opushomes

Jetstar is a pleasure in terms of baggage allowance with the exception of the 7 kilo limit in Australia.

Now, I am looking forward to your tale of Air Philippines and their weight limits particularly into Caticlan. Be sure to tell all of us about the ferry ride to Boracay and dragging your baggage and kids through the sand to Jonys.

Did you bring an umbrella or two. Did you bring it home?

How do I know this stuff, after meeting you in Singapore last January, I eventually ended up there for three nights. It was fine flying solo, but not with a wife and 2 unruly kids.



Did the kids comment on this?

Waiting expectantly for more.

SFO777

I am sitting here laughing uncontrollably. eightblack, you have outdone yourself this time. What a hilarious start.
Can't wait for the next installment! Bravo. ^

eightblack

The only people who think holidays are relaxing are those who have not produced small humans.

Actually I lie. I once met an old guy on a beach in Queensland who said he was on permanent holiday and he loved every minute of it. All he did all day was spray coconut oil on scantily clad young females. His skin was like a crocodiles, he stood there proudly in his Speedo swimwear, wearing a big straw hat and cheap, gas station sunglasses. There was a line of stunningly attractive women to his coconut oil stand from dawn to dusk. And as you would expect, the grin on his face never disappeared.

I don't even think he cared if the girls paid for services rendered. I certainly wouldn't. But then again, I'd be the last person the local Sunshine Coast council would give a coconut oil permit to. I mean think about it. I'd be so excited that I'd probably knock myself out with the spray gun. Or just my luck, there'd be a Mardi Gras convention in town and the only people queuing up to my booth would be 2 angry, overweight girls with short hair cuts called Frankie. And Regina.

Or something like this.

After we check in at Jetstar, my son, outraged at the fact that we are not flying EK, decides to walk towards the EK lounge. He is not the slightest bit fazed that we technically need an Emirates boarding pass to enter. Nope, he would have none of it. He was off. And his sister, slightly less outraged, sort of understood that her big brother was someone to side up to.

I had to quietly calm Number One Son down and say that the Jetstar departure gate was hell and gone from the EK lounge, and besides, we wouldn't have time to go there anyway. He simply gave me the bird and stormed off, muttering something about the fact that I was lucky it was o'dark hundred, otherwise he was ready to engage a community aid attorney.

This brings me to my next level of discomfort about traveling with people who share my last name. Time. It literally stands still when the 4 of us travel together. One person is hungry. One needs to go to the bathroom. But not that one, because there was a strange smell in the 3rd cubicle. One wants to buy some magazines. One of the kids sees some sort of bolt on attachment for one of their 13 electronic i-thingy's and insists that we buy it today. Upon detection of the slightest bit of resistance from either parent, the said child promptly throws him/herself on the floor and yells for child services, screaming that they have been neglected. And abused. All their life.

My wife, being the sensible one, tries to reason with the offending child. I pretend to have no idea who they are and walk off into the distance.

The other grating issue is that while my wife is American and generally has a very good sense of direction when we are stateside (after all, how hard can it be when they design roads and cities and say to the planners that as long as the roads run north south east and west, and operate in a grid, they'll pretty much accept any layout).

But put my better half in an airport, and attach The Small One to her hip, and they wander around aimlessly like Thelma and Louise, after they have eaten a large bag of hash cookies. And no, I'm not talking about hash as in hash brown. I'm talking about hash as in Cheech and Chong hash. If you know what I mean.

The "journey" just to the gate nearly tips me right over. Thankfully the flight isn't packed - probably around two-thirds full. The kids and wife are in one row of 3 and I am across the aisle. The small Airbus is populated with a lot of Filipino workers, all going home for their holidays. Or balding, overweight Caucasian men, who are trying to recover from their third divorce and are seeking solace in the arms of a twenty something Asian female.

My son leans across the aisle and says.

