The blah (and argh) days of travel

Spent the saturday that I arrived in cebu walking around looking for a place to stay, then walking everywhere, enquiring everywhere into finding a ferry that left on sunday so I could get to manila to catch my plane that left on the 7th (ferries to manila from cebu take 24 hours). Know one really knew. Apparently though ferries went everyday, sometimes twice a day, except Sunday. There used to be another company than did sundays, but it had a boat sink in a typhoon so it was shut down. It was a frustrating day b/c I went from place to place, large mall to large mall looking for travel agents, etc that knew. Everyone in Malpascua had said there would be a ferry everyday to manila from cebu and I believed them b/c they're too huge cities and my lonely planet book said ferries were daily. They had also given me a paper that listed a ship leaving everyday, but it was only later that I realized the paper was dated october 2008! I had gotten a paper in malapascua that did list one ship leaving sunday at 5am but it said in parentheses cargos only. I figured that shouldn't be a problem and they'd let me on. They're always willing to take money. Plus I was excited for it b/c it's always kind of a romantical dream of mine to do that kind of travelling...stow away more or less on a cargo ship, jump on an empty box car and see where the train takes me, hop in the back of a semi truck.
So I left my overpriced hotel at 3:00 am after getting in after midnight to make sure I was there the typically required hour early. The security guard wouldn't let me through b/c he said there was no ship going that day. I tried to show him the paper, but he said there was no ship. I knew he didn't really know. Then a guy drove up in a nice suv. He knew good english, and turns out he's the grandson on the people that own that shipping line. He took me inside the shipping yard and I told him my dilemma about making it to manila on time and not wanting to pay for an airplane. He said he'd ask his boss (this I didn't understand unless he was asking his grandfather) and let me know. His boss came in at 8am and the ship actually left at 1pm, so I just slept on a tilted bench in the shipping yard to all the noise of the yard and swatting mosquitos. Well, his boss said no as it was against coast guard policy (like they would even check!). I thought about trying to bribe him as bribing (especially of police officers, gov't officials is commonplace as they say that officials in the philippines can be as crooked as their coastline), but decided against it as he was obviously well off and the 700 pesos that it typically cost wouldn't mean much to him. If it had been the captain or a crew member or something I would have tried b/c they would have just been able to happily pocket that, and also b/c he was such a nice guy I would just feel bad doing that. He ended up calling airlines for me and helping me book a flight though and then driving me to the SM mall where I could pay for the ticket (had to wait over 2 hours just to pay for the ticket.) I spent entirely too much times in the humungo malls of cebu as it seems like everything was there...airline tickets, ferry tickets, food, info, etc. The mall was quite crazy as they have the biggest malls in the philippines and filipinos really know how to do malls. I think they like to cool off there. As it was the week leading up to holy week, they had huge sales and the mall was absolutely packed.

As my watch had broke and my sandals had broke, I spent a fair amount of the afternoon walking along the vendors in downtown (nasty, crowded, dirty, and polluted...in my opinion the 2nd worst cityin the philippines...though the "uptown" and "newtown" areas are quite nice) looking for a watch and sandals (the mall is much too expensive) and also a shoe repairman for my keens which were also falling apart.

It was palm sunday so everyone and their sister was walking around holding elaborately designed crosses made out of palms. The only highlight of my two wasted days in cebu city was going to palm sunday service at the Santo Nino Basilica. It was held outdoors in a huge plaza (think St. Peters Basilica in Rome, except not as big) with the bishop (I assume) in the front on a huge alter. There were several thousand people in attendance. A few chairs set up in the shade but mostly just people standing up in the hot sun, waving their palms. The best part was after the mass when the bishop took out the holy water to bless all the palm crosses. The people came running up, surrounding him, yelling, waving their crosses. It was quite the spectacle. But definitely cool to experience palm sunday in such a Catholic country. I hear holy week is something else there, but unfortunately I'm missing it. Flew that night from cebu and arrived into Manila around 10pm.
Didn't want to deal with the hassle of public transport (or even a cab) and finding a cheap hotel at that time of night and not wanting to spend money on accomadation at all considering the airplane ticket cost, so I just slept on a bench outside the airport. Unfortunately it's one of those airports (it was a side airport used by PAL only and not the big manila ninoy aquino intl airport) where you need to show a ticket to go inside and the baggage claim was not attached to the airport, so I didn't get to sleep on a bench in the airconditioning, but outside with all the smoking employees.
That morning I met up with Frank, a nice filipino guy from Batangas (who studies business masters in manila) I had met on the bus from manila to batangas earlier. We did a few errands in manila like picking up a book the stringbean had left for me and trying to mail a package (no such luck as it was a national holiday). We then took the bus for a couple hours up to Dau (near clark airforce base) where my plane would fly out of. Much cheaper to fly out of clark than manila. Clark was US AFB until 1991 when it was handed over to the philippines. We toured around a bit, and I actually kind of liked it. It was such a contrast to the insanely crowded and busy filipino cities, including Dau, I had just been in. You could tell it was designed by Americans: huge boulevards with large trees providing shade. Lots of open space around, grassy fields, a small football stadium, several parks, a golf course.
That night, my last night in the philipines, I had a very filipino night. Took a jeepneys to the big SM mall (not another mall) to eat the main meal, then had some nice fried 100% cholesterol food at some street stalls. Went to a videoke bar to sing my heart out, and of course ended my philippine karaoke career with an abba song. After that we went back to the mall to watch a flick: knowing with nicholas cage.
It was great having Frank along. Always nice to have company, especially someone that knows the area and he is a fun guy. Plus very, very generous. Treated me to several things and went out of his way to accompany me to clark where he used to work.

Flew out of clark today to bangkok. A funny little airport. Only 6 flights daily (to china, singapore, malaysia, hongkong, cebu, and bangkok and the rest used for the airforce. Took the bus into banglamphu, the budget area in bangkok and as soon as I got off the bus it starte to pour cats and dogs and lightning everywhere. Intense lightning...every second another flash, and for a while right over my head lasting for close to an hour. instantaneous flash and crack. I'd never been in a lightning storm in a city like that before and I didn't really know where to hide, I just hoped the lightning would strike one of the temples. I was just hiding under a little archway. It was probably one of the top 10 scariest lighting storms I've been in which says a lot considerings I've spent considerable time for my job and fun above tree-line in the rockies (where I've had the terrible privelage of smelling the ozone)...and played t-ball and peewees for greg farmer at the 1pm stanley field games. I'm very glad I know bangkok very well b/c the little arch I was in didn't shelter me much and I was getting soaked, and I didn't feel it was that safe, so I just grabbed my umbrella (ella, ella, ella, ella...that's for you lucas and that overplayed song in the philippines) and ran to where I knew there were guesthouses. The streets were flooded, so I took off my shoes and was running through shin deep water. Luckily the guesthouse I wanted and had stayed at before had rooms left.

I'm definitely going to miss the philippines, especially the ease of travel they provide. It was nice traveling in a place with the roman alphabet and a place where almost everyone knows english. Also, the filipinos as a whole are very happy, very nice, very friendly, and very helpful people. The thais in my opinion aren't near as friendly and try and scam you more, so you have to be on your toes more. But it was nice to have some spicy food for dinner tonight.

Have some stuff to do in bangkok tomorrow, but hopefully I can catch a night bus to the south tomorrow.