View From Manila Airport

Our Chinese New Year holiday to the Philippines was one part stunning beauty, three parts ridiculous experience. Pythons, food poisoning, flight delays all featured.  There was ice cream and beaches too but that's kind of what you'd expect to be on holiday to an archipelago of over 7,000 islands.
And I don't want to speak poorly of the Philippines because the people, the hospitality were second to none.  They would have laid down their metaphorical carpets to ensure you had a good time, an enjoyable stay.   Stepping off the plane from China, we noticed a perceptible shift.  People were kind; they smiled and said hello;  English was universally spoken and understood.  These things were very welcome. And yet.

I guess after travels through Thailand and Vietnam, I thought I had Asian travel just about sussed.  But then you fly into Manila, with its millions of people crammed into a small space and you change your tune.  I mean, the chaos is the same.  But the infrastructure is so, so different.  The little we saw of Manila, between airport and accommodation was nothing to write home about.  In its fairness, most spaces on the outskirts of a city are not.  But was did strike me, was the US aid money floating around the myriad building enterprises, roads, shopping malls, you name it.   With a rising power like China on the doorstep, the Philippines is ideally placed to be a great ally to the US; what opportunistic friends the American government is.

Another difference that struck me was religion.  The Philippines is the second biggest Catholic country in the world.  If you sit down with a map of Asia, you will understand why that's so strange--it's surrounded by: China and its 1.2 billion 'officially atheist' population; Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world; Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, et al--home of a smattering of 'smaller' religions--Taoist, Buddhist, Shinto.  Where Thailand was filled with stunning temples, the Philippines paid homage to the Pope and his recent visit.  Churches, both grand and tiny, dotted each island.

But I digress.

Island 'Hopping'
After a flight into Manila and a short sleep, we made our way back to the airport to catch a flight to the island of Bohol.  Easier said than done--Manila airport has four terminals, none of which are connected to one another.  To go from one terminal to another involves a taxi and twenty minutes, depending on the traffic.  We flew into brand-new terminal three and out of tiny terminal four--a glorified sandwich box for which you must pay a terminal fee to 'use'.  There's hardly enough space for everyone indoors so a restaurant and waiting area exist outside--there you can smoke, watch the planes land nearly touching them and then have your meal.  Fortunately, we arrived two hours for a flight that was inevitably one-hour delayed to enjoy these amenities.

The box of a pre-gateside waiting area (note man with cup-a-noodle, one of Asia's greatest inventions):

Unlike Vietnam and Thailand, flights were a bit of a pain to sort.  Not in their price (cheap) or their frequency (often).  What presented challenges was the sojourn back to Manila every time we wanted to transfer islands.  This makes sense if you're from the Philippines--lots of people go to Manila for work and then make their way back to family on various islands.  Most Filipinos have no need or desire to do island-to-island flights.

For tourists, this is annoying.  Over the course of our two-week stay, we flew to Bohol and then back to Manila, transferred terminals, flew to Palawan, back to Manila, transferred terminals and then back to Shanghai.  Between flight delays and connection transfers, we spent nearly two whole days at the airport.

So maybe my 'and yet' feeling stems from the fact that, despite two weeks in this island paradise, I don't feel like I even scratched the surface.  Unless you count an intimate knowledge of the airport.