Come fly with me...

A bottle of captains choice from a shop in Kathmandu; it's just how
you want all your pilots to be...drunk on whiskey!

I think that I might start a job as an airport reviewer, but without all the reams of lonely planet waffle.  Admittedly I’ve not been to as many airports as frequent international business travellers, but for a common tourist I’ve done my fair share.

As a child I loved the feeling of airports.  I can always remember my first ever flight from Manchester Airport to Douglas in the Isle of Man with my Dad – a staggeringly long 30-45 minute flight.  The excitement built as I saw the Co-Op bank pyramid by the side of the motorway, a beacon pointing upwards towards the passing planes.  On each holiday I would always see this beacon thinking back to the excitement of my first trip – however more often than not it misled me as it was along the same route to the Manchester office where I often worked.

I also remember how boring it was once I actually got to the airport.  It felt like ages before you could get on the flight and then you are likely to be hit with a delay due to some ‘technical problem’.  When you hear that it just fills you with confidence that the big bird will actually get off the ground.

So back to my job as an airport guide.   I think I’ve been to around 30 airports in my life with me on my way to airport number 12, Hanoi (I’m writing this on the plane).  What I’ve discovered in all these visits is that people really need to just chill out. 

You get those who panic when they have an hour to check in, worried that it will take longer than an hour to get their bags onto the plane a mere 400 meters away.  You then get those, like I had yesterday, pushing through the aisle of the plane to get to the front as they only have 45 minutes to make their transfer – I only had 15 (but still made it, with a gentle jog through the terminal).

Then there’s the drunks, which I’m sad to say, mostly appear to be British.  Loud, loud, loud.  Loud in the airport, loud on the plane.  You think please don’t tell them you’re British, then they burst into “you know what’s great about our country….?  We had the world, this used to be ours and then we got bored” (and too my fellow colonials I assure you this wasn’t me this time).

Some of things you discover at these airports are some shortcuts.  For example, at huge airports, arrive about 5 minutes before check in closes and you can be guaranteed you’ll get rushed through security and passport control then straight onto the plane without the hanging around on the tarmac. 

Getting a legroom seat without paying is pretty easy.  Just ask for it at check in, rather than paying for it beforehand.  This works best if you’re travelling on your own of course as they can usually slot you anywhere.  (I’ve not had an upgrade yet though).

You also discover how lack or overly robust security is at these airports.  Now whilst I won’t say which airports have incredibly lack security, it shocks you though how bad it is.

One airport I visited checked my hand luggage (and I mean x-ray and searched it) five times.  Now they did this to everyone before you think it’s a ginger thing.  Whilst others didn’t even bother looking at the machine.

I’m often impressed at how well designed some of the airports are, and the wealth of free amenities that come with them, but for this trip here is my short Kermodian (for those that listen BBC Radio 5) review…

• Heathrow – Past its sell by date
• Tokyo – Scarily logical
• Osaka – On an Island and a bit dull
• Taiwan – Was clearly Made In Taiwan
• Hong Kong – Bloody big, but not as nice as I thought
• Manila – Shocking – their first class lounge resembles that of a Glasgow public toilet
• Caticlan – strip of grass with a desk and chair by the side of it for check in
• Beijing – Best airport by a mile
• Kathmandu – Post apocalyptic
• New Delhi – Need to run fast to make the 15min transfer – humongous
• Bangkok – Surprisingly modern and a lot like Dubai Airport

Linking in with airports is the flight itself.  I must say that the planes in South East Asia are pretty darn good and are a par (if not better) than what we have in Europe and the US.   The one thing I must say though about flying is that boy are they turbulent.

Yesterday (Thurs 27^th May), I took two flights.  The first from Kathmandu to New Delhi was like a roller coaster.  It was if the pilot decided to fly the plane moving his hands from left to right, like you see in the old movies when the actor pretends to be driving when in fact they’re in a studio in front of some green screen.  So landing was a sense of relief…or so I thought.

