You Can't Hear Me, I Can't Feel You, It's Confusion

Today has been one of those days when travelling around Asia has actually involved a fair bit of travelling. Since arriving here on Friday afternoon (if you consider that I set off on Thursday morning), I've actually spent at least three and a half days transiting myself from one place to another.

I always figured that moving from one town or city to another was going to play a major role in my stay on the continent, but I think today it really dawned on me after having a couple of travel-free days exploring Baguio. This morning it was time to depart the ‘Summer Capital’ of the Philippines and make my way back to Manila - not for long though - I was only headed to the airport in order to catch a flight to Cebu City which is on the Southern island of Cebu.

Both of my previous locations have been in the province of Luzon, and the most efficient way of reaching other islands in the Philippines is to take a flight (usually between one and two hours) to get to several of the other major cities in this country.

I actually very nearly visited Cebu City, in 2009 when my friend Kevin and I were looking for a place to spend our summer vacation whilst teaching in Korea. It was toss-up between Cebu and Phuket, with Thailand eventually winning out.

One of the issues I figured, but only really since deciding exactly where to visit, is that Manila is at the heart of everything in terms of accessing different parts of the country. Ninoy Aquino Airport is the main international hub for air traffic coming into this part of South-East Asia, and when I was looking at travelling onwards from Cebu or Davao the flights always featured a stopover in Manila.

This has become a bit of a problem because each time I need to go somewhere different I end up having to come back to the capital. Thankfully unlike Baguio at least Cebu has an airport, but in order to reach the island I did first have to board a Victory Liner bus early this morning in order to return to Manila.

I ate one last breakfast in the Paladin Hotel, jumped in a taxi and managed to get myself booked on the 8.40 bus back to the Pasay terminal in Manila. I arrived into a different terminal to the one which I set off from as it was slightly closer to the airport, and would mean a shorter taxi ride once I departed the bus – quite why it doesn’t just go to the Ninoy Aquino I don’t know, that would be so much easier.

Last time I rode the bus, it was a Saturday morning, and very busy, so I figured it would be a little quieter today, but apparently not. Even though there were plenty of ‘foreigners’ on board there were also a lot of Filipinos travelling, even this early in the morning. The bus took around seven and a half hours to get me back to Manila. I managed to bag myself a window seat this time, and hugely enjoyed the views of rolling hills and low clouds as we descended down the twisty mountain road which we had driven up four days ago.
I was sitting next to a Malaysian lady who didn’t appear to enjoy the bus' air conditioning as when I awoke from a brief snooze at our first stopping point she had donned a cardigan, some gloves, a scarf and a woolly hat. I quickly advised her that she could just point it away from her instead of wearing her Eskimo fancy dress.

The bus didn’t let quite so many random people selling things on board this time around, but we did drop passengers off in all kinds of strange places – as well as picking up people in the middle of nowhere as we did on Saturday. 

We bypassed the Cubao terminal where I had boarded the bus in the direction of Baguio last week, and from there it was about twenty five minutes until we eventually reached the Pasay Terminal.
I think my pictures have adequately demonstrated that I have a bit of an ‘obsession’ with traffic in the Philippines, but today, even in the middle of the afternoon it was something else. I just don’t know where all these people are going, and how it can be bumper-to-bumper traffic when we’re driving on four lane roads all the time. I recognize that the aggressive nature of the drivers here probably doesn’t assist, as they don’t hesitate to make U-turns in inappropriate places or go through red lights, beeping their horn to signify ‘my bad’.

As is the case whenever people in all parts of Asia spot that you’re not from around there, after getting off the bus I received all manor of offers to take me places – funny how people offer you a lift for a certain price although they have no idea where you’re going. I eventually managed to get into a taxi, told him which airline I was flying with and he said that he’d take me to the correct terminal.

Ninoy Aquino has four terminals, one is for international flights coming from the west, another is for international flights going East, and then two are a mixture of domestic flights and international connections. From what I have read (and today experienced) it’s a bit of a mess. One of the travel websites I frequent described attempting to transit from one terminal to another as ‘a hellacious experience’ and when I was talking to someone in the airport whilst waiting for my bag on Friday, she mentioned that she was having to get a taxi from one terminal to the other because there was no other way to get there. (Airport shuttle anyone?)
Consider this against the underground system which is in place at Heathrow or the simple monorail which took me from one place to another in Malaysia, and you have a recipe for chaos.

