Scamming... Yer doin' it wrong

So I've got a story from last night and I don't really know what to make of it. Because I'm only in Manila for a couple days I decided it would be worth taking a tour of some sort to be able to learn as much about the city as I can while I'm here. I found a guy that was recommended by the lonely planet and was told to be at a specific spot at 3pm for the tour. As it turns out, because of the iglesias de cristo thing going on (that's kind of another story but I have never seen traffic this bad before in my life) he cancelled the tour.

Well that kind of sucks, I really did want to do this tour. Now there was another guy there, an Aussie named Jack, that was also looking for a tour. Through some other random guy we ended up meeting Lance, a local who works at the national library who offered to take us on a tour for free. Well ok, that seems like a reasonable price.
So we set out and he really did know a lot of history about the country and was giving quite a good tour. I think both Jack and i were quite happy to have randomly met this guy. We ended up wandering around for a couple of hours before Lance suggested that we head to the bay to see the sunset and have a beer, so we caught a cab and went to a bar at the Mall of Asia.

Now because of all the people and traffic, the cab ride probably took close to an hour and we missed the sunset, but we were at a bar with beer and that's all that really mattered. So we ordered some beer and some kind of amazing food platter and started chowing.

At some point Lance mentioned that he has colon cancer and the doctors gave him 5 years to live. That was very unfortunate I said and I was sorry to hear it but he said that he's come to accept it and its not how long you live, but how you live that matters. I thought that was a really good way to look at life.

Well at some point a couple of beers later in the evening Lance was obviously not feeling well. He seemed to be uncomfortable and in a bit of pain. He mentioned that he gets like this every few months and he needed to get some medicine. There was a drug store nearby and he asked if we would mind paying for the medicine which he said would be about 1250 pesos. Jack and i didn't have a problem with that and we ended up giving him 1500 pesos as we didn't have change.

Well Lance limped over towards the drug store and that's the last we saw of him. Were we scammed? Did he just take us for 1500 pesos (roughly $40)? What I don't get is why did he take us on a tour and spend 5 hours with us in order to get $40 out of us? Jack and I had showed up to take a tour that was going to cost us 1100 pesos each. I was going to offer him some money at the end of the evening anyways just for his trouble. The beer and food wasn't really an expense, and we weren't going to ask him to pay anyways. I'm just really confused if I got ripped off for an amount that was basically fair compensation for the service he provided us. Shouldn't I feel bad after getting ripped off? 

Eff it's hot here

So after arriving at my hostel yesterday afternoon (which is really quite nice) I was so exhausted from travelling I needed to crash for a bit. I woke up after a couple hours when my roommate came in. Dennis is from South Korea and his English isn't so good but he's quite a nice guy. He encouraged me to get out and take a look around which I knew I should because if I just stayed in bed I would probably wake up at 3am and not be able to sleep again.

I went out and wandered a bit but i didn't have a map so i didn't really have a good sense of where i was going. I headed in the direction of the coconut palace and apparently just missed it by a block or so, I might wander back there today. What i did manage to see was a beautiful sunset over Manila Bay, quite spectacular!

My first real impression of this city is that it's very dirty, very busy, and kind of a dump. I wandered for a couple of hours and got tired again so i grabbed a quick bite and headed back to the hostel. Dennis came back again and he was going to head out to what he called a "sexy bar". I told him I was going to pass, I only really had about 10 hours of sleep in the last three nights combined so i wanted to catch up. I also told him not to bring any ladyboys back to the room.

This morning I got up early to head to the old Spanish fortification of Intramuros. It wasn't far, but it turned out to be a long walk because there is some kind of church event going on. There are thousands and thousands of people in the streets and it's a little difficult to navigate. I feel like a bit of a celebrity though. I've posed for several pictures with various random people and there was one boy of about 12 years old who came up to me and asked me if i was a priest. I said no and he asked what I was doing here. I told him that i was just visiting and he said "please enjoy this place". Kind of warmed my heart.

I'm going to head back to Intramuros later this afternoon to join a tour. I don't really know what else I should try to see. My Lonely Planet has a few ideas, but isn't very enthusiastic about any of them. Most of the good sights to be seen aren't in Manila, but around it. I'll make sure to get down to Taal volcano tomorrow. It will be a little pricy, but I don't think I want to spend another day here.

ps. These people LOVE Superman! I can't count how many people I saw wearing Superman logos today.

Nice try AC, you almost had it

So I knew it was too good to be true. I went to check-in at the Thai Airlines counter this morning as I was instructed to by Air Canada yesterday and they had no record of me for today's flight. Great!

They told me to go see someone at the Thai Airlines help counter so i did. Nope, no help there. They had even just spoken to someone from Air Canada and had been given the name of another passenger to transfer, but nothing about me. Ok, perfect, over to see Air Canada then.

To be fair, they resolved the problem pretty quickly. I just would have been pretty pissed if they had told me that the flight was now full or something like that.

I was a little disappointed at first when they put me on Thai Airlines instead of Singapore Air as was my original booking because I have heard great things about Singapore Air. Well I'm definitely not disappointed anymore, Thai Airlines gets two big thumbs up from me. Great service, roomy seats, awesome food (green curry chicken) and the stewardess keeps coming around and topping off my wine glass (in a real glass). Well done!

