Malaysia to Manila, Philipines

It’s another travel day! But today we’re taking to the skies instead of the rails and heading to country #5, the Philippines! Chris found an island called Coron that looks to have beautiful cliffs and incredibly clear water that we are excited to check out. It’s a bit of a trek to get there so today we’ll complete leg one from Kuala Lumpur to Manila and then tomorrow we’ll complete leg two.

KL airport had a few lounges we wanted to maximize our time in so we got an early start. It took about 50 minutes by car to get from our hotel to the airport. The driving in Malaysia is nuts. Pretty sure there’s no speed limit and cutting people off in traffic to avoid the lines is standard. We were even passed by a police escort on the way that pushed all the cars to the shoulder and everyone just kept driving! Once at the airport it was a struggle to find our check in counter, the correct line, security, and the lounge but we finally figure it out. KL is a massive airport and we had to take a bus to a separate terminal to get to our gate. We didn’t get as much time in the lounge as we would have liked but we were grateful we had the extra time to navigate the airport. Once we arrived we really enjoyed the lounge - very comfy and the food was great. They even had showers that we could have used! Our flight was delayed quite a bit but we met another American couple in the terminal that we enjoyed talking to. Our flight had a fair amount of turbulence which Chris really hates but we survived and landed in Manila!

We thought Georgetown was culture shock but Manila is another level. Chris said on a spicy scale Georgetown was hot and Manila is fire. The area around the airport is very rough. Lots of slums that, from our research, we understand are run by gangs and the local police do not interfere or even enter.

Chels did a lot of research prior to arrival to make sure we stayed in a safe area with lots of hotels and restaurants. Kinda reminded us of South Lake Tahoe but with armed security - there was even a casino with a cover band playing. Even though we felt safe, we didn’t really feel very welcome - from the immigration officers to the desk staff at our accommodations, it didn’t feel like they wanted us here. We later found out it’s a holiday week so maybe they were just grumpy in general and not grumpy with us.

On the topic of armed security, we had to pass through metal detectors to enter the mall and many restaurants/stores were the same. There was an armed guard at every store, including Starbucks and a convenience store nearby. When we say armed, they were ARMED. Many guards were carrying long guns such as pump shotguns. We noticed that anyone parking in the nearby parking structure had to allow police to search their vehicle before parking as well. In a nutshell, we could tell that the area has had challenges, and while we felt safe, we plan to stay in another part of Manila on our return journey.

Chris found us a Filipino resturant for dinner and we knew it was going to be good when we arrived and there was a huge line of locals waiting for tables. After trying some new food we made it back to our room and got some rest before it’s back to the airport in the morning.Meer informatie