Now, I’ve never really been a person who’s scared of flying.  In fact I love it.  My two favourite moments are taking off and landing.  I used to love playing flight sims, X Plane for the iPad is one of my favourites, that’s if my brother Sam doesn’t steal it from me and tries to land the plane on it’s roof!  I also took gliding lessons with one of my best friends Trev for half a year.  I can always remember the first moment when my heart sank as the glider hit its first thermal (to gain altitude on an engineless plane you have to chase the thermals).

The feeling of hitting a thermal I can only describe as being on a rollercoaster that’s shooting upwards at speed ready to do the loop the loop.  I had one hand on the control and one hand on my parachute cord.  But then after the horror of the first thermal it was all okay and I quickly got used to them.  Turbulence on a jet is just the same (except your smashing through thermals at 600mph rather than 40mph).

As we take off from New Delhi on our way to Bangkok in Thailand we hit a little turbulence, nothing to bad.  Then a bit more, a little stronger than before, but still cool.  And then bang, we hit a big one.  The plane dived a little bit and the corrected itself.

I was sat next to an Indian couple that got married two days ago, and they were off on their honeymoon.  We joked about the turbulence and started chatting about Indian wedding ceremonies.  Our food began to arrive shortly after.  The aisles had about four attendants with their carts, serving veg or non veg food (which I declined as it wouldn’t stay down in my stomach for long; still suffering from food poisoning the day before).

Bang.  We hit some major turbulence.  The pilot re-flashed the already lit fasten seat belt sign.  Bang.  Another hit of turbulence.  The announcer came on to say that the serving of food would be suspended until we get out of this turbulence.  Then the plane swayed to the left and then right, up and then down, followed by successive bangs and more swaying.  Food trays started falling off people’s tables, the cabin crew in the aisles’ crouched down on the floor.  You could really feel that you were travelling at 600mph - which wasn’t good. 

The lady next to me squeezed her new husband tight and began to cry, another person a few seats behind me also began to cry.  At each bump passengers harmoniously went ‘whoa’, ‘ooooh’.  The pilot seemed to try to fight the plane through it but kept getting punched at every angle like an exhausted boxer losing his final fight.

One thing that amazes me, and I admit I do this myself, is that when you hit a bit of turbulence, you grab your arm rests.  Now when you think about it, that isn’t going to make you more secure or even stop the turbulence from happening – but you still do it.  I think it must have something to do with the built in reflex we get when we are born (from what I remember from watching Dr Robert Winston on the BBC, and I could be wrong, is that we are born with two instinctive things that freak us out; loud noise and the fear of falling).

So ten minutes into this rollercoaster, the wings flapping like a bird, we finally broke through it.  Which was much to the relief of all the passengers and more importantly, my stomach.

So if you’ve not travelled to SE Asia before, be prepared for some bumps, some shockingly bad airports (and some world class ones), stressed out westerners and good clean planes with fantastic food.

Happy Flying.

Beijing - It's a bugs life

So here it is, Alex, Terrance and I eating some random insect. Tasted good to be honest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmXOXE0Vuc4

A quick video of my trip to Datong

Cool!

Another short video of my time in Beijing. This one follows me to Datong and was filmed on my iPhone so the sound might be a bit poor. The day was incredibly long and the train back (which I couldn't film as the phone ran out of juice) was not a comfortable one - however it was well worth the visit.

Philippines – An Englishman, Canadian and an American all walk up a volcano…

Elizabeth and Ashley on the boat to the volcano

One of the highlights of travelling to different countries is that not only do you meet fantastic locals but you also meet warm and kind people such as Elizabeth and Ashley.  Both teachers in Japan and from America and Canada respectively they decided to head out to the Philippines for vacation and I was lucky to have spent a week and a half with them.

These were the two people that persuaded me to go to the island of Boracay instead of Cebu and I couldn’t thank them enough!  But more on that in a later post.

