Due to last minute changes in the flight schedules we found ourselves with a three day lay over in Manila. We were excited by the opportunity to to see another country and after the push of the last few weeks in the US, three days to rest anywhere sounded good.
We arrived in Manila at the end of 27 hours of traveling, looking and feeling old. We were 13 hours ahead of the time back home so even though the local time was 5 AM Tuesday, it was only 4PM Monday in Moline. You have to experience that to fully appreciate what it does to your biological clock. The fact that I am writing this at 1AM on Wednesday instead of sleeping is just one of many symptoms.
Anyway, we got off the plane and made our way to the baggage claim. Like most airports, the one here provides little carts for your baggage. Unlike most airports, the custom here is to get to the baggage claim as quickly as possible, get a cart, and push it as close to the turnstile as humanly possible. Cart gridlock. Our flight was full so there were about 400 passengers. By the time Kathy and I got to the turnstile there were at least 375 little carts pressed into the claim area. That presents a real problem in trying to extricate one's bags from the conveyer, especially when one's bags were the largest available and filled to capacity. As our bags appeared one by one I would probe for weaknesses in the cart-based defensive system and work my way gingerly to the front. Then dragging a 70 lb suitcase I would repeat the process in reverse. One thing that I discovered is that people tend to give you a bit more space when you are swinging a 70 lb suitcase over your head so the reverse was fairly easy.
So we got our four suitcases and headed for the customs line. When I had retrieved our last bag I noticed that someone had made X marks on it with white chalk. Now, in all our travels that had never happened. I looked around. No one else had white X marks on their bags. This is probably not a good thing. I tried to wipe them off. Nope. Not meant to be that easy.
So with a bit of trepidation we headed for customs. And sure enough, like a cat on a mouse the customs agent pounced on my X bag. "Please open that one, sir." Well at least they are still saying "Please" and "Sir." That's good, right?
I unzipped the bag and opened the lid. Until that moment I did not realize that Kathy, noticing some unused space in my bag, had filled the big pocket on the lid with some of her stuff. When I let the lid flop back 400 light day pads cascaded onto the floor of the airport. Great. Here we are, tourists in full Bozo mode, and not even out of the airport.
So while I stuffed hands full of pads back into the lid, the customs agent pawed through the bag. "Oh, a CD burner!, and what is this, sir?" pointing to my ham radio. It's a ham radio. Blank stare. Amateur radio? Blank stare. "Oh, like a CB?" she asked. Yeah. Sort of.
Well that got her excited. Here was the catch that was going to get her that promotion. She called for a superior.
I'm thinking "If this gets her excited wait till she opens the rest of the luggage." I am an avid ham radio operator and squirreled around in various places in our bags was enough communications equipment to support the Normandy invasion. You may remember that the Philippines has a very active guerrilla movement. I am hoping that the customs people don't start making any connections.
So the superior comes over and subjects me to a mini-interrogation. "What is this for? How long are you staying? Where? Are you taking this out with you when you go?" and so on. Finally, probably due to the fact that they just couldn't picture Kathy as a radical guerrilla terrorist they let us go without opening the other bags. And so we stepped out into the tropical heat of Manila.
We found a cab and told him where we wanted to go. He had a name we couldn't pronounce and he didn't speak English. So as far as cabs go, that, at least, was just like home. He started blowing his horn and moved out into the Manila traffic.
I had briefly toyed with the idea of just renting a car and driving to the hotel. The first two blocks in the cab cured me of ever wanting to drive again. Remember the picture of the 400 people trying to push their baggage carts into the same physical space? Well, just substitute cars for baggage carts and you have a good picture of what Manila traffic is like. Amazingly we made it in one piece and stepped into the hotel.
Wow. When the travel agent said he had booked us in a place at $70/night I had pictured some kind of flop house with scantily clad ladies lining the entry way. This was about the nicest place we had ever stayed in. A squadron of bell boys came over, took our luggage, and in short order we were checked into a beautiful room on the top floor overlooking Manila Bay. We spent about 3 minutes enjoying the view, crashed and slept.
At lunch we made our way down to the restaurant for something to eat. We thought about room service as the room service prices were very low but decided that we really needed to get out for a bit. The restaurant had a beautiful buffet laid out with all kinds of Asian dishes. Since buffets are usually the cheapest option we settled on that. It was great. There were a lot of things we had never had before but it was all good. After we finished eating we just sat and relaxed until the waiter brought over the check. I looked at it. THIRTY-FOUR DOLLARS!!! FOR TWO BUFFETS?? "Waiter! Bring back our plates! No we are not done yet. We have a lot more eatin to do. We may never leave. THIRTY FOUR DOLLARS!?!?"
That evening we ordered room service. Two very good chef's salads arrived on a table with linen tablecloth, nice china, hot rolls, and an orchid in a vase. $12. I may never leave the room again.
We did leave the room. Had to get to the airport. So we climbed back into a cab and launched ourselves into traffic. We had thought that our previous drive was nerve wracking. Well this time we hit the peak of rush-hour. There is simply no way that I can describe the next half-hour except to say that my being alive to tell the story is quite simply a work of God's grace.
When we got to the airport we started the check in procedure. Never before had we ever been so thoroughly checked in. They x-rayed our luggage and carry-ons. Then for good measure they x-rayed our carry-ons again. They actually had us stand with our legs apart and our arms lifted while they patted us down. Then 50 yards latter, just in case one of the other passengers had smuggled a gun to us, I suppose, they did it again. During the first pat-down they found my nail clipper. Caught red handed and feeling like a felon, I surrendered my weapon to the airport police. Finally we made it through the security, collapsed into the airplane seat and in a few minutes the stewardesses brought out dinner. We opened the sundries packet and out came a metal fork and a six-inch metal butter knife. I am sure the crew felt safer, though, in knowing that at least I didn't have my nail clippers.