"Dad, why are there a lot of men Grandpas age with a lot of younger girls?"
"Umm. Ask your mother" I respond
Before The Boss could answer, he continues.
"And why are they holding hands. Thats disgusting. Is that her father?"
"Son, this is Asia. Thats what people do. They're friendly"

Unconvinced, he turns and starts on his mother, but before he could well and truly wind my wife up, he peers at the seatback in front of him, looks in both armrests and then starts to raise his voice, as only a very unhappy 10-year old male can do. Its that pre-pubescent sonic boom.

"What in the name of all thats holy is going on here…?" he yells
"Where the effin hell is the IFE?"

My wife and I start to chuckle and whisper to him that low cost carriers, like the one we are on, don't fit in seat entertainment systems. Come to think of it, its a bit average if you ask me. I mean, they could charge basically what they want for entertainment as we are a captive audience at this point. Its not as if we can get off. And a parent is likely to pay whatever sized Kings ransom the airline would want in order to keep their child quiet for however long the flight is.

In an attempt to retaliate for making them fly Jetstar my son finds the onboard "menu" and proceeds to order everything off the list. His sister, not wanting to be left out, says "I want what he's having".

Both children empty the cart of every tube of Pringles, every can of soft drink and anything else in between. They then activate Plan B and produce every electronic gadget you would expect. There is a reason Apples share price is in the stratosphere. They can thank desperate, ill-advised parents like me for one.

The flight, as you would expect, is relatively uneventful. I close my eyes and pretend that the people across the aisle from me are someone else's family. The person sitting against the window in my aisle shifts comfortably in their seat.

We land in MNL and head for immigration. Within seconds, the family are all complaining loudly that I'm walking too quickly. I try and explain to them that we have just made a transition from possibly the worlds best airport (ie Changi) to one of the worlds worst (ie Manila). Its controlled chaos at its best. And besides, we couldn't dilly dally as we had to get out of this terminal and make it around to the PAL terminal to catch our puddle jumper.

I was naturally antsy. Immigration was thankfully not too packed and we navigated our way through the luggage hall and out into the apron. I hadn't actually changed planes in Manila before so wasn't quite sure of the process, but within seconds of asking, we were directed to a bus stand where the free shuttle bus would take us around to Terminal 2, dedicated to Philippine Airlines.

To my wifes amazement, I had actually printed out the itineraries for all our flights. I need to show it to you - because things turn to custard from this point and I want a second opinion.

Tell me what this says?



It says PR071, right? Departing at 11.40. Yes? Good I'm glad you agree.

So, we arrive at T2 and head into the departure area. Number One Son sees something called the "VIP Lounge" and promptly heads off in that direction, thinking that surely his first experience on a Low Cost Carrier was but a mere aberration and that his luck was going to change on the next flight.

More hideous language spews from his mouth as we tell him that we are heading further south down the economic totem pole and going on something called a Dash or Q300. I forget which. All I know is that it was a plane driven by a propeller no less.

He's dumbfounded. And he's seriously never been on a turbo-prop.

So we look for an open check in counter and approach the nice person. I even hand the man the printed itinerary. Man peers at it and then that frown that only airline check-in staff can do, appears on his face. There is much scratching of the brow.

"Sir, you are in the wrong terminal" the man says
"What"
"Yes Sir, you are on the flight to Caticlan on Airphil Express"
"Whats Airphil Express?"
"Well that leaves from Terminal 3" the nice man informs me.

I start to wave my arms. My son, sensing a pending parental implosion, grabs his sister by the arm and wants to go back to the tranquility of the VIP abode.

My wife, during the commotion, was off changing money into pesos.

I ask the man how we get to Terminal 3, as in, where do we catch the shuttle.

He says to me that there is no bus. No shuttle. Nothing. We would have to catch a cab.

So we grab the kids, grab the bags and hoof it out to the front of the terminal and pile into the first cab we see, which thankfully was a minivan sort of vehicle. I'm now cursing like a sailor and insisting that the itinerary says nothing about T3, nothing about some tin pot airline called Airphil Express. In fact, jack all detail about anything.

Sadly, I tell the toothless Filipino cab driver that we are in a hurry...who promptly tells us that we should be able to get to the terminal in around 20-minutes. 15 if we're lucky.

