Parts Unknown.....BKK to MNL......and Vanilla in Manila ..........

THIS is IT.  I’m leaving Indochina.   And it makes me SAD. 

Because even over HERE I get tiny glimpses of what it is I’m going back to.   My favourite YouTube video no longer plays because some Big Holding Company somewhere bought 10 more companies, one of them owns the copyright to the music used in that utterly insignificant little HOMEMADE video.   Shareholder value, get it?

Freedom?

WHAT freedom? 

Face it,  it’s ALL about the mighty Buck over THERE. 

I don’t belong THERE anymore.  Worse. I fit in EVEN LESS than before this trip. 

Maybe that is why I don’t leave Indochina anymore without having booked TWO future trips back here, LOL.

Without that ‘insurance’, without that mental peace, it would be UNBEARABLE to leave here.

Zu and I will be staying at Thanabhumi in early January.  Booking.com will NOT get its 15% ‘commission’ (more like Highway Robbery) from that stay, so that 100% of our traveler’s bucks will go to the local owner.  In return, we get to save more of your traveler’s bucks by paying for one room instead of two rooms, because he will put an extra mattress into a single room (There are NO twin rooms in this establishment).

What am I bringing back from my trip for friends and family? 

Fancy clothes?  Souvenirs? Nick-nacks? Fridge magnets or snow globes?

Nope.  Seashells I collected myself.

I didn’t even buy more than 1 shirt for myself on this trip.  And the reason for that purchase was that 2 items of clothing had completed their useful days and needed to get tossed.

I was surprised myself when I noticed the beginning of this change in behaviour in Ha Noi last November.  

At the end of this trip, I’m no longer surprised.

STUFF doesn’t make me happy.   I doubt that it truly makes ANYONE happy, LOL. 

A genuine smile from a real person does a much better job of getting me through the day with a smug grin.

To quote Anthony Bourdain:

I’m back. 

Back in Vietnam.

Shit-eating grin for the duration.

A giddy, silly, foolish man, beyond caring. 

Now THAT is true FREEDOM!

And I've tasted it too often.

But that is over for me today (or tomorrow; I don't know what it's like where I'm going today)

After having an hour long nap, I vacate my room at 11:30. The place is booked solid tonight, so I want to give the cleaning staff a head-start.    I fall asleep on a couch in the common area and sleep until 13:00.  

When I wake up next to the left-behind-books library shelf, I detect a treasure: Railsea by China Mieville in German. One of my favourite authors. I re-read The City & the City whenever I can. I fan the pages and conclude it hasn't even been read yet.  Ts Ts.  I have that book in English. I haven't read it yet.  And it's somewhere in the depths of my storage locker. 
 But here it is again!  I guess I'll read it in German, LOL.

Now here is a Google Map picture.  Can you spot what is WRONG with it?

I only realized at 7 pm last night that I had pre-ordered a taxi to the WRONG airport.  Bangkok has 2 airports and while I've seen one 3 times, today's flight actually leaves from the other one.  HOW did I notice?   I was preparing the graphic above on Google Maps and the little flight time indicator says "11 Hours".  THAT can NOT be an 11 hour flight!!!!  It made me re-re-check my flight information.  If THAT hadn't happened I probably would have taken the taxi to the WRONG airport today.

Thank You, Google Maps!

Here is the map for the CORRECT airport:

The taxi to Suvarnabhumi Airport takes 40 minutes and costs me 400 Baht.  When I come back in January, I will make sure to take the Rapid-Transit train from this airport into town.  Always good to subject oneself to a little 'hardship' to liberate some funds to go to certain charities.

Suvarnabhumi is a very pretty airport.  Canvas-like material stretched over tubular metal structures, kind of like a giant spider.

Rolex store. Tudor store, Omega store.  If it’s expensive, it’s here.  I feel sorry for people trapped in that endless cycle of consumerism.

I eat a more-than-half-way decent Seafood Basket (Fish & Chips with prawns & squid added) at Mango Tree in the airport. 

TripAdvisor is still pissing me of by not publishing a critical review, so I'm only submitting Disney reviews now.  Pretty, Fabulous, 5 stars, Super, are the words accompanying my 5/5 reviews of mediocre places.   

Who needs whom more?  I TripAdvisor or TripAdvisor me?

And it works.  They publish the critical review after leaving it in Pending Limbo for FOUR DAYS ;-)

In the smoking lounge (Yes, Bangkok has those ;-) 2 Aussies bum cigarettes.  In the secure area of the airport you can only buy cartons of cigarettes.   NOT only does one pack of cigarettes now cost MORE than AU$20 (i.e. more than 20 CAD$), no the Big Nanny In the Aussie Parliament went even further. They are only to import ONE PACK of cigarettes duty free.   LOL.  That is the direction that the Big Nanny in Ottawa is steering Canada, but at least I can still bring back a carton.    Oh, do I hear  Non-Smokers laugh?   Do you REALLY think it’s only cigarettes?   Try buying CHEESE in Canada on a regular income, LOL. 

