Manila - Nov. 25, 2010

November 25, 2011

This morning we were picked up very early to head out for our flight to Manila. Originally I had planned to fly to Puerto Princesa (to be known as PP from now on) all in one day, and skip Manila, but Philippine Airlines had a different plan for me and rescheduled my flight to PP for tomorrow.

The flight to Manila was extremely bumpy! Not sure what was up with that, but the seat belt sign was on for pretty much the entire flight. Despite this, the pilot made a nice soft landing and we were all in one piece 😌

I had instructions from Philippine Airlines to go to the transfer desk to pick up my free hotel and transport vouchers. Sounds easy right? Ha, ha, ha, ha. Should have been easy… but I was missing one crucial piece of information… the location of this "invisible to the first-timer" transfer desk!

So we stood in lines at customs, stood in line to wait for our bags, stood in line to go out with our bags, stood in line to have them check that our luggage tags match our bags and finally made it outside.

The transfer desk was nowhere to be found. Everyone that worked at the airport wanted to help us. They were all very, very nice and extremely kind. It seems that our request must have been unusual though because everyone sent us somewhere different. Go upstairs, go downstairs, go to the hotel lounge, go see that guy, go over there… and then finally one lady knew where we were supposed to go.

** Important information if this ever happens to you… the transfer desk is right when you come in the door BEFORE you go through customs.** (It's over to the right, in the corner.)

So we had to go back past all the lines we already passed and rescan our luggage.

The transfer desk was very helpful and got us all set up with our hotel voucher, transport voucher, and arranged for us to be picked up at 6 AM for our flight to PP tomorrow.

After this we just walked right back the way we came and through customs skipping right past the lines(twice). We told them we’d already been through and they said okay. When the guy asked for our luggage tags we told him we’d already been out once and he said okay too. To me this seems like a small glitch in the security system… but what do I know ?!? 

Our taxi driver brought us straight to our hotel (where I wouldn’t pay to stay, but am willing to stay for one night because it’s free). There is a GIANT mall across the street. Steve thinks that perhaps it is the most GIANT mall he has ever seen!

The Philippines seems much more developed and westernized than Vietnam… at least in Manila. We’ll see if this holds true once we get more off the beaten path.