archive for the “travel” category
At 6 p.m. our Airbus was pushed back to taxi on Clark airfield. Soon thereafter we departed Philippines soil to fly to Malaysia. We had an uneventful, brief flight, arriving at Kota Kinabalu International Airport at 7:55 p.m. I walked briskly from the airstairs to the terminal then breezed through the ‘Imigresen’ checkpoint. Then I waited and waited and waited for Dominic, who had left row 8 of the airplane ahead of me. I got our luggage from a carousel before he ambled away from an immigration booth!
On Monday, March 2, at 7:40 a.m., Victory Liner bus 694 departed the Session Road bus terminal in Baguio City to travel south to Olongapo.
Dominic and I were aboard to ride as far as Dau so that we could get two jeepney rides to Clark airport then fly to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. At 9:15 the bus stopped in the rest-and-refreshment plaza in Sison for fifteen minutes, so we ate a light breakfast there. Though the Victory Liner conductor told me at 9:25 that we had only three more hours of traveling before we’d reach Dau. However, we didn’t arrive there at 12:25 or 12:30. We rode to the nice refreshment and refuelling depot in Tarlac, where the bus was refueled and I ate sushi. Then we resumed rolling to Dau, where we arrived at 1:15.
At 1:15 we had plenty of time to reach Clark International Airport before a 6:00 flight! We could have ridden an 8:45 bus – or a 9:45 bus. While burdened with plenty of heavy luggage, we had to look for a van or jeepney to reach Angeles City, while dirty, barefoot, boys with broken teeth begged us for money and dozens of motorcycle riders harangued us to ride in their sidecars. »→
This morning Dominic and I are riding a bus south from Baguio City to Dau so that we can then ride two jeepneys to Clark airport so that we can fly to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. Tomorrow, after seeing some of Kota Kinabalu, we’ll return to its airport to fly onward, past peninsular Malaysia, to Pulau Penang. Pray for safe journeys, if you will.
I’m back in Benguet Province, at 2:12 a.m, about to go to bed. I’m dead-tired because I slept only four and a half hours before arising yesterday. I took a five-and-a-half-hour bus trip from Baguio City to Cubao so that I could walk from the bus station to Columbia Cubao Camera store near Gateway and Araneta Coliseum to retrieve a camera and lens that I’d taken for repairs in January.
The store wouldn’t mail my gear to me. Oh, no. I had to spend twelve and a half hours on the road to retrieve a camera and lens. How ridiculous. Welcome to the Philippines, where inefficiency reigns.
A big Panagbenga parade is slated for 8 a.m. in Baguio City, but I’ll be asleep, so I won’t see it or photograph it (darn).
I’m not homesick; I’m home, and I’m feeling lousy, as I did yesterday in a taxi, bus, airplane, another bus and another bus. I had only slept four hours yesterday, and I think that I ate something in Kuala Lumpur that disagreed with me, or I used unsanitary utensils or a drinking glass … Yesterday and today I’ve had sporadic heart palpitations and have felt sick-to-my-stomach. So I’m recovering from my vacation. Done that before. My back has hurt yesterday and today. Muscle ache from bus and plane seats or kidney problems? I don’t know.
After traveling by planes, trains, buses and ferries, I returned from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Baguio City, Philippines. I’m back in the land of beggars, thieves, liars, con-artists, dogs barking and chickens crowing. In all my travels since February 6, the second bus ride today, from Dau, Pampanga (near Clark Field) to Baguio City was the worst.
Riding a bucking, shuddering, jerking, shaking, swaying, lurching Genesis bus for four hours made me think of Conestoga wagons and stage coaches crossing the Great Plains of North America. I slept a whopping four hours this morning before waking at 4:00 to travel by taxi and bus to Kuala Lumpur’s airport, so now I feel lousy. I feel groggy, with a sore back and g.i. tract upset by ethnic foods of K.L. and the rough ride uphill to Baguio. I’ll sink into my bed here in Tuding as soon as the dogs cease barking.
My buddy Dominic and I have flown from Kuala Lumpur to Pulau Penang in western Malaysia. Pulau is the Malay word for island. Penang means betelnut. So it’s ‘Betelnut Island.’ Tomorrow we will ride a fast ferry or an airplane further north to Pulau Langkawi (Langkawi Island), near Thailand. We’ve enjoyed visiting Putrajaya, the new capital city of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur and Georgetown, Penang, and we’re anticipating enjoying beauty and tranquility in the ‘pearl of the orient, ‘Langkawi, which is popular with sport fishermen, snorkelers and divers.
