Andelu’s Rants from Shenzhen

October 1 is China’s National Day and one of the three “Golden Weeks” or holiday periods that take place each year. The other two are Chinese New Year and May 1 which is Labor Day. This blog, my first in quiet awhile, is the first one of our first day of our October 1 vacation.

Yesterday was a long, but productive, day. We flew out of Hong Kong to Manila last night and I didn’t think arrived into Manila that late. But I guess everything closes early in the shopping area around our hotel as at 10:30pm there wasn’t much open. Actually that was a good thing as we were both tired and wanted to crash and after a walk to acquaint ourselves with our surrounding.

This morning we walked through one of the large shopping malls across the street from our hotel and had lunch at Outback. Yep, the American Australian themed restaurant… We both love ribs and they do have good ribs! We both ordered iced tea, mine unsweetened and Pei Lin’s sweetened and when the drinks were delivered Pei Lin said “What’s this about??”. My glass was easily twice the size of his but I tried to appease him by saying it was an optical illusion as his glass while shorter is much wider then my tall and thin glass so they both held the same amount of liquid. He didn’t buy my rationale and soon enough his attitude passed.

It’s a whole nother blog about the skinny man drinking sugar tea and the fat man drinking unsweetened tea…

Unfortunately, we didn’t have a chance to explore any of Manila as we had a flight to catch and off we were to catch a domestic flight to Caticlan. The airport was packed and no where to sit. Pei Lin didn’t care for the airport, not that I liked it but at least it was clean and had some decent restaurants - even though we didn’t eat as we were both full from our ribs and iced tea lunch. He said it was too crowded but I think it wasn’t half as crowded as many of the Chinese bus and train stations I have been in.

While waiting for our flight, our names were paged and we were asked to take an earlier flight, which was a nice surprise. We had a short 30 minute flight to Caticlan and it was the most windy and roughest landing on the shortest runway I have ever experienced. At least it did have a two story control tower… We had to turn and taxi back down the runway to the terminal which was a single room building that was about the size of the average hotel room. At least it had bathrooms…

Our bags were the first two to be off loaded due to our getting on an earlier flight, so they were the first two put on the cart which means there were the last two to be uncovered. The good thing was since there were only 30 people on our flight there weren’t covered by too many bags. But the claiming system was a little crazy. They called the claim check number and until that bag was claimed they wouldn’t call the next bag. Was faster then waiting for a bag at any US airport but seemed much too complicated. But what is 15 minutes on the first real day of vacation?

After claiming our bags, we met our escort to the island of Boracay and our guesthouse. Pei Lin, me, our escort, our bellboy and our 2 bags all squeezed into a motorcycle with an enclosed sidecar. Was a fun ride. It has been raining two days none stop, the dirt road was pure mud, our bike had bald tires (tires with the tread worn down) and was fully loaded with the four of us. As we started up a hill the bike slipped out of gear and died. The driver patiently restarted and climbed another meter or two before the bike gave up and died. Long line of bikes and vans behind us didn’t utter one horn beep while we got out and walked along side our bike as the driver and bellboy pushed it up the hill a bit further. We found a dry spot, hopped in at the direction of the driver and he managed to get us to the top of the hill and down the other side to the ferry port in one piece.

The ferry port was a well choregraphed taxi line. There were half a dozen boats that held 20 or so passengers and been modified with “spider legs”, to keep them from capsizing in rough seas, loading and unloading people. We followed our escort and left our bags to the care of our bellboy and climbed aboard our water rickshaw. It was about a 20 minute ride to our destination, Boracay. Upon arrival we embarked down a ladder and into water about 3 feet deep. Pei Lin said “OH” and was promptly picked up and walked to shore upon the shoulders of one of water rickshaw’s porters. Unfortunately, he had the camera and I couldn’t snap a photo, but it was priceless.

After a muddy ride to our home for a week, we checked in, took a walk along the beach and returned to our beachside inn to order dinner. Ten minutes or so after we sat down some people came in and sat down next to us and were promptly served some bread. Pei Lin and I looked at each other and said, “What’s that about??”

Hope to write each day over the next week about our vacation and new country on our list.