Goodbye Philippines

The end of my trip to the Philippines came and that meant the end of my trip with my friends and on to the next part of my trip, starting in Bangkok.

We drove to the airport on Sunday 5th May ready for our flights. The others were flying to Ho Chi Min in Vietnam and I was off to Bangkok, Thailand. Unfortunately the flights departed from different terminals. I flew from terminal 3, the same place I landed, and the others flew from terminal 1. They dropped me off at my terminal and planned to get the free shuttle between the two terminals, but at the entrance someone asked to see our flight bookings. Of course, I had mine and showed it to them and they let me through but they nearly didn’t let the others through. We explained what we were doing and they conceded and let us all in. There was hugs and goodbyes and they left me at the queue for my check in whilst they found the shuttle and headed off for their own flight.

I have realised that in the Philippines everyone does everything slowly, I can’t say I blame them with the heat but sometimes things need to move faster. This check in was included in this. I waited in the queue for so long that I ended up taking a tourism survey in the queue and didn’t move a single step during it, and I got a free phone stand out of it. It also looked like there was only one check in open for a long time but they did eventually open more and we all got through. Then once again I had to wait in the airport on my own for my flight.

The flight itself was relatively easy. The plane had the most space in the seats that I’ve had so far. My assigned seat was in the window and I was unable to change it, but a window is better than a middle. The flight was 3 and a half hours long and I was a bit annoyed to see that the flight wasn’t full when I went to the toilet and that people were lying down over a row of three when I was sat in a full row with two men that were part of a group with the people behind them. But at least it was a short flight and there was actually a decent amount of foot room. We were also served a meal on board. The options were shrimp spaghetti or chicken in chilli sauce and rice. When I asked for the chicken, the flight attendant thought it was appropriate to let me know that it was a bit spicy. She definitely looked at how white I was and thought I should be told. As it was a flight between two south East Asian countries, I can’t say that I didn’t feel very white on the flight myself. The chicken was fine though, I think the altitude made it not taste too spicy but my nose did run while I was eating it so I appreciated her letting me know.

The Philippines was a great holiday location and I had a lot of fun doing it with friends. I think the way we planned it all worked out well too because we had flights and accommodation booked before we departed and we could plan activities while we were there (they were also cheaper if we booked in the philippines, rather than online from home). This gave us the opportunity to do exactly as much as we wanted and do it when we wanted. So, I think this was a good way to do it, especially for us with a time limit to our travels. I think if it had been possible, it would’ve been nice to spend some more time in some of the places because there was so much to do and see and we would’ve had a more laid back trip than what we experienced at some points. I also think that there is a lot more of the Philippines to explore, because it has so many islands, and I think it would be interesting to return to for this reason. I think it would be possible to do an even longer trip with completely new locations on the itinerary than we’d already done, but again this is a very time dependant thing.

I think the most prevalent thing in the Philippines, on our trip anyway, was the beautiful beaches and I know we visited quite a lot. I think, for me, I would’ve liked to see less of the beaches and do a few more activities like we did earlier on in the trip. I also think there are other environments to discover in the country that might have been more to my liking.

The one thing that was difficult to tackle was the heat and the sun. The time we were in the Philippines was the hottest time of the year and it definitely felt like it but it was still an incredibly enjoyable trip overall and I would definitely return to the Philippines again.

I learned quite a lot about on this part of the trip. I didn’t really know anything about the Philippines before I visited so everything was relatively new to me and it was a new experience to plan a trip the way we did. I think the number of people we had was good because it gave us the opportunity to split up at certain times and do different activities or go and eat at different restaurants or at different times, so that was a benefit, and we all managed to get along well until the end and it was very sad to leave them all at the airport. I hope they’ve been enjoying their time in Vietnam and don’t miss me too much.

The people in the Philippines were also very friendly and spoke incredibly good English, which made our trip much easier and we tried to make sure not to take that for granted while we were there. The food was nice but it didn’t blow my mind. It wasn’t anything particularly spectacular and I feel like I’ve had more iconic and better food elsewhere. It didn’t feel like the food was such a big part of the culture as it is in some other places.

The beaches were probably the nicest I’ve been on and it was quite a cheap country for us to visit, however a lot of the people there said that they would love to travel to some of the other islands but it was too expensive for them to travel there, which was an interesting thing for us to think about while we were out spending our summer holidays there like it was nothing.

 I learned that there was also a very strong connection between the Philippines and South Korea. I saw on the way out of the country that they were celebrating I think 75 years of their partnership, which was an interesting thing to learn. Because of this, there were lots of Korean restaurants and shops and a lot of the signage also had Korean written on it, there were also a lot of Koreans there. I joked and said that I’ve never seen so many Koreans before, that’ll be until I go there myself. It was something that was very interesting for me to learn while I was out there because, with no prior knowledge of the country, it seemed quite peculiar when I first started noticing all the Korean influence.

I also learned a lot about myself and the type of people I like to travel with. I think I’m generally quite laid back and I gave a lot of freedom for the others to decide what they really wanted to do as this felt like more of their holiday that I just joined on to,  and I could easily decide whether to join or not and I think that dynamic worked really well.

Overall, the Philippines was a very worthwhile and memorable travel experience and I’m happy to say that I have not been put off travelling with the others again and I hope they had as enjoyable a time as I did. It still feels a little bit crazy to me that we met up in Manila and went travelling together for three weeks when it’s so difficult to meet up in the same country we live. I wonder when the reality of it will really sink in, perhaps when I’m back at home and heading back in to work, but at the moment it still doesn’t really feel real that I’ve been on the other side of the world for a month. But there’s still more to come and even more adventures to experience. Next stop: Bangkok!