Today was a long hard day, but there were rewards at the end!
We had to get up at 5.30am to take the 6am shuttle to Naga Airport. Naturally the flight was delayed, but there was plenty to keep us entertained, like at least three people checking in cockerels (in boxes – still crowing away) and a group of about 20 Irish people. I was surrounded by Irish people – all wearing similar glasses I might add (not unlike David's...)
The flight was great. Smooth and with lovely clear views of the landscape and pristine waters below.
As we waited at the carousel for our luggage, we wondered what had become of the cockerels. Would we see them marching round the carousel importantly? There's an idea in there for another musical! We collected our bags and headed towards the exit and heard this announcement:
“Could the owner of the unclaimed cock please contact information”
Only in the Philippines.
Still at Manila airport we bumped into Sheila again – one of the girls we had met at the airport on the way to Naga last week. We chatted for a while and arranged to meet up again when we next passed through Manila. She helped us navigate the various taxi options. Manila taxi drivers are famous for swindling tourists, but thanks to Sheila, we got a yellow one with a functioning meter.
We asked the driver to take us to the gritty area of Pasay in the south of the city where we could pick up a bus going somewhere near Talisay. He offered to drive us to Talisay for 2200 pesos. Tempting, but where's the adventure? A bit expensive too when we could get there by public transport for 1/10 of that price.
As he dropped us off, about 6 guys sprang from nowhere offering to carry our bags and find a bus. We needed some food first, so headed to a pizza/pasta chain called Greenwich. The poverty and grime outside was a little depressing to say the least. We watched each other' s backs as we went back out into the street and found a bus headed for somewhere or other, but would let us off at Piga. There are no direct buses to Talisay. When I spotted that volcano lake from the sky a couple of years ago, I had no idea how difficult it would be to get to!
The bus was only half full and we crawled through the almost stationary traffic in south Manila, this is good for vendors as they hop on and off the slow buses to peddle their wares. We bought a newspaper and some water and resisted banana chips, potato chips and quails eggs among other things.
After about an hour and a half the bus pulled up at the side of the highway and the conductor told us that we had reached our destination. We put on our backpacks and went out into the scalding heat. Where the hell were we? Too late to rethink – the bus had gone. I saw a school girl and asked her how we could get to Talisay. She asked her dad and we were soon flagging down already overcrowded jeepneys bound for Tanauan.
The jeepney left us in a busy shopping street and we had to ask several people how we could get another jeepney headed for Talisay. Eventually we found the place. Tanauan is a nice town. There was even a cash machine and we considered getting more cash out, but we were really conspicuous with our backpacks on and urchin children following us.
We found the jeepney station and a truck bound for Talisay, but it was already crowded. We waited 15 minutes or so (in the blistering heat) for the next one and were first on it. This meant we could get the prime position next to the open back doors getting more air and securing an easier exit. We are getting good at this. In fact, it's starting to feel normal.... It's going to be strange going back to orderly Japan with bus stops and time tables and pristine, high speed trains and buses with white-gloved drivers and polite announcements. Could any 2 countries be more different?
We had to wait a while for the truck to fill up which is the worst part as there is no air inside a stationary jeepney. The driver won't leave until the truck is absolutely crammed full and there are people hanging on the outside. The last person on was a guy in a vest smoking a cigarette and sitting on the back step wedged in between my backpack and the legs of a teenage girl sitting opposite me. We took off down the road and stopped shortly after at a petrol station when the guy still smoking had us worried for a while as he walked around to stretch his legs between the pools of spilled petrol.....
We drove on for about half an hour until we screeched to a halt with everyone yelling “Green Lake” at us. We had reached the resort that sounded the least crappy from the Lonely Planet descriptions.
