Spent the night at the airport as the flight was at 6.40am. Had a very difficult time falling asleep at the skyview lounge because of the jarring snoring noises from other sleeping travellers. Caught the flight and arrived at Ninoy Aquino Airport Terminal 1 at 10.10am. Soon started to realise the attitude atrocities and inefficiencies of the locals.
Upon alighting from the plane, an annoying officer kept insisting we fill out every single blank of the travel plan forms correctly, effectively wasting about 10 minutes of our time. After that, we realised we were the last few to claim our baggage, and alas, Slug's trolley (which actually came with his luggage, but had to be detached during check-in) was missing. Slug was moaning in disappointment because the trolley had been a useful travel companion on his trips. If that idiotic officer had not stalled us for so long, we would have been in time to claim the trolley and prevented it from being stolen by some cheapskate local (shall I mention 90% of my flight consisted of Filipino passengers?). We went to the lost baggage counter, but we decided to give up the search upon seeing their can't-be-bothered faces and slow movements. Besides, we had to rush to Terminal 3 to catch our domestic flight departing at 12.10pm.
Terminal 3, their domestic airline terminal, is a ridiculous 20 minute-ride away, so we had to take a cab there. We were pissed off again when the driver said he had no change for the 200 pesos we handed him (our ride cost only 140 pesos). Whatever, if 60 pesos (SGD$2) mattered so much to him. Check-in and baggage scanning took another 30 minutes. I cannot help but curse: they are fucking slow!
It was raining heavily, but I was not surprised - annual typhoon season strikes the country starting from June. Boarded the plane bound for Tagbilaran airport in Bohol, taking with us a growing disillusionment and resentment towards the locals.
Cebu Pacific is a cheaper option to fly domestically
Passing by many islands along the way
Could even see the Chocolate Hills from above!
Going to touch down ... ...
We arrived at the small and unimpressive Taglibaran airport, claimed our baggage (Slug was again reminded of his painful loss of his trolley) and took a habal-habal (a modified motorcycle to seat more than two and serving unofficially as a taxi) to our resort on Panglao Island off the Bohol mainland. It was a butt-aching 45-minute ride through forests of assorted trees and kampung-style houses.
At Tagbilaran airport
Habal-habal near the airport
Spotting a garish jeepney
On the dry sandy lonely road
Passing by individual and simple houses along the way
We arrived at our resort, Amorita, and were consoled to receive a warm welcome, some sweet welcome drinks with sago balls, and a decent room (with two Queen-sized beds and over 40 cable channels, wooo!).
They even bothered to scatter pretty red flowers at the sink
Later in the afternoon, we explored the Alona beach just outside of Amorita and was very disappointed to find out it was nothing more than just a beach lined with a few other resorts and their beachfront restaurants. Seemingly a lovely image? Not with all those masseurs bothering us with parrot-like "Massage?"s and the copious bunches of smelly seaweed along the shoreline. No happening bars, no shopping centres, no entertainment facilities, and we were many miles away from the main city of Bohol. And we thought this would be something like Phuket.
Alona Beach
We tried to cheer ourselves up by going for a seafood dinner, and we came across a small open-air eatery by the beach that promised the lowest prices for grilled seafood. We were allowed to choose from the seafood that they had displayed, and we ordered a grilled fish, 4 large prawns, hotdogs and a chicken thigh. We were horrified when these dishes arrived: it seemed as though they just took the creatures from the display trays, straightaway slapped them onto the grill and burnt them. No marinade, no sauces, no seasoning, completely au naturel. This shitty meal cost an unjustified 840 pesos.
We were so saddened with what we had seen so far, to the extent that I felt like bringing forward our return flight to Manila to the next day. We decided to stock up on enough cup noodles to take us through the next few days, so we went to a convenience store on our way back to our resort and realised the store-owner had a son-in-law who was a driver. We then decided to hire the driver to take us around Bohol the next day to visit some sights that I had came for.
Spent the night watching cable TV. Well, at least there was something to look forward to the next day.
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