Something out of the "Amazing Race" - we would have won!

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Our flights from Chiang Mai was to leave at 9 PM which would give us ample time to catch out 1:00 AM flight from Bangkok to Manila. We got to the airport and were informed by Air Asia that our flight was late by an hour. As we waited, we had two more delays and didn't board the plance till 11:00 PM. We were all thinking there is no way we can make this connection and would hope to get on the next flight tomorrow (although we would miss the wedding). I pleaded with the ticket counter lady saying Mike was in the wedding and that we HAD to make the connection. She said sorry ma'am I do not think you will make it. So grumpy and frustrated we got on our plane. We arrived in the airport at 12:50 and were told to go with one of the stewardess and they had seperated our bags. We got in some van and were booting it across the airport. We got droppped off with some guy from Air Asia and were lead on a fast paced chase (in flip flops) to the Cebu Pacific ticket counter. We could make the flight if we could run like Ben Johnson to our gate but our bags would come the next day. Unfortuantly they next day we had to catch another flight and a ferry to get to Bohol so that wasn't going to work but we would take whatever we could get. We went for it. I swear we ran from one end of the terminal to the other (felt like a half hour) and the plane was waiting for us. We hopped on for our 3 hour flight and didn't sleep a wink. We arrived in Manila and noticed that our bags are on the carousal - WOOHOOO we couldn't beleive it. What luck. We did miss our next connection to Cebu but was only $50 a piece to rebook the next flight.

Things are so different from Thailand:
1) Way more colorful
2) People DO wear helmets when driving scooters (in Manila and Cebu at least)
3) There is a donut/cake/pie shop on every corner - this also leads to more "big boned" people - although many still slim
4) They call the women "sir" sometimes - maybe Danielle and I have been hanging out with too many lady boys? Do I have an adam's apple?
5) You CAN fit 6 adults on one scooter.
6) A 26 of good rum costs $1.50
7) Manila definitley had a different vibe - tense

We finally got into Bohol to attend Mike's cousin's wedding - well Ryan and I crashed it. We had a great supper and then had a dance group brought in. They were total professionals and were amazing. Never seen anything like that. We stayed out till 10 drinking rums and head to our place as we had not yet slept in the past 24 hours. Oor new home - the Bee Farm, is an organic farm for vegetables and honey. The place seemed pretty cool at first until we noticed cockroaches in our room and Danielle had something shat on her from the ceiling in the middle of the night. EWWW.

The next day was the wedding, we head over to the resort everyone was staying at (yes we had major room envy) and went down to the beach to watch the ceremony. We relaxed by the pool until supper and went back to the beach for the reception which was beautifully set under huge trees and there was a live band. Oh also there was a lip synching /stripping tranny singing songs from the sound of music to "supermodel" - shante shante shante. She only got down to her bustier - we weren't sure if she was going to show us her buttons (as we had heard of another show a couple days before that were Mike's grandma got a lapdance and saw her "buttons". We danced late into the evening and the next day was spent recuperating, going to a philipino BBQ on the Alona beach, and saying good bye to everyone.... Congratulations Kelly (Mike's cousin) and Malvina. Thanks to you and your families for being so welcoming.

While you might think our amazing race tale was over, we had hear through the grapvine that the ferries leaving the next day were sold out as new years day there were no ferries due to the holiday. We had to get back to Cebu to catch our flight to Boracay. We arrived early in the morning (first to the airport as the driver was confused and then to Ferry terminal. We were pretty confident we would get tickets as there were two leaving around 7 AM. As we walked up we noticed almost all the ferries for the day were sold out. ACK! We got a standby ticket number, #17 and as we watched the tickets beiong sold from the back we could see fewer and fewer seats. We were also surrounded by a ton of people also trying to get on the ferry (like 60 or so) all vying for seats. It was tense, but luckily as we were at least a foot taller than everyone Danielle heard our number and pushed her way throught the crowd. You go girl! This was at 7:10 when the ferry was to leave at 7:15. We made it - again. Cannot beleive it. We would totally win the amazing race. Seriously.

We are now in Boracay - Ed and Francois - you guys are right it is paradise here. Having a drink for you.

Will blog again soon. Hope to load pics tomorrow as the connection here is WAY to slow.

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Comments

[Francoism]

Beware of the bats
Ed gave me the scare of my life in Boracay, careful: the bats are gigantic. Enjoy the beach and the drinks.

[Chad]

Fun
Sounds like all of you are having fun!

[ncolsmith]

Being called Sir
I have been living here for 6 months (am Canadian) and I have gotten so used to be called sir or referred to as a he that I don't even notice anymore. The trick is that in Tagalog there are no he/she or sir/ma'am distinctions. They only have one word used to refer to both sexes. So differentiating in speech is not intuitive for Filipinos. It is like an English speaker trying to use the masculine and feminine in French - at home we butcher it all the time accidentally. So I certainly hope you didn't take offense. I am actually a very tall, broad women here - 5'7 with shoulders bigger then almost every Filipino man I know, and I get asked from time to time if I am a man or a women. Being so much bigger then a Filipina some people assume I am a tranvestite... seriously. *laugh* So you definitely didn't get the worst of it.