And then we're flung into the middle of typical Manila traffic...wife is clutching the kids and I'm clutching the model of Jesus the driver has stuck to his dashboard.

I'll be amazed if we make it in one piece...

halfcape

When I saw a TR by Eightblack this morning, I decided to wait to read it until "cocktail time" when I could really enjoy it at my leisure.

And, I have been enjoying it!!

jlisi984

What a cliffhanger... Great TR!

chollie

^^^

Great TR! Puts a great big smile on my face, especially because we aren't even 'there' yet, plenty more to come!

joorinainen

"Dad, why are there a lot of men Grandpas age with a lot of younger girls?"
"Umm. Ask your mother" I respond
Before The Boss could answer, he continues.
"And why are they holding hands. Thats disgusting. Is that her father?"
"Son, this is Asia. Thats what people do. They're friendly"

SFO777

Classic!

eightblack

To give you a sense of distance, we needed to get from T2 to T3. Its probably 2-3 miles by road. In a normal environment, that would take but a few minutes by car. But remember this. Manila aint normal. Not when it comes to traffic.

Probably where you and I live, the roads have lane markings on them. You know, that painted line down the middle of the asphalt which signifies even to the most dimwitted of drivers that if you were to veer over said white markings into oncoming traffic, your family will probably end up using your organ donor card sooner rather than later. Or something like that.

To the average Filipino driver, the white line down the middle of the road is used as a rough guide only. It means nothing really. If you're on a normal 2-lane road, it means just that. Room for 2 standard vehicles. In the Philippines, a 2 lane road means plenty of room for 6. And a couple of large trucks. And the odd bus. How more people don't die is beyond me.

I don't think our kids had seen traffic chaos like this. And my wife hadn't been to Manila before, so this was all as startling to her as it was to her offspring.



Thankfully though, Mario Andretti V.2 (our cab driver) delivered us to T3 in one piece. Just. I was in need of a stiff drink. We had just under an hour before our puddle jumper took off for Caticlan. I didn't want to think about the mess we'd be in if we missed the flight.

Lets talk about airports for a minute. Places like Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Korea all got serious about infrastructure many years ago and set aside large wads of cash to build new terminals. Even Japan got into the act and renovated Narita. You could argue that Asia now has some of the best airports in the world. (and the worst, don't even start me on India). The new hubs are enormous, they're green (relatively speaking), they handle the new A380 with ease and they compete for airlines and tourists business like 2 teenage boys fighting over the prom queen.

The Philippines, not to be outdone, set about building a new airport of their own. Sensibly, a German company was awarded the contract and work commenced. Then it stopped. Then the corruption started. Then a part of the roof collapsed. Then a big pissing match started about payment (or non-payment). Then the government stepped in and seized the joint. And then it sat collecting mothballs for a couple of years. And then.

And then people forgot what all the fighting was about and someone suggested that while a lot of people were banging fists on the table trying to work out what the hell was going on - that the government should let all the domestic airlines fly out of the newish terminal. Just for now. So they did.

Full circle then and we end up at one of the Philippines biggest white elephants.

Eventually, we work out that Airphil Express is actually owned by PAL and then figure out that it operates the flights to Boracay (despite nothing printed on the itinerary or email confirmation). We lug our bags to a check in counter where a very polite woman dressed in bright orange happily checked us in, along with all our bags. She even made us all get on the scales to weigh us as well. This delighted our kids no end, especially when it was their parents turn to scare the scales. It never ceases to amaze me how sarcastic your own children can be.

Before the comments came streaming out of either of their mouths, I grabbed the nearest child.

"Oy, how old are you?" I barked to my son
"Ten", he grunted
"Do you want to make 11?" (it might have also helped that I had him in a Homer hold and had both hands around his neck…)
"Yes" he wimpered
"Then say nothing about your mothers weight", I snapped

For the first time in his short life, he actually agreed with me.