Our most memorable and exciting adventure our trio embarked on was to hike up a dormant volcano called Taal in the northern province of Batangas.  Our trip started at 10am leaving Manila bus station heading for two hours to a place called Tagaytay; from there we’d swap bus for trike which would take us down to Taal Lake.  We would have to bargain for a boat to take us across the lake to the volcano.

So let’s talk about the bus trip.  We caught a normal public bus which filled up pretty quickly.  The bus itself was showing 300 on the screens and wasn’t necessarily modern, but reminds me of the buses that you used to take on school trips.

Some of the food that was on offer

A view of the bus with 300 on the screen

Because of the heat all the windows had curtains or at least a tint covering, with some busses having windows that can be fully opened (like the old intercity trains).

At every stop along the way someone would come on board serving local food at cut price – imagine like a chaotic trolley cart on the train, with the guy or girl screaming to everyone if they want some banana or nuts at a good price.  We did try a few of the foods on offer – some were far more appetizing than others (my advice is to stay away from the coconut cake, or at least I think it was coconut).

When we arrived at our stop (that the driver and passengers kindly pointed out to us), we then had to (as we originally thought) get a jeepney.  Jeepneys are everywhere in the Philippines and are the most commonly used forms of transport.  They were old military vehicles that the US left behind after the Second World War, and what makes the vehicles remarkable is the ‘pimp my ride’ decorative styling on each one.

A Jeepney

Each vehicle is unique in its decoration

Some are smaller than others

You can find a jeepney around every corner

So as we headed to the jeepneys it turned out that actually you can’t go to the lake in one of them; it had to be a trike.  The Philippine trike is basically a motorcycle with a sidecar that could fit two to five passengers (sometimes a lot more if you chose to stand and ride on the side, which I did on many drunken occasions in Boracay).

The trike

Me and Ashley in the side car

Elizabeth sat on the back of the bike

Our driver

Me on the back of the trike

Ashley was at first apprehensive but through there be no other way getting down there she dived in and off we went chugging along for thirty minutes down some hills to the lake.

Arriving at the lake we were taken to a boat that was offering a slightly higher price than we were told, but in the end we just wanted to get there and paid up and off we went on what we thought was a nice quite ride.

Our luxury liner awaits

Getting on and off the boat was a bit tricky

Our captain

Ashley and I sat next to each other with Elizabeth sat confidently across from us.  Leaving the jetty it started off okay and then all of the sudden it got really choppy (I had no idea lakes could get choppy) and in an instant Elizabeth was soaked.  Leaping onto Ashley we found some plastic sheeting and hid under there for the 20-30 minute sail across the high seas.

Fail

When we arrived at the volcano and paid our entrance fee we headed up the track to the summit, passing a load of people who chose not to walk the route but to take a lift on the back of a horse.

horses for hire

Grabbing some lunch before heading up the volcano

Rice with lots of flies was the main dish (was quite good)

Ashley and Elizabeth admiring the view half way up

Random hiking shot

And another random shot

At the top the view of the volcano was stunning.  Basically it’s a lake that appears to be boiling from all the sulphur that is emanating from beneath it.  We took a load of snaps and then headed back for another wet boat ride.

The amazing view from the top

Three of us with the volcano lake behind

Me with customary beer in hand

Steam vents up from the ground

Sulphur deposits

Ashley looking on

Second arty shot

Ashley's attempt at taking a photograph of me 

A few weeks later the news reported that there was a lot of seismic activity around the volcano and they had to evacuate the locals from the area as a precautionary measure (Link to the news story).  Thankfully everything is back to normal.

Philippines – Cock Fighting

KFC anyone?

On one of the sunny days in Manila a few of us decided to go and watch a popular southeast Asian sport of cock fighting, or Sabong as it’s known locally.  There are in fact two different types of cockfighting the legal and illegal (tupada) ones.  We ventured to the more reputable and legal cockpit arena (where the term cockpit comes from).

Photographs are not normally allowed so we took this as quickly as we could!

