At last, after a long 39 hrs and 50 mins travelling, including 4 flights and 15 hours hanging around with layovers and delays, I am sitting here by the pool in Puerto Princesa in the Palawan Islands writing this post.
We arrived here yesterday so I thought I’d take some time out today and tell you all about my journey here from the UK.
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1.30pm – picked up at home by my good buddy Shaun who took us to Bristol airport- 1 hour
2.30pm – arrive at Bristol airport and check in
5.25pm – flight takes off to Amsterdam on time
7.45pm – arrive in Amsterdam – 1 hour and 20 minutes
7.45pm to 8.55pm – layover – 1 hour and 10 minutes
8.55pm – flight takes off to Bangkok on time
1.15pm arrive in Bangkok – 11 hours and 20 minutes
1.15pm to 2.30pm – layover in Bangkok – 1 hour and 15 minutes
2.30pm flight takes off to Manila on time
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6.50pm – arrive in Manila – 3 hours and 20 minutes
6.50pm (Wed) to 6.55am (Thu) – layover in Manila airport – 12 hours and 5 minutes
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6.55am to 12.55pm – flight delayed – 6 hours
12.55am am take flight to Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines
2.20pm arrive in Puerto Princesa – 1 hour and 25 minutes.
I’m going to start this post thanking my good buddy Shauny Baby from Cirencester for taking us to Bristol airport… you’re a legend mate.
We flew with KLM airlines and our check in was very quick and smooth. However, they did thoroughly check all of the required documentation for entry into the Philippines and I think that having print outs of the relevant documents helped speed the process up – check out my ‘Entry Requirements‘ post for details on the required documentation for entry into the Philippines.
To some, a journey lasting over 39 hours and involving 4 different flights may sound like a bit of a nightmare… but not to me. I absolutely love the whole experience of travelling to my destination. I fully sign up to the old cliche “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey that’s important”. I love spending time in airports, train stations and bus stations people watching, seeing a whole variety of people making their way to different parts of the globe – families going on holiday, business travellers, solo travellers and gap year friends taking their first steps into a new world of adventures and experiences.
The journey from the UK to Manila went swimmingly with two short stopovers of just over an hour each in Amsterdam and Bangkok. It was a weird stopover in Bangkok as we stayed on the aircraft for the whole time and the cleaners came onto the plane and cleaned around us – first time that’s happened to me.
We arrived in Manila on time at around 6.50pm on Wednesday evening where we collected our backpacks from luggage control and began our 12 hour wait for our domestic flight to Puerto Princesa in the Palawan Islands.
Just before the start of Covid-19 I registered for an American Express card with a plan to use the card as much as possible for my everyday spending in the UK, clear my balance off each month and accumulate lots of airmiles and a few complementary airport lounge tickets. Then, we were going to spend a good few hours in the airport lounge at Manila airport relaxing, stuffing our faces and using the internet. Unfortunately, I had overlooked the fact that our connecting flight to Puerto Princesa was a domestic flight and there weren’t any airport lounges – slight oversight on my part.
So here we were, feeling pretty shattered with only a few closed food shops around so our options for killing time was pretty limited and the worst thing of all was that all of the seating had permanenty arm divider so we couldn’t even stretch out and have a kip – I hate those things in airports and stations. Then I spotted something that looked kind of interesting, so I went to investige. It turned out to be a transit lounge called The Wings that offered a bed for us to put our head down for a few hours… at a cost of course.
After a good hearted discussion with the friendly lady on reception, which included us walking away twice to think about it (cunning eh!) we managed to negotiate a cost of £12.00 for 6 hours for the both of us. For that we had our own private room with quite a basic but adequate bunk bed, power points, showers and access to a communal kitchen that included free water, coffee and a selection of teas. I know what your thinking and you’d be quite right in your thinking… such extravagance when travelling on a budget. We were however pretty knackered and as it turns out our flight from Manila to Puerto Princesa was delayed for about 6 hours so we were glad of the 4 hours or so solid sleep and a hot shower.
Nothing really to comment on the flight to Puerto Princesa it took slightly under an hour and a half and we arrived in Puerto Princesa at about 2.20 in the afternoon.
After picking up our luggage we made our way to the outside of the airport where we hopped into the pre-arranged ransport we had organised with he hotel. Again, not the best way to travel on a budget but I like to arrange transportation to my first hotel when I start a trip, especially if it’s lomg haul as I’m usually shattered… and I was.
After putting off our trip for just over two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic here we were in Puerto Pirncesa in the Philippine Palawan Isalnd… our trip had finally started!
