We arrived after a crazy exit from Hong Kong. Tip: The Philippines requires an exit flight to already be booked, so if you plan on going, make sure that is sorted and don’t do it at the check-in counter like we did. Some more notes at this site and I also went over it at the end of my last post.

In Manila, the traffic was crazy. We needed one bus and 2 metro lines to get to our hostel, and it took us 4 hours. To enter the metro, you have to scan your bag, and they made a big deal out of my pocket knife, saying that I wasn’t allowed to bring it on the metro. After quite a bit of talking with them, they relented after wrapping it up in even more duct tape, since it was wrapped up in China when we boarded on the train to Hong Kong.

Once we reached our hostel, we walked around for a bit, but there really wasn’t too much to see other than more cars and traffic.

The next day, our couchsurfing host was ready to host us, so we made our way to his place. He lived on the other side of the airport, which we didn’t realize until he gave us his address. We feared it would take a long time to get there. We got a little disorientated at first, but we managed to make it there in about 3 hours after following his directions and just taking 2 busses.

Navigating Manila is so draining, also due to the heat and humidity, and we didn’t do too much else that day other than walking around his neighborhood a little. The next day, we ultimately decided to go downtown and check out downtown Manila a little. We left a little later, and with it taking about 2 hours to cover the 10km to downtown, we reached downtown in the afternoon. Unlike Nairobi, Kenya, there actually did seem like something of a developed downtown. There were a decent park and a cathedral, among other sites. We tried to get to Fort Santiago, but it was closing right as we arrived. That being said, like Nairobi, the downtown is hectic, noisy, polluted, and full of diesel spewing vehicles causing agonizing traffic. We were both really looking to get out of the city and see the more beautiful side of the Philippines. Even our couchsurfing host said that Manila was the worst part of the Philippines.

Going back home, we knew where we needed to go from the bus stop since I had saved our host’s house on google maps, but we just couldn’t manage to find the way. We asked some people who were chilling at their house if they knew how to get to the next street, and one of them decided to lead us there. On the way, he got another security guard to also accompany us. We ended up taking some shortcut, but it was through a pretty sketchy route. I never would have gone it alone, and I was thankful for their selfless assistance. They didn’t even ask for anything once they got us to the front door of our host’s place.

We took a bus the next day to Bontoc, a town north of Manila in the mountain region.

After driving all night, we just hung out in the city after finding a cheap hotel. The air was cooler, and it was a much smaller city and less hectic than Manila, and we both enjoyed the more relaxed atmosphere.

There seemed to be a lot of things to see in the area, and we decided to go to Sagada. There are some cool caves there that you can climb around in. We took a Jeepney to the town and then hunkered down in a café for a while. It was raining all day, and it just didn’t let up. After a couple of hours, we decided to brave the weather anyway and head out to a lake to camp. It wasn’t actually raining that hard—it was just a constant light rain with no end in sight. We stopped to hide under a sheltered bus stop for a little.

I had laid my backpack on a dry spot, but the rain had brought a small stream of muddy water there, and the bottom of my backpack ended up getting wet and dirty before we noticed that the water had encroached upon that spot. Annoying.

We figured the rain just wasn’t going to let up, so we headed back out on the path to the lake. Just around the corner, we spotted a building under construction, but it looked wholly abandoned.

The bottom level had a roof over it, and we decided to set up camp there since it was dry. The rain never did let up that night, and I was thankful we found a spot like that to set up our tent.

We woke up the next morning to the sound of someone’s flip-flops outside the tent. I poked my head outside the tent to see some scraggily-looking guy leaning against a post just outside our tent, staring at the tent. It was awkward.

He ended up leaving after I got up out of the tent. We continued hiking along the trail, and I was glad that we didn’t try doing it the previous evening while it was raining.

The path was muddy and overgrown with plants, and even the day after the rain, I got soaked because of all the residual water hanging on the plants. It was like walking through a rain forest. But we eventually reached the lake. Well, it was more like a pond. A small one. And it was dirty and uninviting. It totally wasn’t worth it, haha.

We hiked back to Sagada and wanted to check out the caves. We discovered that the entry was a measly 50 pesos, which is about 1 USD. But you had to have a guide, which was 1000, or about 20 USD. We deliberated a little before deciding to go for it since we were there. But we didn’t have that much cash on hand, so we went to an ATM to get more. It started counting money after I had decided how much I wanted. It kept counting. And kept counting. Then it said there was some error and the machine wouldn’t work. So, we went to another ATM. It was off. We went to the 3^rd and last ATM in Sagada. It also wouldn’t work for some reason, giving a generic excuse that it was not operational at the moment.