Held in one of the more poorer provinces we were the only westerners there and the locals treated us like guests, helping us to some really good seats and explaining the rules of the game and more importantly how to bet.

The main aim of the fight is that two well trained (and prior to the event very looked after) poultry are put into the cockpit armed with blades (I kid you not) and began to tussle it out until one of them dies.

Trainers deciding which of their two birds will fight (the one that's more
aggressive is always picked)

Quite often the fights are over quickly with one of the birds doing some high flying kick and taking the other bird out – that is seriously what happens. 

An unlucky blow took this one out in seconds

It’s incredible how quickly you become quite chilled out about the whole thing; this a far cry from bull fighting, where last year I went with my friend Vicky (who doesn’t realize she’s a great inspiration for my world trip) to Pamplona in Spain to be chased by bulls but worse still watched the brutality of the matador executing the bull slowly and painfully.

This could be perhaps that it’s animal on animal or that it’s over quickly rather than in a long fifteen minute blood bath – but you just lose emotion from it.

Bets are taken and made across the cockpit using hand signals

One of our "guides" with a wad of 1,000 peso notes in his hand

Patrick looking on to the intermediaries in red
who place bets on other peoples behalf

The excitement from the cock fighting truly comes from before each fight.  The moment when everyone goes crazy and wages bets with each other on if the favourite will win or not.  I could never fully grasp how the odds system worked but these varied with whom you were betting.  Suffice to say I made a loss of a few thousand pesos (but did have one win!).

Philippines – Shopping for things you want, and things you really don’t want

Some of the accommodation in the poorer parts of Manila

I was told there is a three tier system in terms of wealth in the Philippines.  Now some may argue that all societies have this but I tend to believe that there are many more tiers in say our system in the UK, than there is elsewhere.  So in the UK I would say you have, the very poor, poor, working class, middle class, upper-mid, upper, and super rich.

After spending a naked hour in a spa with a wealthy Philippine who provided some insight into the culture – well it was his opinion.  He described that you have the upper of which they are very few of them literally a few hundred (from recollection) that have it all.  The middle class are unhappy as being fed US sitcoms they are constantly aspiring to be something that is unachievable outside of fiction and then you have the poor who are really happy as they’ve adapted to live the lifestyle that was dealt to them (and these people are way poorer than anyone in the UK could ever be).

So that’s how he put it to me and to some extent you can see this – whilst I wouldn’t fully agree that all the poor are happy and all the middles are not.  You can easily see this divide when it comes to Makati and especially the Greenbelt mall.

Makati, where I was staying, is a lovely place; but I would describe it as an over the top island of wealth in the sea of poor.  The area is covered with beautifully designed high buildings with views over the poorer parts of the city.

A picture of wealth and growing economy

Of course the wealthy have to be protected and it’s the most guarded area I’ve been too on any holiday, even more so than Egypt.  They are literally armed guards everywhere either with little guns or big shotguns.  And where some may find it uneasy, I feel that it does make you feel safe.

Now to the Greenbelt mall – which is by far the nicest I have ever been too.  The shopping centre housed tons of branded shops in a loop of five greenbelt malls, with the centre of which landscaped beautifully.  Trees, ponds and a modern open air church are lit up stunningly at night.  I did spend a lot of my time when in Manila at this mall.

The mall is covered with landscaping

One of the greenbelt malls behind the trees

Reminds me of my trip to Pamplona and the bull run! 

You could be miles away in a park, but you're in a busy mall instead 

Across the road by walkway is another shopping centre, and more akin to what you see back in the UK.  It was fronted by a shop called Landmark which was a lot like Primark – a vast department store with lots of little themed branded departments.

I bought a few things from both malls, with I would have to say my best buy (and something I recommend for any trip) is a pair of Columbia Pants, which at the hefty price of £50, are the lightest most durable quick drying convertible trousers I’ve seen.  I ended up getting a second pair on my return from Boracay.

