Walking around Manila
Puerto Princesa, the Philippines: They say it’s about the journey, not the destination. I say bullshit.
Get up at 4 AM. Taxi at 5 AM. Wait for the check-in counter to open at the airport, then wait hours for the gate to be listed on the boards. Get an entire row on the plane for yourself, until an old Philippino guy decides to steal one of the seats and stare at you the whole time while you’re sleeping, with open mouth and all. Land, go through immigration and get the luggage, then go through the stressful find-a-taxi task, arrive at hostel, Our Melting Pot. Then, I sit here, waiting for Sophie.
This Sophie I met through TravelBuddy. She’s actually the reason I’m travelling to the Philippines in the first place. I was going to go wherever the wind – or cool people – would take me. That was Sophie. She’s from England, and we seem to agree on a lot of things travel-wise. She arrives a few hours later than me, so I get a shower and slather aloe vera all over me – this time, the sunburn is on my front. She walks in, we talk and then we walk out to do some exploring.
We get lost. We don’t know what to do or where to go. We search for a good restaurant, a bar, anything, and end up empty handed. Eventually, we go to bed early – 9-ish.
The next day, we sign up for the hostel’s free walking tour. Our guide, Boodie (pronounced Booty) is awesome and has a perfect American accent, despite being born and raised here. We are supposed to walk around for 5-6 hours, but end up spending 8+ hours. We aren’t too interested in the things we see – Intramuros, Rizal park, National Museum, Fort Santiago and Mall of Asia – but we are very interested in the Danish flags that are everywhere in this city – apparently to welcome a Sovereign from Malta. Massive fail, Manila.
We get back and go out with Caroline and Bryan from the tour. We start with beers with other hostel guests at the night market across the street. Then we go to a hotel sky bar and I have a Long Island Ice Tea with sprite instead of coke, and we bond with aussies and british as we tell people we met on Tinder. Then we head back to the hostel to pack and get some sleep – our flight leaves very early next morning.