We couldn’t get enough funds for the caves, so we had to just scrap that idea. We figured we would then go back to Bontoc, which was a bigger city and had more ATMs. We had also left some of our things at the hotel the previous day, and in any case, we didn’t have enough cash on hand to pay for a hotel in Sagada. We went to the Jeepney spot and discovered that the last Jeepney to Bontoc was at 2 pm—30 minutes ago. Luckily, hitchhiking proved to be rather quick, and some kind people picked us up for the 1-hour drive.

We got back to Bontoc. It was time to get money. We finally found the 3 ATMs at the Landbank. None of them worked. I wasn’t quite sure why, as the machines told me that they couldn’t serve me at the time and to use my own bank’s ATM (a tough thing to do when Germany is so far away…). I saw that many other people were also having issues getting money out and were looking upset, so I think maybe the network was done or they were all out of money or something. But I did see one guy get some money out, so I am really not sure what the issue was. I did read online in some Lonely Planet post that one person said Landbank didn’t accept foreign cards, although I found no other mention of that, and that would be rather incredulous. But to that poster’s credit, it sure wasn’t working for me! There was another bank in town, so I went there, but I was immediately stopped by the security guards that informed me that the ATM was broken and they were waiting for a technician to arrive. Wonderful! We tried 7 ATMs in 2 towns, and none of them worked. I had some USD on me, so our last-ditch effort was to exchange some for local currency. Unfortunately, all the banks were already closed at 4 pm except one, but they wouldn’t exchange money. Our last option was the Western Union, and they thankfully exchanged 20 bucks to pesos. With that, we were able to stay one more night in a hotel.

We decided we wanted to go to some islands instead since the mainland just wasn’t quite working for us. I was already looking at bus and flight options, and there was no bus out of Bontoc that day, which is why we needed to stay one more night. I did book a bus ticket the next day, and that would get us to Manila the following day at 3 in the morning. From there, we booked flights to Cebu island.

Booking those flight tickets was a PITA. What is up with the airlines in the Philippines? Cebu had charged us a ridiculous 42 USD to check 1 bag, so we were looking at other airlines. AirAsia went where we wanted to go, so we tried them. To check a bag with them was only about 9 USD, which was much better. Unfortunately, booking through them incurs a ~10% processing fee when paying with a credit card online, so I ended up having to pay an extra 20 USD just to book with them after booking a round-trip flight to Cebu. Not to mention that their website was garbage and slow and I had to go through the entire booking process 4 times before it finally worked. Additionally, I later was trying to book a checked bag online, but it would not work after a dozen attempts. I ended up having to pay at the counter, and more than double what I could have paid online if their website had just functioned.

Airlines I have been very displeased with and would gladly never fly with again: Ryanair, Cebu Pacific, and now AirAsia.

After we had our bus and flight tickets booked, we just relaxed for a bit. We couldn’t really do much since we only had about 500 pesos (10 USD), and we wanted to save it for food or whatever until we got back to Manila and could actually get more money.

The mountain province was kind of a flop for us. No ATMs worked, so we had to turn around earlier than intended. It was raining the entire time, but that happens when you go to the Philippines during the rainy season. That being said, the cooler climate was very welcome, and the landscape was very pretty.

We got on the bus and it got to Manila at about 2 in the morning.

Our flight was at 12:30. Although we did have plenty of time, the traffic can be so heinous that we decided we would just try to get to the airport as soon as possible. There were still a lot of busses driving around, and we eventually spotted one that was going to the airport. We managed to get to the airport and just had to wait for a while before a flight. In the airport, I was able to successfully withdraw more money, so the idea of coming back to Manila to find working ATMs at least worked.

We got to Cebu, and we walked around a bit before meeting up with our couchsurfing host. We stayed there for a few days and checked out the city and a little bit of the surrounding area with him. He was very nice and even drove us around a bit when he had time.

We decided we wanted to go to Bohol island next. We were initially walking to the pier to catch a ferry, but we decided to get in Jeepney after a bit since it wasn’t fun walking with our backpacks in the heat and humidity.

There was a guy (I’ll refer to him as Guy A for this story) talking to Puujee while we were waiting for the Jeepney, but for some reason, he gave me a really odd vibe. I felt pretty rude, but I just didn’t really engage in talking with him. We got in the Jeepney, and I was sitting right behind the driver. I opened my handbag for all of 30 seconds to pull out my small wallet to pay the driver. As I was putting it back, I noticed my other wallet, which has my passports in it, was missing. I had my eyes diverted for all of half a minute, and the guy next to me (Guy B) had taken it. He was getting out of the Jeepney, so I told Puujee to stay there and watch the bags while I chased after him. As I was getting out, Guy A and another guy (Guy C) were saying that my wallet was under the seat. I looked briefly, but I didn’t see it. I told her to look for it while I got out and ran after Guy B, who was now running across the street. I caught up with him and confronted him. He showed that he had nothing in his pockets, and I was about to just call the police so we could search his backpack, but Guy A had gotten out of the Jeepney and approached us. He informed me that they found the wallet in the car. Thank goodness. I apologized to Guy B and went back to the Jeepney and asked where the wallet was. They told me they didn’t have it. It all clicked, and I realized that I had been had. I was not expecting a coordinated effort amongst 3 people. I turned around and ran to where I had left the other 2 (we’re not sure where Guy C went, but he disappeared during the commotion too), but they were already gone. Someone noticed my distress, and upon quickly explaining, he told me that they got into a white Jeepney. The Jeepneys go pretty slow since they’re always stopping to pick up people, so I ran down the street jumping into every Jeepney to quickly look for the criminal. Alas, I didn’t see them and eventually gave up.