My friend Dominic and I walked in a long trail of passengers to the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport. An aside: K.L.I.A. is nowhere near KL. It’s about 57 kilometers south! Regardless, though Dominic left the airplane before me, he passed through Malaysian immigration ten minutes after I did. I was one of the first several people to pass through. Everyone, and I mean every other passenger and flight crew member from our Air Asia flight went through before he did, because he had no immigration request form filled-in and in-hand! »→
Around 9:00 a security guard ambled to the glass sliding doors of Diosdado Macapagal International Airport. All the Chinese and Filipino people who had arrived at the airport after Dominic and I did rushed to the doors! I remained seated in the shade, writing in a notebook until everyone but us had entered and passed through the metal detector. We walked across the driveway, showed passports and Air Asia reservation proof to the guard, laid backpacks on a conveyor belt then walked through the magnetometer. Although I’d removed my sunglasses, wristwatch, belt buckle and such, the portal beeped when I went through because I have metal implanted in me. So a guard gave me a cursory, 3-second pat-down about the waist as is done when one enters shopping malls in the Philippines. »→
In bed in Hotel Vistillana, traffic on MacArthur Highway woke me at 6:00. So I had slept six hours in the ‘diamond’ neighborhood. If traffic noise doesn’t bother you, and you want to sleep cheap, look for the tall Flamingo Drive-In apartment building on MacArthur Highway. Vistillana Court is right of that, across a side street. Other cheap choices: (click here)
I remained on the bed, unwilling to arise unnecessarily early. But when I heard hammering on cement below my room’s window at 6:30. I thought, “This is unbelievable,” pulled out my earplugs, and rolled off the bed to begin my day. Jackhammer wake-up call at 6:30 … Welcome to Angeles City. »→
My friend Dominic and I had been told by an an American friend in Baguio City to ride a Victory Liner bus to Angeles City then exit the terminal and walk behind it to find low-cost, decent, relatively-quiet hotel rooms rather than walk out the front of the station and follow the herd on the obvious path toward hotels, restaurants, etcetera. However, we didn’t arrive at a Victory Liner bus station in Angeles City.
Dominic and I had ridden a jeepney from Dau into a really seedy, smelly, dark area of Angeles City then disembarked to pick our way through the messes on a sidewalk and the roadbed, striving to reach McDonald’s or 7-Eleven or somewhere we could look at a map or ask for directions. »→
Thursday after lunch in Vizco’s beside Session Road, Dominic and I took a quick taxi ride uphill to a Victory Liner bus terminal and boarded a bus which departed precisely at 2:00. Days earlier I had asked a ticket sales lady if Victory Liner goes to Angeles City, because a bus dispatcher at the other Victory Liner bus terminal had told me to come to this one, where all the buses are labeled Cubao and/or Pasay. The clerk told me yes. I asked to see a schedule. She pointed to one of the “Cubao/Pasay” schedules that were taped to the ticket booth glass. I reiterated that I want to go to Angeles City, not Cubao nor Pasay. »→
First several photos were made aboard buses traveling from Baguio City to Dagupan to Bolinao
Olongapo City is a smelly, dirty, garbage-strewn, humid, polluted city of 227,000 people in 43,000 homes in Zambales Province. The name Olongapo is derived from the Tagalog phrase “Ulo ng Apo,” which came from “olo nin apo,” meaning “head of the elder.”
James Bong and family members before him have ruled Olongapo City for decades. I saw photos of “Bong” on banners everywhere that we went on foot and by jeepney in Olongapo. Guess who has paid for all the banners. Maybe the taxpayers …
Hello from Makati City. I’m drinking Chai tea on a patio outside a Gloria Jean’s Coffees shop. I recently went with Kuya Sel to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Health Administration outpatient clinic beside Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City. I will return to it this afternoon, and I’ll also visit the headquarters of The Jeepney magazine. I also hope to visit a camera- and lens-repair shop in Cubao. Thanks to Jeff Long, Sel and The Jeepney magazine staff, including Reah, for hospitality.
Every time we travel from Baguio City to Sagada, Dominic and I see a hundred “Vulcanizing” signs all along Halsema Highway. I guess that the booths, shacks and stalls recap or retread truck tires. Every day in Baguio City we see jeepneys rolling on recapped tires. Twice I’ve been on a Tuding Express jeepney that’s suffered a tire failure. On Wednesday when Dominic and I rode a GL /Lizardo bus toward Sagada, a rear tire’s tread suddenly delaminated, sidelining the bus for several minutes. »→