We head towards the gate, which is actually on the lower level. Time comes to board and we are ushered onto a bus which used to belong to Narita Airport. All the Japanese signs and directions were still attached. They obviously got a good deal on them.

The kids jaws drop when they see the sub-50 seat plane which was going to take us to Boracay. Caticlan actually.

If I'm honest, the flight was fine. There wasn't a spare seat to be had, the crew took the safety briefing seriously, all the bags were loaded, there was a lot of barking down 2-way radios and we pushed back right on time. Actually, we didn't push back at all. Someone waved their arms, the pilot kicked the little plane in the guts, the props roared into life and within minutes we were airborne. The pilot simply took off from where we were.

Amazingly, they even wheeled a drinks cart down the aisle. There were 2 dutch guys in front of me - who promptly asked the young FA how much beer she had on board. She told them. They bought it all. At least this was a lot easier to explain to the kids than the old guy with his supposed daughter on the previous flight.

If you blink, you could easily miss the little MPH airport. It was very cute. Took seconds to deplane and for some strange reason, we had to fill out some sort of arrivals card. I think the government want to keep tabs on just how many drunk Australians are on the island at any one point. Which makes sense.

When we booked the accommodation, I remember the nice person from Jony's asking me if I wanted someone to come collect us at the airport. I said no, don't bother, we would make our own way there.

For this particular family holiday, I wanted to go as local as possible. No 5-star, branded hotels. No sitting in the big seats on the plane. Just the 4 of us blending into the background. Except for the fact that we were about as inconspicuous as dogs testicles.

The plane load of passengers dissipates within minutes. Pretty soon it was just us, our luggage and a semi-deserted street. I said to the family, come on, lets get a tuk tuk (a motorbike with a side car attached). Exactly like this one. Except the Filipinos call them tricycles.



Its at this point that you need to decide something. You either go with the flow, or you be that rigid, inflexible westerner. Because when you land in Caticlan, there's a sense of a higher power taking over. I instantly realized that if we were to reach our destination today, that we should just let the locals get us there.

So the first part of the journey was commandeering 2 tricycles and heading for the "port". Which is probably being too generous. Its not a port at all. Its a gathering place where the locals relieve you of your cash for things they refer to as an island congestion charge, a nature charge, a departure tax, and a mother-in-law penalty (ok, I made that part up). But the rest is close to being true.

Because you have no idea what they are charging you for (and its probably no more than $5 per head anyway), you simply hand over handfuls of their currency. The good thing is that everyone is in on the act.

As soon as the tricycle arrives, fit young men run towards you and grab every piece of luggage you own and run towards the jetty. Actually, the word "jetty" is being too kind also. Its a lot of wood, lashed to plastic barrels, which stretches out over the water towards the sorriest looking "boats" you have ever seen.

Clearly, when whoever it was made up the term "sea-worthy", the people of the Philippines were asleep. Or drunk. Maybe they were both. But they sure as eggs didn't attend the briefing. This was the vessel which was going to take us to the island of Boracay.



Kids being kids thought this was all terribly exciting. Number One Son was convinced everyone was going to drown and was telling his sister of the pending disaster. Thankfully, one of the only smart things we have done as parents is teach our kids to swim. They're both like small dolphins and love the water.

My wife, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. Not a whole lot of water on a farm in the middle of Michigan where she grew up and swimming is not her forte. In fact, she's useless. Both kids were assuring her that after they had saved their iPads, iPhones, iPods, Nintendos, PS3's and the 33 stuffed toys, that they would eventually come back and rescue their mother, if she was still alive and floating.

Or something like that.

Crikey, look at the time. Sorry about that. We haven't even arrived yet. But we're close. Real close. More to come...

dinoscool3

Manila traffic looks like Bangladeshi traffic, except much better

msvacation

Another Simon Classic

jms_uk

Subscribed, as always

LondonElite

Beautiful TR...please keep it coming!

thespeedskater

Sweet! I like!

afterDawn

That was exactly my experience although travelling with 2 similarly aged mates, as opposed to a family, made the mad dash much more doable.

Absolutely hilarious TR eightblack, as always.