Pursuit of the Endless Summer #11

Layovers: The Philippines, Guam, Brunei

What day is it? Where are we going next? What country are we in? How long are we staying? Frequently I ask Andrea these questions, as she has become our travel organizer. With palm pilot in hand, she popped up the stored information, rattled off the answers, and gave me that look… “Can’t you remember?”

The Jeepney

Getting to Palau from Australia involved a couple of planned layovers. First Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and second Manila – an overcrowded, traffic clogged, polluted, noisy city that’s normally not a travel destination. The “Jeepney” is how most Filippinos get around. Jeepney owners personalize their vehicles, literally creating rolling works of art, which we loved photographing as they paraded by stuffed with passengers.

Manila was interesting, but it was nice to be at the airport to leave for Palau, patiently waiting in one of the many unorganized lines. The clock crept closer to our 10:15 am departure time and my concern was growing. Asking a nearby airline representative if we would make our flight resulted in a puzzled look, immediate conversation with his supervisor and our advance to the front of the line. We were informed that we would not catch our 10:15 flight because it had already departed at 9 am!

Being stuck in Manila was not a promising prospect so we anxiously awaited the airline’s solution to our dilemma.

Plan A: Stay in Manila another day and fly out tomorrow.

Plan B: Catch the noon flight to Guam, stay overnight and fly to Palau the next day

Overwhelmingly, we chose Plan B. We calmly discussed our new itinerary and budget concerns while the Continental Micronesia airline representative checked us in, then interjected, “We’ll be taking care of the hotel and meal expenses during your stay in Guam”.

Excellent, problem solved! With big smiles on our faces we stepped into our ocean view suite at the Hilton Resort Guam. Later I realized that leaving the travel details to me created this little side trip. I didn’t remember being informed of a flight time change when I reconfirmed our flight, but I found a scrap of paper with the time change written on it – oops! So much for my travelling planning skills. Well fed and rested we caught our flight to Palau the following afternoon.

A few months later, back in Manila standing in the customs line at the airport my mind drifted back to a statement I’d made on our previous visit, “no need to ever come back here again”. Nevertheless, we received a tip about good inexpensive scuba diving and accommodation on the small island of Panglao (near Cebu) so we decided to give the Philippines another try.

Our resort, the Alona beach Hotel, was nestled along a white sandy beach and our bungalow was just steps away. In fact everything we needed was within a few minutes walk. We spent eight days reading, relaxing, scuba diving, recovering from food poisoning, and visiting the island’s sights, including the world’s smallest monkeys.

Our quick departure from the Philippines was influenced by Muslim guerrilla action in which tourists were taken hostage from an island nearby. Seeing a military vehicle pass by loaded with heavily armed soldiers didn’t make us any more comfortable. Boarding our flight out of Manila I told Andrea with more conviction, “I’m never coming back to the Philippines”, and maybe this time I’ll be true to my word.

The small country of Brunei (population 300,000) is not a big tourist destination. Our flight itinerary scheduled us for a quick three day, two night stopover. The Muslim religion and the Royal Family influence every aspect of life. Strolling around the city, the mix of Western culture, nice cars, fast food, shopping malls, and designer clothes combined with huge mosques, the Royal Palace, women covered from head to toe, and robed men coming or going from one of the four daily prayer sessions was an interesting contrast.

Brunei mosque

Once we had seen the ornately constructed mosques and taken a water taxi around the floating village our touristy adventures were complete. The rest of our visit had us enjoying our hotel room’s nice hot bath/shower and pool. Brunei doesn’t encourage tourism nor discourage it; I just think with the countries wealth they haven’t needed the economic help it provides. I suppose now that the country has just declared itself bankrupt (corrupt royal family member blew something like 26 billion dollars!) the time has come for Brunei to being a series push to promoting tourism.