Philippines – Thriller in Manila

The first European group I was with in Manila

Here is the start of a series of posts about my trip to the Philippines.  I'll try and add a new one every other day so I can catch up and write about my China trip!  Hope you enjoy.

Now over a month ago I arrived at the main Philippine airport, Ninoy Aquino International and as soon as the plane doors opened you could feel how hot the place was – which was brilliant.  Whilst I loved my time in Japan and Hong Kong the weather just wasn’t hot enough – one of the dreams of this trip was to spend a long time in a hot place, ideally on a beautiful sandy beach.

Learning a tip from one of the Philippine forums I headed out of arrivals and into departures to pick up a taxi that’s just dropped someone off (you tend to get better rates and aren’t ripped off).

The fare to get to the hostel, Our Melting Pot, was PHP 200 (pesos).  This was about £2.90 for a thirty minute ride – crazy cheap.  The taxi driver was really friendly, and we had a good conversation about the disaster in Japan and how in some areas of the Philippines they were evacuated on the advice that the Tsunami was coming their way.

The living room in the hostel

Our Melting Pot was a hostel that occupied two apartments in a brand new office, residential and hotel complex in Makati (the posh part of Manila).  The place was really nice and not what I was expecting.

The hostel had a really nice homely feel to it, and the staff there would bend of backwards to help you with anything that you needed and were never short of advice on what to do, where to go and what to avoid.

I met up with a few people from different countries across Europe; and we headed out around the more tougher parts of the capital – on recommendation from one of the groups members who frequented the area the night before.

Heading over in our taxi the place was like a ghetto, seriously you were under the feeling that we are going to get car-jacked, it was dark and creepy.  Emerging out this darkness we came to the area with all the bars and was advised to head to this bar.

The gang enjoying quite a few drinks

Sat down with our drinks one of the group (who shall remain nameless Patrick) suggested that him and I talk to a group of girls on one of the tables behind us as the keep looking over.  I had a quick look and turned back to him and said “they’re all guys”.  “No, no Dave they’re definitely girls, come on”, “No you go ahead mate and I’ll wait here”.

About 10 minutes later the anonymous person (Patrick) returned “OK.  Two of them are guys and the others are definitely girls”.  Another quick look reaffirmed my original belief that they were certainly guys – admittedly one of them (girl in a red dress) looked exactly like Michelle Obama and so genuinely quite pretty, but went with my gut to be safe.

He headed back to the group and returned another five minutes later, “okay, okay, four of them a guys and two of them are definite girls – we’re in man, the one in the red’s really nice”.  “Look man, they are for sure guys, and I’ll prove it”.  I called over the waiter and asked if the group of girls on that table came here all the time, which he confirmed, and then I asked were they all guys and he confirmed that too – Patr….oops, the anonymous guy was gutted – but I like to think I saved him.

A nervous but smiling Patrick and embarrassed Bernd.

We were also introduced to a Philippine snack that was an egg with the foetus of a chick inside.  None of us had the stomach to eat one, but one of the locals was more than happy to show us how it is eaten.

The chick in an egg

A local devouring it whole

Leaving the bars we headed off around the area to a couple of other bars, one of which I got to sing with a live band – which is pretty cool, and as you hop between bars you are constantly approached with a menu of women to have a lap dance with.  We all declined obviously.

The selection of women 'on offer' that night

The thing that struck you most about this area was the people sleeping on the streets in boxes and on benches.  This was really a poor area of the city.  Children as young as seven were coming up to you as you leave a bar begging for money or trying to sell you cigarettes.  It’s not a nice image to see.  I spoke to one of the kids whilst we were waiting for the rest of the gang to leave this bar and I asked him why does he do this.  He eventually replied with “I’m told it will make me have friends”. 

That ended the night for me, I just wanted to go home.

Despite being forced to sell the Children were still
children who just wanted to play

The young boy who wanted to make friends with people sleeping
in the background on the streets

More people sleeping in the street