Blogs from Manila, Philippines, Asia

You've just been robbed of all your money and credit cards, still six hours’ travel from the city you fly out from in three days, without the means to pay the bus fare, the outstanding hotel bill, or even the airport departure tax. This poses a problem at the best of times. Add to that the fact it just so happens to be freaking Thanksgiving in your bank’s country of residence, 8,000 miles away, and you’re in a spot of bother. So here's a spoiler: my third trip the Philippines ended almost as badly as it began. The bit in the middle wasn’t short on events either... In the beginning… Singapore’s urban transport system is clean and efficient, as you would expect, so we sought to exploit this by cutting our arrival at the airport very ... read more

I've joked about it before but I really do love chilling in airports. I don't know why but I love to just people watch and roam around, curl up in a ball and fall asleep w somewhere and wake up the hustle of bustle maneuvering around you. Eating creepy food you pay to much for and always o. A quest to find and outlet or bathroom or cheaper crappier food. It's probably sounds sarcastic but its not. I really do enjoy me a good night in an airport. That is exactly what I'm doing. I've been in the Manila International Airport, Terminal 1 since 3 am. It is currently 1:40pm and my flight leaves at 3:05 pm. you see I took a bus in from Sagada which arrived in Manila at 3 am. I refuse to ... read more

The trip to Manila was a classic, lots of motorbikes , ferries , buses , stress confusion, rows nearly tears , planes and taxis. I Finally landed in Manila , hotel booked and went to grab a cab. The couple I was going to meet were really nice , Arthie and his wife Sheila I had met them at Subic Bay whilst diving and we met most eveings and drunk and ate a lot together, both worked for a call center dealing with complaints from loans for a company inthe USA , so these were the people working for the departments that outsourse thier work to Asia , that is so wrong but good for the Asian people and they openly admit not to understanding most of the conversations on the phone ! They kept warning ... read more

Just some pics i thought were interesting - apologies if there's some repeats in here... read more

So it's Sunday morning and pretty much everything in the city is shut (except for the bars of course), so we head back to the airport to the Philippine Airlines (PAL) office to re-ticket. The guy behind the counter seems pleasant enough and asks how my day is (it's JUST after 9:00am). I tell him and explain why and he says "Well let's see if we can do anything to change that for you." It's at THIS point that the pleasantries cease and the sniveling little sycophant does absolutely nothing except stick to the rule book showing NO willingness whatsoever to budge one iota. His first solution was going to cost an additional AUD2,500 in air fares and airline penalties alone. it was until Squish started questioning and negotiating in Tagalog that we found there were ... read more