But I know one thing.  That is the end of my tentative plan to visit Australia in October.  LOL.  For less than two packs of Australian cigarettes (or two pounds of Canadian cheese, LOL) I can fly from Bangkok to Hanoi!  Bunch of nutters !

I installed an Android emulator on my laptop to be able to run the Android MyPal Video player to be able to make use of the amazing selection of videos available on Philippine Airlines.  But NO, it doesn’t run. There is just NO way to play those movies on a laptop.  SILLY!  Must remember to install the player on my phone before boarding tomorrow’s LONG flight.

But at least I can listen to music through my browser (Moby Play !!) and watch the flight info and progress on a very nice world map system.  Ah, movies are overrated anyway.  But they do have a GOOD selection ;-(

They have an entire Flume album?  LOL.  You can’t find Bach on the system but they have Flume.  I think I’m going to like The Philippines if they are as quirky as this music selection.

Food service on Philippine Airlines is very decent.   Fish with fried rice, a German style roll, and an unknown dessert.  Free wine refills.   Chapeau !

When the plane is about to land in Manila, I get a view of the city out of the window.  What does it look like?  

 Like the opening scene of Blade Runner.  Towers and Towers and winding highways full of cars meandering through those towers

A word of warning for first time Manila-bound travelers: There is NO bank machine at the airport. No seriously, LOL.  But there is ONE foreign exchange booth.  Good thing I still have some Baht I can exchange for Philippine Pesos so that I can pay for my taxi ;-)

I find a taxi and direct him to drive to my 3 km-distant hotel.  The cabby tries to get me interested in the bars, where according to him this is JUST the time when the 'ladies' take their clothes off.  
You can probably tell by the following pictures that I'm more interested in the fully clothed wildlife walking the streets

 It's 11 pm and traffic is crazy ;-)

My hotel is in a large flat area where the land was reclaimed from the sea in the times of Ferdinand Marcos.
It consists mainly of big new hotels, construction, and three Casinos.  Gamblers of the world (predominantly from China) can just fly in, and don't have to go far from the airport to gamble.

My first impression of The Philippines?   Mixed!   The people are smiling brightly, but at least the infrastructure I've seen so far makes me want to leave.

No bank machine at the airport.  No hot water kettle in the room.  Not even a glass to make coffee in.  I bought a cup of noodle soup so I would have a container to make cold coffee in.

But why are Kirin and Heineken Beer CHEAPER than the local San Miguel?  No make sense !  I've had San Miguel beer in Spain before, so I buy the cheaper Kirin (and realize that I can make instant coffee in the empty beer bottle !)

Midnight?  Time to pass out.

6:00

HuH?  Where am I?

?

OH RIGHT.  I'm in the friggin Philippines !!!    

MUST get out of bed and actually look at them, LOL.

More hotels, more casinos that way

Manila !

NEED RULES. NO smoking on the left, SMOKING on the right

When will they finally publish health warnings for cars?

8:00
I LIKE The Philippines, I have decided, LOL.

Breakfast for 200 php is YUMMY. 

My plane doesn't leave until 8 pm tonight, so I had been thinking of spending the extra CAD$ 40 to book my room an extra night and to leave it at 5 pm.  

But when I ask at reception, they tell me that you can buy late check-out until 6 pm for 500 php.   
That's CAD$ 13.   NICE !

Back from the hallway of the 10th floor of the hotel:  There IT is. Manila. I NEED to go there !

HOT 

I've also discovered that I'm only 1.4 km walk from the station of the LRT, which takes 36 minutes to deliver me to Intramuros in the vicinity of Fort Santiago AND Manila Cathedral.  Now THIS is a cool lay-over.  I'm going to actually see some of Manila before boarding my plane tonight. 


This is EXCITING !



Charge the phone, charge the camera ....

WHAT in the world is THIS ???  (They're called JEEPNEYs)

I have a seat on the LTR heading into central Manila and I’m looking at the GPS map on my phone.  Not because I don’t know where I am but because the young cutie standing in front of me keeps rubbing his crotch.  MUST look somewhere else, LOL

But then I see familiar names.  Manila Cathedral.  Fort Santiago. Intramuros.  I feel like I know those places. I’ve read these names in books.  Books about far-away exotic places that I would never ever see.  Then THAT feeling HITS.  I’m 5 minutes away form those places.  My eyes are wet all of a sudden, and it’s NOT from the sweat that constantly runs down my forehead despite sitting in an ‘air-conditioned’ car.   How does that song go again?:  

See things you thought you’d never ever see. 

