"Are you BC?": D :D (Day 138 of the world trip)

20.01.2020

The night on the floor at the airport was more relaxing than expected! Of course, I was still dog-tired. It was a bit chilly all the time because of the air conditioning and the light wasn't dimmed at night ;-)

Jonas had headphones on and had pulled the top corner of his sleeping bag over his face, so his eyes were darkened. So he slept even better/longer than me and seemed really fit!

He also didn't notice when a security guard woke me up at some point in the night and asked me for my boarding pass^^ When I showed it to him, everything was fine and he let me sleep for the last hour until the alarm went off^^

At 6:00 a.m., the alarm went off as planned and we went to one of the "parks" to consume our self-brought goods <3

That wasn't only financially attractive but also saved us from standing in one of the endless queues at all the stalls. Some people obviously needed coffee urgently ;-)

By the way, Jonas and I were as expected only two of many overnight guests^^ The toilets were busy with brushing teeth, fixing hair and applying makeup :p

At 7:30 a.m., we were at our gate and at 8:20 a.m., our plane took off on time towards the Philippines <33

Both of us were still quite tired and dozed most of the time. The 3.5 hours felt quite long, but maybe that was just because I was still a bit sleepy ;-)

When approaching the Philippines, Jonas and I were a bit...surprised^^ Close your eyes and imagine a picture of the Philippines. You think of beaches, palm trees and turquoise water.

Yeees... but not in a big city like Cebu, where we landed :D :D :D

Like any other big city, it is built up and even looked quite "worn out" and rather dirty from above.

Well. Immigration went smoothly at first. There was a stamp, we gave fingerprints and there was even a smile! :O That is not often seen at immigration^^

At the baggage carousel, I first picked up the wrong backpack! It was also a backpack but not THE backpack :D :D

Then we withdrew cash outside at the ATM (roughly 1€ = 50 pesos) and then we looked for the bus, as this is the cheapest way to get to the city center. You only pay 50 pesos per person!

After going in the wrong direction at first, we asked for the bus stop and then found it immediately :) We put our luggage on a shelf and even found seats before the bus left.

The first stop was exactly the bus stop Jonas originally wanted to go to but this way it was better because we had a seat :p

From there, the bus drove from the (semi-)island of Mactan to the actual Cebu City, where our hostel is also located.

The bus ride took over an hour, even though it wasn't even 10 km :O Because the streets here are crowded! It sometimes reminds a bit of India :p They don't stick to their lane, they push and don't let people turn. Horns are honked and sometimes the traffic stops for minutes for no apparent reason :D

From a bridge, we took a few snapshots of the industrial-looking port and a water park - a pretty funny contrast actually ;-)

The closer we got to the city, the poorer the street view became :( I mean, we were aware that the Philippines don't only consist of vacation islands, but I was still surprised HOW much garbage was lying around, how people walked around in dirty clothes, and then we even drove past a slum that had formed next to an empty factory.

In advance, I had checked the current situation in the Philippines on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I don't know if that influenced my impression, but many things I had read there fit in well here.

Although we weren't even there yet, the street view reminded us of the "wrong neighborhoods" in South America. Maybe that really has to do with the colonial influence? In any case, there are problems with corruption and especially drugs here now. I suspect that is more visible in the city than on the beaches ;-)

From the final stop of our airport bus, it was just under 4 km to our hostel. Jonas and I decided to take a taxi out of convenience.

Security is taken very seriously here. Already when boarding the bus at the airport, there was security and there are also surveillance cameras on the bus. The police presence is quite high overall...

At our destination bus station, we followed the crowd to a taxi stand. There was also a security guard. He had a tear-off block on which he always noted the name and license plate of an approaching taxi. The passenger then receives this ticket in order to complain directly in case of any problems. Wow!

I don't know if it's a precaution or if there have been problems with taxi rides here before. In any case, we were surprised by the effort! The ticket also had a hotline and a few other instructions for the taxi ride. They are really strict here!

We needed ages because of the traffic for the 4 km. Finally, we stopped at a Pungko-Punkgo restaurant. That is the name of a dish served in a food stall here, and in the backyard of this covered kitchen, there is the hostel.

Jonas and I were a bit skeptical at first about where we ended up here :O :D The food stall doesn't look very clean, you can smell the garbage, but there are really a lot of people eating there all the time!

Behind an inconspicuous, unlocked door, we found the reception of the hostel and a staff member rushed over to check us in. There is a common room here with sofas, a statue of Maria, Bibles, prayer books, and a Jesus cross on the wall.

As we learned from Wikipedia, over 90% of Filipinos are Christians and well. It wasn't that surprising that we have a narrow bunk bed in our private double room :p :D :D Better safe than sorry ;-)

The room itself is not large, but they make an effort to make it look chic here!! There are duvets, towels, and even a chair as a storage space. We had read this as a criticism on the review site beforehand: that there was no storage space. Well. They apparently followed up on that directly ;-) :)

Despite the initially shady location, we are definitely satisfied with our accommodation :)

Today's plan was initially to finally drop off our laundry. For that, we went to a laundry service in a side street and on the way there, we were able to look at the street view on foot for the first time.

Well. It's a city! :p

A group of teenagers collected garbage together with a supervisor, and next to it was an older man lying shirtless on a cardboard box... And I think we are already in a really good area here because there are many hotels that at least look very nice from the outside ^^

After dropping off the laundry, we went in search of food. Even at the fast food restaurants, there is security and of course also at the entrances to the mall. But it was immediately noticeable that Jonas and I, as white people, were searched much less thoroughly than the locals...

Although you are already checked at the entrance (a lady patted down Jonas' waistband. I suspect it was about weapons or something?), each store within the mall has its own security as well. That's already very very unusual!

While we were searching for a warm meal, three young students approached us. They were very excited and asked us "are you BC?" We were a bit confused about what this abbreviation could mean, but after a bit of back and forth, the misunderstanding was resolved. They wanted to know if we were "BUSY", i.e. if we had time to participate in an interview^^

We gladly took the time for this and the three positioned themselves. One filmed, one held her phone close to us to record the sound, and the third asked us a few questions about the Philippines and our first impression.

The first attempts were interrupted because of a few giggle attacks, but then it worked out^^ Since we had only been here for a few hours, we were not the perfect interviewees, but we answered as best we could and they were very excited :D

As a conclusion, there were a few more photos, a lot of "thank you" and then our paths separated ;-)

Jonas and I didn't find anything in the mall that appealed to us and went outside where we continued to search, asked around, and I got whiny again until we finally found an option that seemed good in terms of price and selection <3 :D :D

It became a Persian restaurant, where there are both Indian and Mediterranean dishes. We ordered portions that we couldn't even finish and now have a snack for tomorrow^^

Although we were so full, we still went to the supermarket. It looked big and we were curious about what was there. In addition to a few chocolate cookies (Jonas likes the ones with strawberry cream inside... strange :p), we wanted to buy toast.

When we compared the prices and tried to match the names with the price tags, a "promoter" approached us. There was a special deal going on, if you buy newly introduced Japanese toast, you get a small package of whole wheat toast for free.

Well, why not? :D :D We accepted the offer and were happy about the bargain :D

Back at the hostel, we immediately tried a few slices of toast with chocolate cream as dessert (you have to test it! :O) and now we're winding down the evening quietly.

Maybe we'll go to bed early because last night wasn't very sleep-filled and tomorrow is probably "sightseeing" in Cebu City :)