I remember Guy B’s appearance. He was probably about 45, about as tall as my chin, and had a good-sized beer belly. Despite his rounded figure, he had somewhat angular cheeks, and his chocolatey-colored cheeks were very pockmarked. So if you go to Cebu City and see someone matching that description, be sure to let me know!

We registered the event with the police who also noticed that there were cameras in the area. They said they would look into it. Oddly, though, they didn’t seem to know who the security cameras on the street lights belonged to.

Among my stolen items were my passport, yellow card, my only credit card, and a few other miscellaneous items. After canceling my credit card, I went to the American consulate in Cebu. Originally, they said that to apply for a normal passport would take 4-6 weeks. I could register for an emergency passport, but I need to do that in Manila. The problem is, I couldn’t fly to Manila since I literally had no ID at that point.

They said they would let me apply for an emergency passport from Cebu, but it would still be sent to Manila and sent back, which means it would likely still take a few days.

Luckily, our couchsurfing host was a godsend and said we could keep staying at his place while we got this sorted.

The next day consisted of getting everything in order. Since we had no cards, we needed to get some money wired to us.

MoneyGram was a PITA. We tried about a dozen places. We were supposed to get it in dollars, but instead we ended up having to get it in pesos, which we then converted back to dollars, losing about 35 USD in the process. Some places we tried demanded 2 forms of ID, and Puujee only had one. Some places required an ID for amounts over 30000 pesos, and we were in effect going to get about 50k. One place seemed like it was going to work out, and in dollars too, but it needed to be authorized by someone who was not around that day. We could have gotten it the next day, but I wanted the cash that day so I could go to the embassy the following morning and get the process for my replacement passport going ASAP. It was a frustrating morning that we spent, just trying to get some money wired to us. I managed to get my passport photo and other documents without too much of a hassle, but man, MoneyGram was not easy. In the end, though, we got it.

I called the police one last time, just to see if there was any development with my passport before paying to get a replacement passport, but there didn’t seem to be any progress on the case. Unsurprising…

I went to the consulate the following day. I gave them the 145 USD and all paperwork. The date at that time was Thursday, the 25^th of July. Our flight out of Cebu to Manila was set for the 30^th on Tuesday at 6:30 am. From there, we would fly to Bali later in the evening.

The guy at the consulate told us that there were so few working days, that I would likely need to book a new flight. I understood. There wasn’t much to be done about it, but we held on hope that it may end up showing up Monday evening.

We had a few days to kill, so we decided we would definitely still go to Bohol. We woke up early and took a taxi to the ferry—no Jeepneys this time!

After getting to the island, we took a bus out to the Chocolate Hills. The hills are a unique geological formation of erosion that resulted in a bunch of perfectly lumped hills that kind of look like little chocolate kisses.

The last ferry from Tagbilaran, Bohol to Cebu was at about 6:30 pm, so we started making our way back to the port. Having to rely on busses meant that we didn’t have much time to explore. I think renting a scooter would have been good. There were a few stands offering scooter rentals near the port. They were cheap, but they wanted ID as collateral, and after getting my passport stolen, I had none and Puujee didn’t want to bring hers to Bohol with us (we left everything valuable at our couchsurfer’s place in Cebu).

We got back to the city at about 5 pm. It was Sunday, and we understood that a lot of people go from Cebu to Bohol for the weekend, so we figured we should buy our tickets ASAP before they get sold out since a lot of people would be going back about then. It started raining on us. And hard. We decided getting the tickets in a timely manner was more important than staying dry, so we marched through the monsoon. We got to the ticketing booth and saw the nondescript sign informing us that there were no tickets left for the day. Could the Philippines get any worse?

We checked next door at a rival ferry, but they were also sold out. As a last-ditch effort, we heard about another ferry company a little farther back in town. We continued hiking through the rain, thoroughly soaked by that point. We got to the office and saw a similar sign.

