El Camino

View of Manila

This is my first trip on a budget airline! So how was it?

Well, overall the experience was better than expected. I had been expecting a really noisy engine, loads of turbulence and perhaps really horrible, run down planes… but ok, it was better overall. The only complaint (not that I’m like complaint-queen) is about the air-stewardesses. More like marketing aunties in fact, they make more noise than the 180 passengers in total! Can clap, stamp feet and jump up and down! I wonder where they were trained… Landing was ultra-bumpy but kind of fun; it reminded me of roller-coaster rides. The Ninoy Aguino International Airport was well, around what you’d expect it to be. It was very crowded but still fairly well-planned, as in they had this road cutting through two sidewalks. One side mainly contained the arrivals, and the other held people waiting for their relatives. It’s called the extended meeting area, and the area was subdivided alphabetically, assuming that one would go to the letter corresponding to one’s first name. Ie. My dad made us wait in area ‘ABC’.

It’s just hot HOT HOT over there! Incidentally, April-May is a bad time to travel. It’s the peak of the hot season… Humidity is lower than in Sg, so at least you dun suffer from sticky armpits and all that stuff, but the heat’s burning and you easily get sunburnt.

• Transport

It was a harrowing 1.5 hours car ride to the hotel. Traffic there IS indeed a killer. Be warned, it’s difficult to move around in the Philippines if you don’t have a car. And it’s also not possible to drive around yourself; the roads sometimes do not have markings. Amazingly, despite it all, I witnessed fewer motor accidents here than in SG. Even at double cross junctions where there are NO road markings, NO traffic lights and a miserable guard who really can’t direct the traffic unless he’s got extra limbs.

Taxis are seen but my dad says they don’t go by meters or maybe they’ve got ‘faulty’ er-hem meters, so it can be tough haggling. As for the Metro, I didn’t get the chance to experience it. For the locals, the most convenient and popular way to travel short distances is by the Jeepneys.

Jeepney

Another Jeepney! 

The Jeepney is like a cross between a jeep and a bus. It’s converted from those old American jeeps left behind when the troops withdrew. Now, they’ve got all sorts of colourful words, designs and the routes painted/stuck on the sides and they sort of travel very un-designated routes. Apparently they can be flagged down anywhere and there really are no safety precautions ie. If you’re game for it, you can still get on an already sardine-packed ride by clinging precariously to the back, or perhaps squeezing in with the driver up front. Anyway, we weren’t adventurous enough to brave it. Heh.

• Culture

Hmm, the people here from my impressions are divided into either EXTREMELY rich (some perhaps filthy rich, you know what I mean) or very very poor. Generally, the Chinese are richer, and apparently some areas aren’t too friendly to them. The rich people have just acres of land which they fence up, sort of like a fort, and according to my dad who’s visited some of these places, their house looks like a palace… The poorer people live in small houses, often grouped together around a square courtyard or flanking an unpaved road, and at the entrance they might hand a banner that says: Village of Ernesto, for example. It’s all rather new and different. We do get some kids sort of asking for change along the streets in Metro Manila, but at least they don’t rush at you like Gypsies or like in other countries.

The Filipinos are a very gracious and polite group of people. Everyone, including the doorman at the supermarket greats the men as ‘Sir’ and women as ‘Mam’. I suppose it’s cuz we do look foreign… But I notice that even amongst locals, they’re very polite. There’s no pushing or rushing, no cutting queues, and if they so as lightly knock into someone else, they apologise. How often do you get this in Sg? Service here is excellent! Dunno who told me it was horrible, but they really are very helpful here, as my mum can attest to it. Lolz… A group of salesgirls helped my mum unwrap quite a few cookbooks cuz she wanted one that was on ‘local cuisine’ and at the same time they were introducing all the good food and telling her the prices of some of the seafood… and yea, teaching her some tagalog words too! Lolz…

• Security

A very er-hem friend cursed me with respect to being spirited away at a bar and then waking up with one less kidney, and then pointing at this beautiful picture of a lake and insinuating that the rebels were hiding in clusters… But anyway, I don’t think it’s as scary here as it says in the papers. I suppose crimes happen in every country, and as long as we just try to be careful and don’t do stupid things like following a stranger into some isolated area in a bid to get cheap goods, we should be fine. One thing is, you’ve got to get used to the guards standing around at street corners or directing the traffic. And at the entrance of every departmental stall, they will take a cursory peek into your bags.

• Language

The national language is Tagalog, which is actually one of their many many local dialects (a bit like how Italian’s national language is). Tagalog is an interesting mix of Polynesian/Malay, English, and Spanish. Kind of interesting cuz when you meet a word of Tagalog origin, you pronounce it that way, but when you see any Spanish word, you gotta pronounce it the Spanish way. Cool rite? Another thing to be aware of is that if they don’t know/or cannot do something for you, they will still say ‘ok’ or ‘yes’. It’s as if it were bad manners to say ‘no’. So when you are there, I do advise you to speak slowly, clearly and look at their facial expressions when they reply…

Alabang is found in the city of Muntinlupa, the southern-most city of Metro Manila. That’s where my dad lives, and he has to take a 30min drive daily out to Cabayao, which is something like our Science Park in SG. Loy stays in Las Piñas City, about 20min drive away. Muntinlupa is a rather progressive city, and there’s quite a lot of people staying around the Alabang area here for conferences and stuff. Most notably is the Ayala Alabang Village which is a really huge residential community housing all the rich and famous. So I suppose security down at Alabang is pretty good.

A lovely lobby & reception

Interior of the hotel

Skyline – Restaurant with a view…