On the upside they didn't manage to lose my bag so I'm pretty pleased. I'm in Manila now and I'm really tired and very confused as to what day it is. I hope to spend tomorrow wandering around Intramuros, the old Spanish city in the heart of Manila. Maybe I'll head down to Taal volcano the next day if i can recruit a couple more people to go with me to cut the cost.

So here's a funny story for you. I had just landed in Manila and left the airport. My driver to get me to the hostel (Hector) was telling me about the city. About 5 minutes into the drive he asked me if i was single and wanted to meet some nice Filipinas. I said I was single, but wasn't looking to meet anyone, I just came here to see the city. Well that didn't deter him. He said if i wanted a nice clean girl to talk to him. The ones in the bars are very dirty he said. Ummm... Ok. I didn't really know what to say so I changed the topic. I had been here for less than an hour and I already found a pimp, or rather he found me.

London by accident

Well blow me down and call me Sally! It was just like that Air Canada agent told me. While I was in the air someone noticed that I would miss my connection and booked me a new route. Not only that but they met me as i deplaned to give me my new flight information and to apologize for the inconvenience. My new flights will route me through Bangkok instead of Singapore but I ended up getting stranded in London overnight. Oh... darn...

Air Canada was even nice enough to provide accommodations, meals and transport to the hotel. Not a bad deal overall. I went and checked in and promptly found my way back to the tube to go into central London and take a look around. Now I have been to London before... Maybe 20 years ago? Maybe more... And i don't remember much of it. On top of that, I don't even know what i should be trying to see. I basically ended up looking at the map for the underground and finding a stop that i recognized the name of: Piccadilly Circus. So I went there, and then I started to walk. I think i did a pretty good job of my impromptu self led tour. I managed to find 10 Downing, Westminster, Big Ben, London Bridge, Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and probably a number of other things that i didn't realize were landmarks at the time. Basically I just did a lot of walking.

Now I'm just topping off my night with a couple pints and some fish and chips and I'm coming to the realization that I only got an hour or two of bad sleep on the plane last night. I need to get back to the hotel and sleep.

One final thought for tonight. Every time I go to an amazing city (such as London) I always wonder what they must think of us in Canada. "Those Canadians are such cute rural folks and they just try so hard to be liked. They're just so adorable." It's just that we really have nothing that even comes close to anything like London, or Paris, or New York or any number of other amazing places around the world. And everyone is so sharply dressed here... what's wrong with us?

Here we go again...

Well I'm off on my next trip and I decided that it makes more sense to continue adding to this blog than it does to start a new one. So although this is my Afblogistan, this is going to have nothing to do with Afghanistan.

It's been close to two weeks since we've had any snow in Ottawa. So why is it that the day I need to travel we get a heavy snowfall warning? On top of that, when i woke up Thursday morning I felt like ass. Some kind of bad chest cold and a throbbing headache. My big concern at that point was that my ears would block and i wouldn't be able to fly. Luckily the sick seems to have contained itself to my lungs so I'm good to go, but still not happy about it.

Anyways even though the weather has been crap all afternoon, I was checking my flight status and as of around 6:30pm (my flight was scheduled for 9:45pm) the plane was on schedule. Well I went to the airport and checked in and got settled to wait for my flight. What I then learned was that the whole flight tracking system was down "worldwide" as one Air Canada employee explained to me. What this meant was my flight was actually delayed and had been for some time, I just had no way of finding out.

The story I was told was that the flight got all the way in from Toronto and then had to turn back because of the weather. Well I have it on good authority that Porter had managed to land their flights from the big stink without any trouble. Oh Air Canada, my home and native carrier, truly you disappoint me and all thy sons as well.

Well I don't have much time to make my transfer in London, I think only and hour and a half between flights, and since the delay was an hour and a half I decided I should look into doing something about rerouting. I found an Air Canada agent and was told that I'm not the only one that is delayed (well duh, but i am the only one asking you to do something about it at this very moment) and if I was going to miss my connection I would be rerouted while I'm in the air on my flight to London. Really? Without me doing anything? Air Canada will just figure out that I'm supposed to transfer over to Singapore Airlines and that I'm not going to make it in time so they'll automatically just put me on another flight because gutter watching over me like some kind of guardian angel? That sounds wonderful... And yet somehow unlikely. Well this agent didn't seem like she was going to be much help so I decided to wait until someone showed up at my gate and i would talk to them.

Well before that happened, the flight got delayed again, about 2 hours from the original departure time. Not a big deal, I can't miss my connection any worse. It is what it is. Anyways, I did go talk to the gate agent and she pulled up the flight info and insisted that the flight would arrive in London at 9:35am and since my connection wasn't until 11am I would have lots of time. Hmmm... That doesn't seem right either.... Maybe I'm too trusting.

After checking my travel docs I realized that 9:35am was the original arrival time for the flight. Yeah... I'm pretty sure we're not going to make that arrival unless the pilot knows some kind of shortcut that he's been keeping under wraps from the rest of the world. Oh well... The plane was boarding, I might as well get on and just see what happens. I'm in no rush to get anywhere anyways and I can think of worse ways to start a vacation than an accidental layover in London while I wait for the next flight. Maybe I'm just a little bitter because nobody actually seems interested in helping, they just seem to want to deflect the problem so that they don't have to deal with it themselves.

I'm writing this as I sit on the plane so I'll just have to wait and see what happens I guess.

ps. What fresh Hell is this? Stuck between a baby and a snorer on the plane! Unexpected twist.

pps. I think i might have just seen Harry Potter's adoptive family (what were their names?). Brits are funny.