It’s 04.15 and I’m sat on the balcony having woken at 03.00 and not managed to get back to sleep….
Akthough it’s still dark, no-one appears to have informed the cockerals that its actually not time to get up yet and they are in full song, I say song….
On the plus side (if there were such a thing) it’s dark, no wind, flat calm with just a notion of waves lapping the beach. Lights are visible all along the shore line from dwellings that are mostly invisible during the day. Now and again the cockerals chorus is broken by the sound of a small boat engine, most likely fisherman at this time of day (night).
It’s been another awesome adventure with so much seen, so many friends, old and new, we have met some of the nicest people through our travels.
During our time here we have seen so many people come and go from all sorts of places including Germany, Hawaii, America, Australia and Malaysia, all bought together by a common interest, there’s always something to talk about!
The staff here have been exceptional as usual from the dive guides, boat captains and crew to the admin team, kitchen and restaurant staff, all under the watchful eye of Dave Santos, the resort manager.
Nothing is too much trouble, everyone is only too pleased to help. Our newly refurbished room was very nice indeed, all new furniture, doors, blinds, fridge and kettle (the old one seemed fine to me!), a swanky new bathroom mirror with built in lighting and clock, USB sockets everywhere, new air conditioning and swanky new Starlink fuelled broadband, very handy for keeping up with things!
Buceo Anilao rightly remains our No. 1 dive destination and we look forward very much to getting back here as soon as we can.
OK, I seem to have veered off the main subject of today’s post and into the land of the epilogue, getting back on track…..
This mornings activities will include (but are not limited to)….
Breakfast as usual then drying everything we can, as much as we can.
Disassembling camera gear, packing that and all the dive kit, charging batteries for headphones, paying the F&B bill and then finally pushing the two T shirts and toothbrush into the bags and we’re off!
The journey back to Manilla Airport is usually 2 to 3 hrs depending on traffic then it’s check in time, sometimes a swift and enjoyable experience, sometimes not so. Then its the usually challenging passport and security check (depending on how busy the airport is) then finally into the departure lounges which are generally OK though this time last year it was the Typhoon debacle which was possibly the least fun I’ve ever had at any airport ever.
Things are starting to brighten up, slightly fewer lights along the coast, slightly more cockerals, daylight is on the way.
Our new friends Mike and Daneen from California leave in about 15 minutes and I can hear the boat being prepped for their departure.
06.00 – OK, everybody up, lots to do!!!
A slightly larger than normal breakfast as we don’t know when our next meal will be, later we find that out will in fact be 11.30, whoops!
Then its off to dissemble and pack camera stuff and then make sure that it dive kit soaks up as much sun as possible, we don’t want to be taking any more water home than we absolutely have to.
We said our goodbyes to D&D as they were heading out for diving at 08.00 then we went for a dip in the pool as things were starting to get a little sticky then back to the room to commence operation ‘packing’.
Packing went well so back in the pool for one more rinse before we check the final packing.
Now we are just waiting for 11.30 when we shall be taking a pre travel lunch of B. L. T. Lumpia and fries then we shall be whisked away by boat and our journey begins!
11.30 lunch and we meet our new restaurant neighbour, Mei, from Las Vegas. During our short chat (whilst I was eating my lunch) we established that she was an acrobat working on a Cirque Du soliel production at the MGM grand.
So over the entire trip we have met movie stars, Ballroom dancers and an acrobat, how exciting!
Lunch done, more goodbyes said and it’s time for Wendel to whisk is around the corner in Buceo #2 to Secret Bay where our driver is waiting to take us to Manila.
As I write e are making our way along the twisting and turning coastal road which is extremely twisty and turny making very hard to write, I trust you all appreciate my efforts!
It’s Saturday and there a lot of Jeepnies about, all of which need to be overtaken. This makes for some exciting passenger moments!
We get to the airport, total journey time 2hrs 30 mins, a good run. The airport appears none to busy though the entire planet seems to be checking in for our flight. On line check in gives us a competetive edge though. Our queue is moving almost impercriviably faster than those who have not checked in already, go us!
It took a total of 90 minutes to get checked in, through passport and security control so now we are enjoying a well earned Red Horse beer and a Royal!
By some amazing stroke of luck, most likely because we have seats at the back of the plane, we are some of the first to board.
