transport), a bus ride, and walking about 5 miles altogether with our packs. When we finally found the place we were thoroughly exhausted, so exhausted that Fern didn’t even notice the hundreds of ants crawling all over her when she collapsed on the bed.
Manila was pretty intense, beautiful in its own way, but we needed to get out of town and relax. The next day we got a motorized tricycle to the bus station, spent a couple hours on the bus, got on a ferry to the island of Mindoro, got into a small shuttle van, and walked around looking for a place to stay in the small charming town of Talipanan. Notice a pattern? As far as I can tell the entire economy of the Philippines is based on shuffling people around on various forms of transport.
It was all worth it. We found a wonderful little quiet place on the beach and stayed there for almost a week. Warm friendly people, sunshine, beautiful scenery. It was our first tropical paradise.
jim@snorkelbandits.com