Getting There: The 52-Hour Journey

All packed up and ready to go!

The night before I left, I couldn’t sleep. I knew I should be savoring the warmth and comfort of my childhood bed one last time before a month of uncertain bed situations, but the road ahead was too exciting to let my mind rest. Instead, I tossed and turned, anxious to step onto the first of five planes and for the adventure to begin.

When 4:30am rolled around, I had probably only gotten an hour or two of actual sleep, and if that’s not the best way to start a trip halfway around the world, I don’t know what is. The next few hours were a bit of a blur, but I must have slept through most of my East-to-West-Coast flight because I woke up in San Francisco.

I boarded a short flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, arriving at about 2:00pm only to realize that I was the king of planning stupidly long layovers. I must have thought it would take forever to gather my checked bag and exchange currency, but there I was at 2:30pm with my bag and my Philippines Pesos, with my next flight taking off at 10:30pm that evening. I wandered into the International Terminal to find that I wouldn’t even be able to get my ticket and check my bag until 6:45pm.

So I sat on the ground and waited. And I sat. And I stood up because my butt hurt. And I sat. And I changed out of my work boots because they were hurting my feet. And I sat. And I tried to find a chair because the floor is hard and the hours were not moving faster no matter how often I checked my watch. And I sat. And then it was 3:00pm.

Did I mention I am the king of planning stupidly long layovers?

Luckily, I eventually found a seat and fell asleep for an hour. When I finally checked my bag and got through security, there were only four hours left until my flight took off – halfway there! I grabbed some dinner and took out my laptop to try to pass the time which ended up working because the LAX internet was so slow it took me about 30 minutes to log into Facebook. So I wrote the beginning of this blog post instead.

Dinner at LAX – Umami Burger’s truffle burger. I long for this now.

Is this a flight list or just the list of places I want to go?

Tickets!

When it was time to leave the states, I boarded a large plane complete with personal entertainment devices at every seat. Gotta love international travel. The flight was scheduled to be about 15 hours long, so I settled into my seat, chose a bunch of music to listen to, started the playlist, and then dozed in and out of slumber until the drink cart came by.

The airline supplies various Chinese newspapers for the flight

Essentially says: easymode or hardmode

Now, I’ve been on international flights a fair number of times, but I never knew about this whole “alcohol is free” rule until recently, so I decided to try it out. Sure enough, the flight attendant supplied the materials to make Calimocho, and I was set until dinner came shortly after. The meal was some kind of beef and mashed potatoes, which I forgot to take a picture of despite my love of plane food, but you’re not really missing anything. After dinner, I pumped myself up to marathon a few movies, but passed out before I even started the first.

I’m pretty lucky in the sense that I can fall comfortably asleep in most situations. Floor of an airport? Check. Back of a car? Check. Seat on an airplane? Double check. I slept until they served congee/jook for breakfast, which I did manage to get a picture of. I watched a movie and a half (I think the universe never wants me to see the end of Argo, because this was the third time I’d started it and didn’t get to the end) before we landed in China.

Super excited for the Chinese breakfast on the flight

Turns out there’s not much of a line to get through immigration at 5:00am, so I quickly passed through and found my way to my gate for the flight to Manila. Luckily, the shops in the terminal started to open up at about 6:00am, so it wasn’t long before I was perusing through different teas and packaged preserved chicken thighs. I also found a place called Mike’s Pizza House, where I learned that the concept of Hawaiian Pizza had spread all the way to China.

Hi Mike

As the sun rose and the airport windows started to show something other than the black of night, I was able to catch glimpses of the mainland buildings before leaving to the Philippines. In the back of my mind, I made a mental note that I must come back and stay a while some time. With another destination added to my ever-expanding travel list, I boarded the fourth of five planes (almost there!) to get me to Manila.

Next stop, Manila

The flight from China to Manila had the best plane food of the trip so far. (Did I mention that I love plane food?) They served what would be my second breakfast and the choices were fish noodles or “Chinese Dim Sum” – do you even have to ask what I chose? My seat partner chose the fish noodles which looked like lo mein with fish, but the dim sum was delicious. The taro cakes were pretty good, but the chicken bao was amazing. If I am ever faced with “Chinese Dim Sum” on a plane again, I’m going all in.

So. Very. Delicious.

The flight was only two hours long, so I soon landed in Manila, but not before looking out the window to survey the landscape a bit. I’m not entirely sure what I saw, but from what I gathered, there seemed to be a lot of house skeletons submerged in water near the airport. It was pretty haunting to see as we descended from the sky, and the stretch of sunken houses seemed endless as we flew into the airport.

Haunting

Obligatory wing picture. Also, I’m in the Philippines now

Customs and immigration went extremely quickly, and I was soon ticketed with my bag checked for the last time for flight five of five. I got through security and immediately hit the shops to try and get my first Fanta sighting. I found “Royal,” which appears to be the name of Fanta in the Philippines, but all I could find were Orange and Grape flavors (or Tru-Orange and Tru-Grape). The search will continue.

Lorde would be proud

I found my gate with three hours to spare, so I decided to check out the food options in the airport, eventually settling at the most crowded place in the airport, a spot called “Let’s Chow!” I ordered the only thing on the menu I didn’t know how to pronounce and didn’t readily recognize, something called Tokwa’t Baboy, but they were out, so I settled with Pork and Rice instead. There were a bunch of places advertising something called “Rice Toppings” and from what I gathered from the pork and rice (Asado) dish, it is exactly as it sounds. With food in my stomach and the truest of Tru-Grape Royal in hand, I sat at gate 120 for the final leg of my trip, a short plane ride to Tacloban.

How can you go wrong?

Asado rice topping

The ever-elusive Tokwa’t Baboy

If it didn’t take me 10 minutes to load each picture, I’d reload this and rotate it

The plan was to board the plane at 3:00pm, getting me to Tacloban before 5:00, a perfect amount of time to stop by one of the shopping malls to buy a foam mattress before getting to base. But the plan is always open to unexpected changes, remember? So when the announcement came on that the flight was delayed, I sat back in my chair and got comfortable.

The woman to my left was named Josephine, or Josy for short. She was 69 years old and visiting her ancestral home in Tacloban for the 9^th anniversary of her father’s death. She was a widow with four grown children and she had taken to traveling the world when she was able. I told her all about my volunteer trip and the All Hands Volunteer program I’d be staying with in Utap, where it happened that she was staying as well. We chatted about travel and our families until our plane arrived, and she mentioned that we would be getting into Tacloban at 6:30, where it might not be safe to bring all of my luggage with me to the store and then base afterwards, so it would be best to get the mattress another day. She added that her nephew owned a tricycle, so she’d at least be able to help me get a ride from the airport to base without any of the locals trying to overcharge me for the trip.

When we touched down in Tacloban, I met up with Josy and she was unable to reach her nephew, so her brother-in-law and grandson offered to give me a ride in their car instead. They even went so far as to take me to the store so I could get a mattress before arriving on base. I made sure to thank them profusely and excessively over the course of the trip, but they all seemed happy to help. We said our goodbyes as they dropped me off at the base, and I’m not sure I’ll ever see them again.

There are people in this world who have kind souls, and I was lucky enough to meet one of them in the Manila airport. There are people who will help others without any expectation of payment or reward, without giving a thought to recognition or credit. These people can be found in the most unexpected places, under the most unexpected circumstances, but they are everywhere, and that thought makes me feel a little more optimistic about this world. Josy and her family are some of these people, and as I looked up at the All Hands base, listening to the other volunteers moving around inside, I hoped I could be too.