Have you been to Gubat?

We left my Aunt’s house around 7:00 to catch a morning flight to Tagbilaran,
Bohol. The airport was busy with all the travelers flying home for the Christmas holidays, but not too bad. The kids were famished, having left the house without breakfast, so they stoppedto grab hamburgers, of all things. These were “Filipino style” meaning seasoned with garlic, a little sugar, and with a “secret sauce.” They gobbled them down and proclaimed them to be pretty good.

We flew Cebu Pacific Air, whose main claim to fame is when they choreographed their safety instructions to Lady Gaga. Much to the kids’ disappointment, however, the instructions were delivered in quite ordinary fashion for our flight.  The flight took just a little over an hour, and we had soon landed in tiny Tagbilaran airport. One building, one runway. We walked out and I quickly spotted Ted’s name on a sign held by the driver from Anda White Beach Resort, where we would be spending the next few days.

The drive to Anda was quite interesting, especially for the kids. It was night when we landed in Manila, so they didn’t see much, plus Manila is a big city, so it’s got the tall buildings, traffic, and other things you would expect to see in a city. I will tell you that the rest of the Philippines is not like that at all! The road was a modern, paved two lane road, but there were rice paddies and mini rice-terraces on the side, with farmers still planting rice by hand and tilling the paddy with water buffaloes. People meandered down the side of the road carrying goods on their heads (without hands), goats tied to the fences nibbled on grass, and lots of tricycles (like motorcycles, but with a covered side car) and jeepneys were on the road as well. Small townships had strung up parols (rice paper lanterns, although now they are mostly made of plastic) and other Christmas decorations all along the roadside. Palm trees and banana trees swayed in the breeze, and there were still traditional nipa huts (houses built from palm trees with thatched roofs) around.

We arrived at the resort after about 2.5 hours of driving, the last ¼ mile or so down a bumpy dirt road. The resort doesn’t look like much when you first pull in, since you’ve just come in off a dirt road, passing by a few small huts nestled in the surrounding deep vegetation, and all you see when you arrive is a gate and walls. But once you get inside and go past the reception area you are greeted by an infinity pool and a stunning view of the ocean.

We were greeted with fresh coconut water, from coconuts harvested just that morning.

And when I say harvested, I mean chopped down from those coconut trees you see in the background.  We actually saw a man climbing down from one of the trees with a bunch of coconuts the next day because some new guests were checking in.

We wasted no time changing into bathing suits and checking out the pool and the beach.

We landed in Manila around 10 pm, and cleared immigrations and customs without incident. We had unlocked the SIM tray on Ben’s iPhone before we left, and I bought a Philippine SIM card (Smart network) on eBay as well, so that we would have a phone when we landed. We texted my dad while waiting for our baggage, and knew they were waiting for us. Once we got past the security gate, we spotted my mom & dad right away! One of my mom’s cousins was also there, since they had gone out to dinner with him before picking us up. And for some reason, Filipinos love to go to the airport to see people off, or greet them on arrival.

After hugs & kisses all around, my dad took Ben to the Smart kiosk to add money to his SIM card (100 pesos, which is about $2.50) and then we headed out to meet my Aunt’s driver (we were staying at her house in Manila). We texted him as well, and he showed up in just a few moments. We said goodbye to my parents and my mom’s cousin, then piled into the car and headed to my Aunt’s house.

It was a quick 15 minute drive to my Aunt’s house in Ayala Alabang using the newly-built Skyway. My aunt and uncle don’t live in the Philippines, but make frequent trips there, so they keep a house in Manila. This trip was the first of many times where Ted declared, “This is a nice road!” Manila traffic is notorious but the Skyway has made certain trips much much better. It’s expensive, even by U.S. standards (approximately $4 toll each way) so it’s not heavily traveled.  But as short-term visitors, we were all for it!

Once we arrived, we all took quick showers and got organized for our flight to Bohol the next day, and then happily stretched out on beds and fell asleep in a hurry.

The house in Manila:

The trip report on the Philippines is going to be quite long, because I also want to use the blog posts as a way to memorialize it for myself. Given that, I’m going to post in stages. Although this first post doesn’t have pictures or links, the ones following will.

December 17: We began our trip to the Philippines Saturday morning by leaving the house at 4:30 a.m. Total travel time was going to be 27 hours gate-to-gate, but since it’s international we had to be at the airport super early. Luckily we were flying a combination of first class/economy plus, so it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it could be, but it’s still a haul. We checked in with no issues, and then headed off to security. We had just gotten to the checkpoint when Ted realized he left our passports at the ticket counter! He rushed back to get them, but luckily the ticket agent realized we had left them behind and met him before he had to trek all the way back. Everything went smoothly after that little hiccup though. We boarded the plane and settled in for the first of our long flights.

First stop –San Francisco, where we grabbed a quick lunch in the international terminal (Japanese food) before boarding a plane to Tokyo. The SFO-NRT leg was the longest, but not too bad. Thank goodness for all these electronics. The plane had individual movie screens, but we also had our own distractions –games & books (as well as movies) on our various iPads, Kindles, Nooks, iPhones, etc. I had also packed a little survival kit, which included snacks, eye masks, ear plugs, and melatonin so we had no problems getting sleep.

We landed in Tokyo on time, made our way through security, and got to our gate for the MNL leg of our trip in plenty of time. We found outlets and plugged in (although I had a battery pack with me just in case) and took advantage of the free Wi-Fi to catch up on emails, Facebook, and the news. Before you knew it, it was time to board again. The flight from NRT to MNL seemed very short compared to the trans-Pacific flight we had just finished!