Regular readers will know that this offers the distinct advantage of getting half a chance to get our carry on bags in the overhead lockers as we have boarded in advance of the army of locals who seem to think that ‘one piece of cabin baggage weighing no more than 7kg’ actually translates to at least two slightly oversized cabin bags plus a host of other bags, flat screen TV’s and microwaves they seem to be inseparable from.
.. And here we are, 10 minutes in to boarding and all the overhead storage around us is full though strangely the seats are not, go figure?
We actually book seats at the rear of the 777 aircraft because as the aircraft narrows, they reduce the side aisles from 3 seats to two. Thus the route to all required facilities is clear at all times. It’s not that I’m trying to keep up with the guy in front of me on the way out who consumed 8 tins of beer during the flight without getting up from his seat once, I guess he had a leak!
Honestly, I really do plan to sleep. I’m very pleased, nay, excited to report that Jo is actually following my first movie recommendation (Asteroid city) , I’d better don my headphones otherwise I’ll be left behind!
Just arrived DXB after an uneventful flight, well, when I say uneventful, the absolute knob in front of me corps not sit still with his fully reclined seat he kept putting his hands behind his head and hence all over my screen so I had to ease them out of the way gently (the first time).
Back on tetra firma we have transferred to the departure gate area and have bagged some reclined seats, nice!
I do actually manage to get my head down a little at this point, I have about 35 minutes before our planned move to the departure gate – I close my eyes and in an instant open them again to find that 40 minutes had elapsed – thus we make our way to the departure gate. We arrive to find that I could have slept for another 10 minutes at least – oh well!
Emirates randomly (seemingly) select passengers for an additional search (mostly looking for drugs I suspect). Jo fails to be invited for this additional fun whilst I (yep, you guessed right) clearly looked like a drugs mule and am invited for some additional scanning!
At one point I am asked to remove my shoes – I am in a hot airport, having just walked a hundred meters or so – I feared for safety of their equipment and its operator!
All tests passed I move on to find Jo and wait to be called for boarding. In stark contrast to our journey out on this plane – we are in the last boarding group and not the first – regardless – before long we are seated, carry on baggage stowed and ready for the 7hr hop back to London,
This section is relatively un-entertaining – it’s one of these flights that starts in the middle of the night and because of the direction of travel, remains in the night time until our arrival at LHR – great I think – much sleep to be had I thought – I get my head down – I awake – relatively refreshed and check progress, not even half way through – Doh,
I then drift in and out of consciousness – interspersed with snips of whatever movie I was watching and the occasional meal/drink offer.
There is the usual debacle of the reclining seats though I have to say I got off lightly and the seats on a 380 are super big anyway – even in economy so no real complaints there. The chap in front of Jo however was not quite so lucky, the (small) person in front of him reclined to the max as soon as they were on board and refused to respond to any requests to sit back up – even at meal times – not so much fun for him.
we land at LHR only a few minutes behind schedule, passport control was super quick (it’s all machine based now) and we got two of our bags quite quickly – just the camera gear in a Peli case to turn up.
We noticed that several very similar looking cases were on the same flight so whilst I watched the luggage arrive – Jo checks out the people grabbing those – you know – just in case (sorry!) they took ours by mistake – admittedly – we did not have an Australian 7 News network sticker on ours!
They had not taken it by mistake though ultimately then did point to one which had been hand delivered with all the push chairs etc – that’s the one!
All bags in hand we manage to travel past the scary staring eyes of all those folk in uniform and wearing latex gloves and we move into the arrivals hall – I get my phone out to call our taxi driver so that he can swoop in and pick us up (rather than paying to park) at which point my phone battery dies 🙁
A slight panic ensues before Jo finds that, not only does she have a fully charged battery – but she also has the required number, the call is made, phew!
Before long we are collected and make the relatively short trip (70 miles?) home.
We unpack the bags, get two loads of washing and drying done, put the dive kit out for more drying and then spend the rest of the day wandering about like a couple of zombies suffering from extreme sleep depravation, we finally crawl in to bed at around 8.00pm and pass out.
To my extreme disappointment, I wake up and am wide awake at 1.00am – just in time to complete the final post from this trip – what an adventure, what a trip, totally awesome but not what many might conventionally describe as a holiday!
Until the next time……