Misadventure Two

Well, we certainly had an exciting day yesterday.

We left El Nido at 1pm on a charter flight to Manila. Manila airport has 4 terminals. We landed at one, and had to transfer to another to catch our next flight to Cebu City. Being one who is always prepared for the worst, I gave us 3 hours between flights to change terminals. Unfortunately, in Manila, that is not enough time.

Mistake number one: When we booked the flight, we received a confirmation/info email, which we never read.

Mistake two: When we arrived in Manila, instead of referring to the email, we asked a stewardess which terminal Cebu Pacific flew domestic flights from. She said Terminal three., which they did. What we did not know, because we did not read the email, was that we were flying on their partner airline, Tiger Air.

Mistake three: When we arrived at Terminal three, we were told we needed to go to Terminal four where Tiger Air was, and our two choices for getting there were a taxi or the free shuttle. We took the shuttle, which took over an hour to arrive, and when it did, the driver was insistent that we not leave until the last three seats were full. So I bought the empty seats. That was at 4:05 pm and our flight was to leave at 5:00 pm.

How long can it take to get from one terminal to another you ask? You cannot imagine...

Apparently they are building a sky train - get this - to take people from one terminal to another - and the traffic congestion was unfathomable! Our shuttle took 40 minutes to go about 1 kilometer. By the time the driver dropped us at the side of the road,across from Terminal 4, we had only minutes to cut off time. We had to run across five or six lanes of traffic with no time to spare, so Nick bravely walked out with his hand in the air and brought 6 lanes of traffic to a halt.

Mistake number four: As most people do in the developed world, we had an e-ticket. When we got to the airport entrance, we were stopped by one of two security checks - BEFORE getting to security. There, he asked for our tickets, which of course we did not have because they were on my email, and there was no internet to prove it. After convincing the guard to let us through anyway, we went through the next security check where our bags were scanned.

Grabbing bags and sweaters and money belt, etc off the conveyor belt, we ran to get to the counter in time to get our boarding passes. The line-up was long - too long to stand in, so we marched up to the front, hastily explained the situation to a girl, and she seemed like she was going to help us. She asked for our passports. That's when I discovered I DID NOT HAVE MY PASSPORT!!!!

At that point, I moved from anxious to a state of absolute panic. I dropped my suitcase and ran back to the baggage scanner where I thought I had left it, and began yelling at the guards - and everyone is sight - that my passport was gone.

No one cared.

I ran back to the counter in tears, where Nicholas sheepishly handed me my passport holder, which in my haste, I had left on the conveyor belt, and he had picked up, and promptly forgot he had. It mattered not, because by then the flight had left, and we were sent to the ticket office to buy yet another ticket at five times the cost of the original!

It vaguely reminded me of a hasty sprint through the Barcelona airport after Joel and I had been locked on an out or service train!

At the time, of course, the experience was not pleasant, but I am always reminded that it is these experiences that teach us lessons, and become the great stories we share years later. The scary moments are the ones that produce belly laughs in the future - and are in fact, one of the reasons I take my kids on these trips.