Live life the way you think it ought to be.

These are the things, these are the things,

The things that dreams are made of.

I've been staring at my GPS and I still miss my stop. Ah Well.

General Douglas MacArthur, Liberator of the Philippines 

did I mention that it's HOT

Hey, there is a WALL there.  

And whatever is INSIDE that WALL must be INTRAMUROS, LOL.

It’s HOT.  HOOOOOTTTTT.

There are NO restaurants anywhere.  Actually, there are NO TOURISTS in Fort Santiago.  I didn’t see A SINGLE ONE in Manila Cathedral either.  WTF?

Philippines residents don’t go to restaurants?  I don’t see ANYTHING except those Jollibees. NOT my thing.    Did I mention that it’s HOT?   I’m DRENCHED in sweat.  My right foot hurts.  I have to pee.   Isn't there a hotel ANYWHERE?

What is that I see?


Ramada?

I’ve never been so happy to see those words before

They have a Café inside

OK, let's look at the menu: what are the bare necessities here?

Chocolate cake?

Check

Fresh Calamansi Juice?  

 

check ! 

OMG, the canned stuff is to die for, I NEED to try the fresh one, LOL.  Please note the umbrella !

Wine?

The fruitiest waiter I have EVER encountered (LMAO) can't operate the automatic wine dispenser, so I'm not getting wine.  But I'm getting an UMBRELLA drink, LOL.

There are firetrucks EVERYWHERE.   I guess the idea is that no fire engine would get through the mad traffic to where it is needed in time, so they just park them at every other corner ready to go.

Try driving a fire truck through THIS

Jeepneys......they are everywhere..... I must take one next time ;-)

12:15
Back at the hotel, they can't give me ice.  The Sauv Blanc is warm.  The can of Calamansi juice is cold.   ???   Are you thinking what I'm thinking?    
OMG, I've invented a new cocktail   THAT is a divine mixture !

I've been gone for more than 3 hours.  And I could keep going and going if I had the time.  Somewhere on the LRT with my mouth and eyes wide open, I all of a sudden realized:  I will fly out of here TODAY !  Unbelievable.  I could explore this city for days or weeks.  This is another Hong Kong. Without The Peak but at a fraction of the price !


WOW.  Is it the Calamansi juice? Couldn't be the wine, LOL!

16:15
I REALLY do NOT want to LEAVE here !!!  Gulag is awaiting me !

I’m in the elevator on my way down to reception.  A young ‘woman’ with her whole parents-and-aunts family is also in the elevator and loudly and shamelessly tells me that I should come back to The Philippines to enjoy myself more.   She keeps going with this and is so funny I have to play the game too.  I’m not sure whether ‘she’ is well aware that I have noticed the slight shadow around her chin and the just a tad too masculine jaw line.  PLUS, which is really the give-away:  I’ve never met a women who hits on a man LIKE THAT, in particular with her giggling aunts behind her in the elevator.

The taxi driver isn’t really a taxi driver but is a local guy working for the hotel.  The ride is supposed to cost me PHP 112.   That’s just over US$ 2 for a 20 minute drive.  Plus the driver is both entertaining AND informative. 

Given that the nannies, maids, and hotel housekeeping staff worldwide seems to consist of Philippinos, Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport is TINY.   

There are NO line-ups at immigration or security.  Security confiscates the cigarette lighter in my pants pocket but of course lets the one in my backpack pass.  Yawn!

There are NO restaurants in the outside area nor the secure area of the airport.  It’s THAT small !  I skipped lunch today and it is 6 pm, so I’m getting hungry.  I manage to secure a sausage croissant at a stand.

The whole line-up-and-get-scrutinized game that I’m so overly used to from Vancouver starts at the gate.  The plane won’t start boarding for another whole HOUR and there the cattle is already lined up to have their documents checked AGAIN.   OH, I do NOT want to go back to cattle country!

Then there is a P/A announcement.  The airline is making an offer to those volunteering to take the NEXT available flight to Vancouver.  I can’t understand WHAT the offer is but I’m hoping that someone will take it so there won’t be another United moment.   I then find out that the offer WAS (someone took it):  Take the NEXT flight and get a FREE return flight YVR - MNL.  If Grandma wasn’t waiting for me in Vancouver, I’d be RUNNING to that airline desk to volunteer, LOL.  

One week later I will be BUYING a return ticket to Manila and I will REALLY regret not having taken that offer ;-)

From one world to another ....