We contemplated what to do. Unfortunately, most entries on booking.com for the night seemed rather expensive, and we were thinking we might just have to wait outside or in some 24-hour Jollibee restaurant until the first ferry at 6 am started. We decided to go into the last ferry office and inquire anyway. They told us that they were indeed sold out, but their company had another ferry at 10 pm from the town of Tubigon that went to Cebu City. We jumped on the opportunity and immediately bought tickets. We had about 4 hours to get to Tubigon, which was about an hour north. From there, it worked out. We got a bus up north, waited in the town, and then took the ferry to Cebu, where we took a taxi straight home and crashed after a long and exhausting day.

It was Monday. Our flight was the next day. The police still hadn’t found anything. No emergency passport had come in the post. I had originally contemplated changing my flight date to a later date, but since I wasn’t sure exactly when the passport would arrive, it would be stupid if I changed it (and paid the 30 USD fee) only to need to change it again. I decided that if my passport replacement didn’t come in, I would just accept the flight as a lost cause and book a new ticket as soon as I got my new passport. I was just browsing the internet when I noticed that I had a Facebook message. Someone had found my passport! I got in contact with him, and his dad is a Jeepney driver, and they found the wallet under a seat when cleaning their car at the end of the day. (And just in case you’re wondering, no, it wasn’t the Jeepney I was in and it had been there all along; the wallet had been successfully pilfered and the thieves must have just tucked it under the seat of the next Jeepney they got in.)

I called the consulate to see if I could still use my old passport because I understood that they were marked as stolen in some database. She confirmed my fears, and stolen passports get entered into the INTERPOL database that border agents can check. She told me that mine was already marked in the system since I had submitted the paperwork at the consulate.

But since I now had a valid ID (as far as the people at AirAsia for domestic flights would check), I could fly back to Manila the next day and get an emergency passport the same day. Luckily, we had a big gap from our 8 am arrival until our almost-7 pm flight.

We went to the airport and flew to Manila. I almost felt like I was committing some crime, flying on my invalid passport.

After landing, Puujee took all our bags to Terminal 3 while I went outside. I wanted to get downtown ASAP, so a taxi was the ideal choice. A car would get stuck in traffic, though, so I hailed a motorcycle and paid him 200 pesos (4 USD) to take me to the embassy. We zipped through traffic and flew between cars and I got there in no time.

I went in, and they reviewed my case. They informed me that the consulate had actually not sent anything yet, which was kind of frustrating. That hypothetical Monday arrival of my replacement was absolutely not possible since they still had the paperwork sitting in Cebu, despite them telling me they would send it ASAP.  At that rate, it would still have been several days before I would have had my emergency passport.

Alas, there was good to be had from this. The consulate can’t actually submit passports as stolen (even though they told me otherwise). They just forward the paper to Manila, where it gets done there. Since the consulate hadn’t sent anything yet, the embassy hadn’t received anything, and my passport was still valid! They said they would destroy the lost passport form, and of course keep the $145 I paid…, but my passport was still valid! So, uh, thanks for being so slow and useless, American consulate in Cebu! Because of your ineptitude, my passport is still good to go.

Elated, I went back to the airport, but not before getting a haircut in celebration. It cost 1.20 USD. He even trimmed my nose hairs!

After waiting around until the evening, we flew without any more issues to Bali.

It’s more fun in the Philippines.

That’s their motto. I don’t know about that… The Philippines has a claim to fame in that there are over 7,600 islands. On the one hand, that sounds neat, but on the other hand, it means you need to fly a lot to get anywhere, and the discount flights are not that cheap after all. There are also ferries, but they take a lot longer and are often even more expensive than flying. I am so annoyed with Cebu Pacific and AirAsia that just knowing I would have to fly with them would cause me to hesitate going back to the Philippines. In a way, it seemed like nothing worked for us in the Philippines. It was just hardship after trial. I was led to believe that the beaches there are very nice too. While we didn’t necessarily end up having the time to seek out a nice beach, we often were driving along the coasts, and we never really saw a super beautiful beach.

And yet, despite the relatively negative experience I had there, I still feel like there was such a potential to have a good time. The people are friendly (when they’re not pickpocketing you), and everyone speaks English, so it’s very accessible. I would say that, while not immediately, I would be inclined to give the Philippines a second chance someday, but the headache that are the airline possibilities gives me pause.

Kind of an aside, but these discount airlines annoy me so much. Imagine a restaurant that would charge you all sorts of surprise fees. Want to sit next to the people you came with? Charged. Want to bring in a handbag? Charged. Want to pay with any payment option other than their own payment app? Charged. I surely wouldn’t go to a restaurant that would ding me with charges all the time. There are other restaurants. Airlines have the advantage that there often aren’t alternatives, and you have already spent money on booking your ticket, so you can’t easily back out (well you can, but then you get charged…). I digress.

To sum up things. My experience with discount airlines is terrible. My experience in the Philippines was bad, but not discount-airlines level of terrible. I don’t want to give discount airlines any more chances. I might give the Philippines another shot if it just weren’t for those discount airlines gating the country.