The driver assured me that Air Asia, or ZestAir as they are now called, had their flights depart from Terminal 2, but when I enquired with the two security guards at the entrance (seeing Philippines airlines logos and nothing else everywhere made me question the taxi driver’s certainty) they told me that I needed to be at Terminal Four. They then gave me the advice that I should get in a taxi which would take me there and it would cost around 100 Pesos.

As I mentioned a couple of paragraphs previous, people in Asia are never shy in offering ‘foreigners’ anything, clearly believing that we aren’t wise to their sometimes dishonest behaviour or the fact that they aren’t shy about taking advantage of tourists where possible. In Europe, and other parts of the world there are certainly places you would consider ‘tourist traps’ but particularly in Asia you have to be wise to the kinds of things which you could encounter if you’re not careful.

Not sure if I mentioned this in a previous blog, but one of these cases in Manila is relating to taxis. As in all parts of the world, taxis run on a meter system, but often drivers will go out of their way to offer you a ‘deal’ or a ‘special fare’. The advice is to always ask for the meter to be used, and refuse to take their lift if they are unwilling to do so. In some cases, taxi drivers have been known to attempt to use the language barrier as an excuse and pretend they were unaware of your requirements or start adding additional fees for fuel or vehicle maintenance.
I'm not saying it's any better in England however, as I'm sure we've all questioned more than once the route a taxi driver is taking as he blatantly tries to test your local geography.

Knowing that I needed to be at a different terminal, I headed towards another taxi, making sure he was using the meter as he drove me towards the Air Zest portion of the airport. I discussed with him on the way that I needed to be dropped off at the ticket office as for some reason when making my booking online, my return flight from Cebu was made for 12am instead of 12pm, something I intended to change before checking on. The driver, kindly, but misinterprative of my needs took me into an industrial estate opposite the terminal and said that I could buy a ticket from there if I needed one. Once I explained what I actually needed, and I tried to force the language barrier out of the way he understood and dropped me off in the right place. When I asked him how much the journey was, he said it would be 275 Pesos - a ridiculous fee considering that it was a five minute journey from terminal to terminal – two minutes of which had been me explaining that I already had a plane ticket. 

I explained that I wasn’t going to be scammed as that the guards at the airport had said 100 Pesos maximum, so I handed him the cash to which he then responded with “no tip?”…. My tip would be not to try and defraud someone who knows exactly what’s going on!

I went to the ticket office within the terminal, explaining that I needed to change my return flight because of an error, and after about thirty minutes of waiting, the lady eventually came back with my printed out ticket and sent me on my way. Terminal Four was pretty small, but it was quite busy with several flights taking off between 6-7. Naturally the queue for the flight to Cebu was the longest one going, but after a while I worked out that it was all part of one huge school booking – potentially relating to a church as there was a nun at the front dictating operations – but with about 35 people to check in, it took about a hour just for me to drop my bag off whilst they all got sorted out.

I’d actually checked in using the machine beforehand, figuring that it would be easier, but unlike in a bigger airport where there’s a check-in line, and then a bag drop line, both sets of people had to join a massive queue and wait for ages. By the time I got to the front of the line and dropped my bag off, it was 17.40 – five minutes after my plane was due to start boarding. I sat in the lounge for a bit, before eventually my flight was called and I got on board. The plane was actually pretty empty with me on an entire row by myself, and the four rows behind them completely empty.

Although it looked like we were going to take-off on time, I must have dozed off briefly, and when I woke up at 6:45, we were still on the runway. Eventually the plane took off at about 6:55, and we arrived in Cebu 7:50. There was no repeat of the disappearing bags trick from Manila so I headed into ANOTHER taxi and set about making my way to my hotel.

My stay in Cebu is in a place which is a little bit outside of the city, but it seemed to take absolutely ages to get here from the airport despite it only apparently being 6kms away – the traffic wasn’t too bad, but my driver didn’t do a very good job of navigating his way here, despite seeming confident on getting to the right place when we exited the airport. He stopped along the way to ask three people, and after confirming with me several times on the address, it was a little relieving when we eventually found where we were supposed to be going.

Seems like the issue of the language barrier cropped up on a couple of occasions today, which is to be expected, and reminds me that I am very far away from home. Thankfully I feel confident that here in the Philippines there would always be someone with competent enough English to help me, I hope that I don’t discover otherwise in a time of serious need.

Hotel Pier Cuatro is located close to the pier in Cebu, but in the dark, all three places I have stayed in the Philippines look-a-like. Seems a little bit quieter in my current location, but I went for around the block, and didn’t see anything apart from homeless people, and a few random street vendors so I decided to head back to the sanctity of my room and prepare for a hopefully exciting day of exploring tomorrow.

Keke Palmer
Language Barrier (2014)