By the time we arrived at our final destination, we had traveled by taxi, train, subway, maglev, plane, van, bus, crop duster, tricycle (a motorcycle with a little side car attached), banca boat, and feet. Getting out of China was easy enough (always a surprise) – we woke up, grabbed a taxi, sat down on our high speed train, and left – no wait time and no running, which is about as good as travel can get.
Shanghai was, well, Shanghai – there’s a constant, merciless crush of people sweeping you in one direction or another at all times, and in spite of the heat most of the locals were still wearing their winter jackets and staring at my bare legs and sandals, by turns disgusted and amused. We rode the subway to the MagLev station. Shanghai’s maglev is the coolest train in the history of the world. It runs on magnets! The trip to the airport takes exactly eight minutes at 431 km/h. Then we went through customs and security and walked up to our gate just as they announced boarding – once again, no wait and no running, and signs reading “our construction gives you unconvenience, please forgive us.” I forgive you, Shanghai.
I slept a little bit on the plane, and landed at Manila International Airport feeling a little sleepy, happy, and relaxed and all about being on vacation. That sense of well-being came to a crashing halt, however, once we walked outside and found that the money-changing station didn’t change RMB. And that they claimed to be the only bank in the airport. So we started panicking, since we didn’t have any currency to get us anywhere. Eventually, though, we found another place that did change RMB, and was right next to the first place we tried. We were at a loss as to why the other bank didn’t just point us across the hall, but with that problem solved, we set about getting to the hotel.
Of course, we didn’t have a reservation or a plan or even a travel guide. And it was dark and very hot, and we had no idea how to get anywhere. We wandered around the streets outside the airport hailing cabs that wouldn’t stop, until finally a lady explained to us that cabs couldn’t stop there. Eventually we wound up at the airport transport desk, where the staff told us that we could get a van (for an exorbitant price) to take us to the Duck Inn, a recommended place to stay in a cool area with tasty Greek food. So we agreed on the price and got in the car with an aggressively friendly man named Rollie.
Rollie was tired, he told us, and he didn’t know where the Duck Inn was. However, he wanted to help us, and said he would take us to a great travel agent who would solve our problems. We drove for five minutes to meet this travel agent (who we eventually figured out Rollie had a financial arrangement with), who put the fear of god into me by telling us that all the hotels were booked. EXCEPT for one – located right across the street! By now we both understood that we’d walked into a trap, except we were getting too freaked out to think our way out of it. So to the Only Hotel in Manila we went – a terrifying establishment called the Carlson Hotel – the elevator barely worked and the air conditioner definitely didn’t, there was something sticky coating every reachable surface, and one of the door handles was a rusty nail. Oh, and it was FREAKISHLY expensive. There was a huge hassle involving the money, which Rollie wound up running away with, leaving us terrified, confused, and being accused of robbery, but fortunately it got sorted out without us paying twice. By this point I was really badly spooked – I was scared we wouldn’t be able to get a flight to Boracay after all, and that we wouldn’t be able to find a hotel if we got there, and I was pretty sure that if it came down to it I’d feel safer sleeping in the Manila airport for six days.
That fear was totally justified as soon as we ventured outside for some seriously needed drinking water and chewing gum – the streets were lined with KTV bars and prostitutes, all of which screamed at Chris and occasionally tried to grab him, never mind the vice-like grip I had on his arm (not in a possessive or distrustful way, mind you, I just didn’t want him to get raped). It was a scene from a movie I did NOT want to be in, with whores every where and roving bands of really tough-looking young men. When we arrived back at the hotel in one piece, poor Chris whimpered as he squeezed hand sanitizer all over his arms, “I don’t like it when whores touch me,” which seemed like the perfect tagline for the entire evening.
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