A nearly missed flight
As I mentioned in the previous post, our flight to the Philippines was at around 5am. We’d found a few benches that we could actually lie down on and get a bit of sleep. Both of us had set alarms so we wouldn’t sleep through our flight to the Philippines. That was the plan anyway. For whatever reason, BOTH of our alarms failed to go off! I woke up to Mat saying our flight was leaving in 30 minutes. Changi being Changi, biggest damn airport ever, I was hoping our gate was not in another terminal. Thankfully it was in our terminal, but we still had to sprint with all our luggage, not close by any means. I haven’t been asthmatic since school, but I’ve not been out of breath this much for years.
Luckily, there were still a couple of people still boarding, so we were the last ones. We managed to board the plane and even get a bit of sleep on the way. Talk of this new COVID-19 was becoming more popular, and masks were to be worn on the flights. The flight to the Philippines took around 4 hours or so, and we arrived in Manila in the late morning. After getting through immigration, we took a taxi to our hostel, but the traffic was absolute madness. It took over an hour, and wasn’t even that far. We also saw a Jollibee (fast food chain) on fire as we drove by it.
Real tight
Our hostel was called 8 Hostel and it was compact as hell. It was down an alley way, and we’d booked a bunk bed room for just us two. I couldn’t actually believe how tight the room was, I could barely walk past the bed. Not to mention that when I took a shower, the water went through the vent on the door and created a puddle next to my bed. Ah well, backpacking budget rooms are something I’m used to now. A bed is a bed, and we chilled for a few hours here. I’m glad even the dodgiest of rooms usually have aircon, that’s what really makes a difference.
The hostel wasn’t in the best area, but it was near quite a busy main road that had plenty of shops and eateries on the sides. We did have to cross a brown sewage looking river that stank as bad as it looked. I had some chicken and rice at an eatery, I never enjoy it as much when there are bones included though. Everywhere I looked, there was deep-fried food of every kind, very different from the rest of Asia. Afterwards, we popped to a shopping centre and had a McFlurry for dessert, at least they never miss. The streets of Manila aren’t exactly appealing, a lot of pollution, traffic, homelessness, and general filth. We headed for home, chilled for a while, and then turned in for the night, exhausted!
