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Waiting for the bus to come!
A three hour wait on a dusty street corner but it did come eventually. We left the island of Pandan at 1pm, Dominique, the owner of the island assured us we would have no problem getting a bus back to San Jose for our flight, there was one every hour and Holy week was over so there would be loads of empty seats..
When we got to the bus station, however at 1.20pm expecting to get the 2pm bus we were told that the next bus was 3pm. We jumped back on the tricycle and asked him to take us to the other bus station. Once there the news was the same- next bus 3pm! How stupid to have two buses going at the same time. We had no option but to sit it out, the sun was beating down hard and there was barely any shade.
3pm came and went – no bus. A local man had arrived who was also waiting for the 3pm bus so we felt a bit more confident that it would turn up eventually.
It did, at 4.20pm meaning we’d been hanging around on a dusty hot street corner for 3 hours. When we got on the bus it was practically full but fortunately we managed to get seats rather than the plastic stools they’d put in the aisle. Stan was sat next to an elderly local man. They soon got chatting and it turned out that he was the ex Lord Mayor of San Jose, he was currently working as a lawyer and also owned a cattle farm where he worked as a labourer in his spare time. He was 79 years old!!
As we got close to San Jose he sent a text to his grandson and said that he would be there to meet us at the bus station and take us to our hotel. We were really grateful for this as it was getting dark and despite it being Sunday evening the traffic was manic, lines and lines of tricycles. Instead we travelled in an air conditioned car. A rare luxury in these parts. The man and his grandson insisted on waiting while we checked there was a room available then they stopped and drank beer with us. It turned outone of his daughters lived in California, it’s a small world.
Next day we flew to Manila and spent the night in Angeles, a small town near the low cost airport 70 km north of Manila. At first we thought there was absolutely nothing there but then came across a ‘Walking Street’ similar to the one in Pattaya in Thailand. Bars made to look like famous landmarks such as Angkor Wat in Cambodia and The Spynx in Egypt. All with girls hanging about outside trying to entice middle age (or older) European men in. We ate a meal then soon got out back to our hotel. Strange, but all the hotels here rented the rooms out by the hour rather than the night! Hmm I wonder why!
Early next day we left the Philippines and flew back to Malaysia, spent five hours hanging around the airport before a connecting flight to the East coast. Tomorrow we go to another island. After three days of travel we’re ready for some more laid back island time.
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