22nd March - Melbourne to Manila with just a few obstacles to clear

Sunday 22^nd March 2015

By the skin of our teeth, here we are in Manila, in one of the cheap & cheerful Tune hotels (Ermita Malate.)

But only just are we here…

Katy took us to the airport in good time, to catch the plane to Melbourne at 9.50.  The international flight didn’t leave till 13.35 so – plenty of time!!  The Hobart-Melbourne plane was just a bit delayed in departure, landing and unloading…

Not a problem, really, one would think.  We rushed off the plane and I went straight into International to check in while Pete waited for our luggage.  A nice, peaceful Air Brunei employee spoke to me soothingly.  You have plenty of time, don’t worry, the plane won’t leave without you, but you can’t check in until your luggage is here.  Pete appeared in record time – sometimes we have to wait for agonisingly long periods of time for our luggage to trundle majestically past us on the carousel.

So what could be the problem??  Well…we don’t have proof that we will be leaving the Philippines.  The protocol at Manila airport is, they said, very strict.  If we arrived without tickets out of the country within a month or so, we would be sent straight back to Melbourne, and Air Brunei would get a $5000 fine for each of us.

We did have proof of 2XS awaiting us, and various other documents which might or might not be relevant.  We had twelve minutes before the gate closed…The Air Brunei people were very competent and calm, and they extended the check-in time by five minutes for us.  In the end we were allowed onto the plane, with an escort making sure we didn’t dart off into Duty Free, thereby delaying the process.  (Apparently people do this, when they are being escorted at high speed to planes just about ready to take off…)

So far so good…we were allowed to fly as far as Brunei, where news MIGHT have filtered down from Manila giving us the green light.  We weren’t thrilled at the prospect of having to spend an indefinite period of time in the Bandar Seri Begawan airport, beautiful though it is, nor did we want to be ignominiously deported.  Our other option was to buy cheap air tickets to any other country, from Manila.  This would have involved getting internet connection and doing it at high speed before catching or connecting flight.  What could possibly go wrong??  MANY things!

But when we got to the lovely light, airy airport - oh joy – a beautiful sight.

Another escort to walk us, speedily, through all of the formalities and to collect our luggage, check in, and get onto the next plane to Manila. 

Breathe breathe…all of our hurdles were done and dusted.  All that remained was to get through the fearsome Philippines Immigration, who might still demand to see proof of our departure.  The queues was long and agonisingly slow… Finally it was our turn at the counter.  We had watched, a bit nervously, as others ahead of us were interrogated quite severely, with many documents passing to and fro, and many stern questions being asked.  At last…step up sir, ma’am!  A plump young woman looked very swiftly at our passports, got out her rubber stamp and went stampety stamp on the blank pages without a blink.  Over and out and into the country! 

Pete had filled in a long, tedious, complicated Customs declaration on the plane.  He clutched it compliantly in his fist and we made our way to the Customs queues.  Sir, ma’am, this way!  somebody waved us towards an empty counter and – that was it!  Pete went up to one of the officials with his document and he bloke laughed happily.  Keep it as a souvenir, he said, with a lovely smile.

So we are at the Tune Hotel, ready for the next leg of the journey back to 2XS.  (We have become quite attached to Tune Hotels, cheap and cheerful, but apparently the chain has been bought by a Chinese company and will shortly be re-named Red Planet.)