Detailed version of our Trip to Philippines

Thursday September 3rd
For all of you who are planning on travelling to the Philippines at some stage … (& for you who aren’t, sorry about all the details)

We flew out of Christchurch on 3rd September. The night before I started losing my voice, but with prayer from Mum & Dad & others praying for us I woke up feeling fine (just unable to talk) & we were on our way. Since we were flying out at 6.30am we had to be at the airport by 4.30am. The airline computers were down at check-in so when we finally got on the plane we found that Jared was sitting about 10 rows away from me. After we took off Jared came & got me as there was a spare seat beside him.
We arrived in Sydney and because we were getting a connecting flight we were just in the transit lounge. But we still had to go through the security check … they wouldn’t let me take my bottled water through (which I had bought from the airport in Christchurch), but I couldn’t let them throw out water I had paid for!! So I said to the security guy to give me a minute as I gulped down my water!! My backpack then got put through the xray machine … twice & a different guy then searched through it (I have no idea what he was looking for??). I didn’t think I looked like a threatening sort of person …
We then flew from Sydney to Brisbane. That was a rough landing … one of the overhead lockers further up the aisle even came flying open! We were then told no-one could leave the plane at that stage & the Aviation Police came on & took someone off the plane. We were then able to go into another transit lounge for about an hour.
We then left Brisbane for the flight to Manila. It was really funny flying Qantas as all the air hostesses were actually air hosts – all males & all over about 45 years old.
We arrived in Manila about 7.30pm (local time). We got off the plane & were given ‘health forms’ by doctor-ish looking people. I had read about some NZ people who had got detained in Vietnam after displaying signs of Swine flu & got put in a hospital with bars & no way of contacting family. I knew I didn’t have the swine flu, but I had to tick the box saying I had a sore throat – although technically it wasn’t sore … I just couldn’t talk. We cued up and handed in our forms & didn’t hang around at all – I didn’t want to get detained, especially after what I’d heard about Vietnam. We then get to the bag carasol & get my suitcase. We then waited, and waited & waited for Jared’s bag … which didn’t turn up. We then had to cue in the ‘missing bag line’ along with several others. Apparently it was still in Sydney – don’t know how that happened but at least they knew where it was. So we said we were flying out from domestic at 8am the following morning & the guy was really helpful and said they’d get the bag over there to us in time. By that stage we were one of the last ones of our flight to go through customs & pretty much got waved through.
Before we had left we had picked up some pesos, but we needed some smaller currency than what we’d been given. For all of you travelling at some stage soon, just after going through baggage claim, then customs & out in the foyer part (before you go out the door to the taxi stand) just to the right there was a money place & they were really helpful and exchanged some of our pesos into smaller currency for us. I can’t remember seeing any shops or food places there in the arrival section – so we couldn’t stock up on our water from there. Basically as soon as we walked out the front door there were the airport taxi drivers. We had to go into their little office (by the taxi cue), tell them where we were going, they gave us a price and a docket, so we knew how much we paying up front. We were staying at Manila Group House (MGH), also know as Wycliffe house or SIL. Its in Quezon City. From memory it cost us 600 pesos to get from the airport to MGH. One of the first major things that we noticed (apart from the nice warm temperatures), was the driving!! We had a mad-man of a taxi driver. It was pouring with rain. There was heaps of traffic. There were vehicles going past with people sitting on top of the vehicles. We were passing cars so close that I was bracing myself for the scrape. There were street sellers, standing in the rain & walking past cars at intersections selling some kind of food, and also what looked like a dustpans & brooms. We quickly realized that the road rules we were familiar with were totally irrelevant there. Where we would give way if we were on a side road going onto a main road, there you just drive out slowly (or in a lot of cases, not so slowly) and people let you into the flow of traffic. Lanes on the road are pretty irrelevant most of the time – the drivers just fit into any space available.
We had to get the taxi driver to stop at a small shop so we could get some bottled water. We finally arrived at MGH & figured since we needed a taxi at 5am the following morning we’d get our taxi driver to come & pick us up, which he was happy to do. We also arranged for the guard at the gate to give us a wakeup call, just in case we overslept. We got to our room & of course couldn’t sleep. Finally around midnight we finally got to sleep only to be woken soon after 3am by a security alarm going off nearby (it actually sounded like just outside our window). Of course that woke up the neighbouring dogs & roosters. By 4am I was ready to get up – I figured we’d have to be up by 4.30am anyway. At 4.50am I heard tooting & said to Jared that would be our taxi driver tooting so the security guard would open the gate to let him in (no concerns that other people might actually be sleeping at that time of the morning!!).
By now, its Friday 4th September … (known by adoptive parents as ‘Gottcha Day’)
It was still raining and our taxi driver drove like a mad-man again. By the time we got to the airport my headache that I’d woken up with was getting worse & I was feeling sick. But I could now talk – a little bit. At the domestic terminal Jared had to go & try to locate his missing bag, while I sat with the rest of our luggage. Despite the pouring rain, the temperature was really nice at 6am. I was sitting outside (under cover) along with a lot of other people. After some painkillers & food I was feeling better. After waiting for an hour for Jared (who had disappeared into the airport somewhere), I went for a walk & found some public phones so was able to call home for 20 pesos for 2 minutes (just enough time to say hi & let everyone know we’d arrived safely). I then went back to wait for Jared … by 7am I was starting to hope he’d come back soon as we had a domestic flight to catch at 8am, not to mention being the only white person (& female), with all our luggage (& money)… good thing I don’t watch those thriller movies about people vanishing in foreign countries…. He finally appeared – apparently he had to wait for his bag to arrive & when it did he then had to go through customs (again), along with filling in paperwork etc. Turns out we didn’t have to arrive 2 hours prior to our domestic flight leaving (although that of course is the recommended thing). We then had to go through a security check, oh & another security check (including taking off our shoes & putting them through the xray machine). There are lines for guys & lines for females, so when I was getting frisked it was by another female. There was probably another security check (or 2) in there somewhere (I lost count of how many checks we had at the airport). Also, our travel agent said ‘all’ departure taxes were included in our tickets when we booked. Turns out that wasn’t right. We had to pay 200 pesos each to leave domestically. The plane we went on was the biggest one yet (2 seats, then 4 in the middle, then another 2). The air hostess/hosts were so friendly & the girls had immaculate hair & makeup. We had to wait in a cue of planes for what must have been 20+ minutes before we actually got to take off. There were still more planes behind us in the cue waiting too – Manila airport must be so busy. We were just hoping that the pilot didn’t fly like our taxi driver drove! The flight was pretty bumpy most of the way, & I definitely wasn’t feeling well, so by the time we landed I said to Jared to let everyone else off the plane first as I didn’t feel in a fit state to be standing in the aisle in a cue to get off the plane. When we finally got off the plane, and I got my feet got on firm ground I was feeling good – Praise God!! There was a military band playing at the airport which was cool. We then picked up our bags & had to show our passports & have the passport numbers written down in some book they had, before we could get out the door (despite it being a domestic airport). We went to the hotel & the orphanage director waited while we went to our room, did a quick change of clothes, got the gifts out that we had for the orphanage, before racing back down to the office. Finally we’re only minutes away from the orphanage … & our little girl ... to be continued ....