Philippines Travel Log 1

I’m alive.  It has been a while since I checked in, but I have survived the arduous 27 hour journey from Jackson, MS., to Manila, Philippines.

As is always a wise maneuver, I shall start at the beginning. 

I boarded the plane in Jackson on my way to Detroit with great excitement because my trip was officially underway.  The pilot quickly informed us that Detroit was having heavy “mist” so we would not be able to land until it cleared.  We were asked to get back off the plane, but were repeatedly asked to “stay near the gate for a swift departure.” We did.

After only fifteen minutes of cursing Detroit for screwing my travel agenda again (I have always had horrible luck flying through Detroit) we were asked to re-board.  They then spent the next thirty minutes trying to find the pilots.  They did not appear to heed their own advice.

Luckily, I already had a four hour lay over in Detroit.  I was the only person on the plane not fretting over a missed connection.  I eased back into my seat with my Ipod and prepared for an enjoyable afternoon of watching people have melt downs at the airport while trying to reschedule their flights.  I enjoy other people’s turmoil.

My favorite episode, while sitting at an airport bar across from the airline help desk:
A man was screaming about how he needed to get his “very sick child” home for much needed medical treatment.  Meanwhile, right behind him his child was running in circles screaming, “Daddy, I want ice cream!”

The plane ride from Detroit to Nagoya, Japan was a fifteen hour testament to my endurance.  I had awesome seats: exit row on the bulk head.  I could prop my feet up.  I was in the middle row with four seats.  Next to me was a mother and her two daughters, aged nine and twelve.  The entire plane ride they would wait until I was asleep and wake me up to move my legs so they could get out into the aisle.  Despite the fact that they had an aisle, all their own, on the other side. 

I wanted to kill them all. To make matters worse, the twelve year old was an amateur boxer in her sleep.  She slugged me several times each hour.  I couldn’t get too upset, however, since I can relate to that sort of behavior. 

I landed in Nagoya, had an uneventful hop to Manila, and then spent two hours in line to get through immigration. 

Unfortunately for Chad, who had arrived earlier in the day, he had to spend three hours standing outside with a very chatty cab driver.  The cabby loved to talk about the NBA and was depressed to realize American Chad did not know very much about American basketball. 

The cabby took us to our guest house, we gave him roughly ten dollars for his four hours of work and then did what any traveler worth his salt would do after only two hours of sleep in 28 hours.  We went to get some beer.

We walked around our surrounding blocks checking out the bars.  Every one had loud live music--not what we were presently looking for.  We finally found a dive bar that was relatively quiet and entered to have a “few” beers.

After about four beers each we decided we should check out a more happening locale.  We chose a loud, hopping joint across from our hotel called, “the Bedrock.”

Yes, all the waitress were wearing cave man skirts.  The band was really good.  Musically they didn’t miss a beat and one of the singers did a great version of DMX’s “Ya’ll gonna make me lose my mind.”

Finally at about three am we stumbled across the street, crashed into bed and slept soundly. 

Already drunk. Already in love with the local ladies. And we haven’t even been here for twelve hours yet.

•   Comments(7)    Posted by killer on 08/12 at 08:46 PM
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