End of day 1 in Philippines

Day 1 - Clark

Last row in the plane

After another 2 hour flight and some 'air freshener' moment in the plane, we are off to a foreign air and land. Striking off Philippines from my ASEAN tour although only it is in one of the town of the many islands. It is written as Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) but it is nothing like the international airport I've been to. I don't think this is another terminal of the airport like LCCT, KLIA and Terminal 2, KKIA.

You know there is a policy about not taking pictures at the airstrip only when we are in the terminal, there were many tourists taking out those cameras and shooting away. Some even went nearer to their point of subject whereas I was just sneaking swiftly to capture a few shots. Some of the photos I got it from my friend. Call me coward or whatever but sometimes gotta make it discreet if wanna 'bend' the rules.

I thought that going through immigration is not that slow but upon arriving to the arrival gate, the line was really long. Our plane did not have that many passengers anyway so what was the long queue all about?

Have not even reached the door

Remember the creepy guy from earlier flight? He was in the same flight to Philippines as well and he got the nerves to stand next to me while queueing at the immigration line. I told my friend bout it then safe, no loner standing next to him. But later on the security was asking those with Filipino passport to go in since they have 2 different sections for immigration. While in Malaysia nobody follows the classification of passport queue. Double safe. No need to see that creepy perverted guy anymore. 

While talking to my friend in mandarin regarding the declaration form and the details of it, there were 2 guys in front of us that did not really know how to fill in those that we were discussing was peaking back and forth. I saw their passport and realized they are from Malaysia too. We're still wondering what is holding up the queue since the uncle we met in the plane said that he hardly met this kind of phenomena from all his travels to Philippines. 

Later we found out that there were only 3 counters fo foreign passport with 2 planes landed about the same time.

Almost an hour later, we cleared immigration.

Here come the story just by queueing. 

The 2 Malaysians in front of us started conversation with us. Guess this is how you make friends when traveling but that is another story. Too many stories learnt in just 5 days. 

Earlier on the plane we had a pre-agreement that the uncle would help us ask his friend would it be possible to sent us to our hotel instead of us taking the public transport since it is gonna be on the way. However, during the waiting period, the 2 new friends offered to take a cab together and share the load. It could be blessing in disguise when we could not change to any local currencies and we did not have any with us. How awesome is that to be in a foreign land without any money technically for local trading. So happened when my friend went to ask the uncle, his friend was alright with the arrangement. I could not be relieved and thank God enough. I sense a side story. 

Jeepney

As it turns out, it was another blessing for us that we met nice and good people. Supposedly from just dropping us off at our hotel, we had a new host for the night. More on what we had after that is in here: Filling up the tummy

Kid's play

Had a little 'welcoming party' and then turns out that they are also heading to the same place as us the next day, hence we with a thick face became people's guest. It was all in God's plan. The party did not end there.

Testing alcohol tolerance level

The end of day 1 when we went to another town of Meycauayan. Meeting our new host and foster parents. Isn't it cool or what?! The start of the adventure turns out to be a great experience. 

Parents will definitely say it is so dangerous for 2 girls to follow strangers, later getting kidnap like in those shows and yada yada but this had taught me to trust my insticnt (God in spiritual sense) and it sharpen my discernment skills as well. Honesty is also important among travel buddies even if it is in domestic destination. That is why to be travel buddies is not easy. Wanna test your friendship or relationship then try out backpacking. It is hard to mask or fake it when it comes to crucial decision making.