Davao airport is OK, its normally efficient and reasonable, and there are coffee shops before you go through to the gate that are perfectly OK. I was told that a new coffee shop opened past the gate, so I felt I would give it a chance. When I went in there it was well laid out, very bright, and so clogged up in smoke, that I doubt I would have seen the sandwich let alone taste it. So, about turn and off to another coffee shop past the gates, this was NO SMOKING, so I was already pleased.
I went to the counter and a young lady chewing gum played a new game with me. From the huge menu I managed to chose everything that was not available, even managed to get told four times that coffee was not available, but if my finger crossed to the next line on the menu it was available. Myself and my friend Steve just started to laugh at the absurdness of it, but the lady kept going, still chewing gum, and finally we managed to order a coffee and an ice tea and toast and something. I say “something” as we both just left it on the plate. As we left, we noticed many other people pushing the “food” around the plate with a confused look.
Sitting at the gate we watched our plane change gates, then we boarded and had a form of “LOTTO” game on board, before landing at Manila, and feeling a little hungry we decide to cross the road to get a McDonald’s, we had to walk halfway around the perimeter of the airport, as the stairs to the road were closed, and the bridge across the road only went half way.
After being fed and watered we had to get a taxi to New Manila, and that became the Manila curse, as the first one wanted a figure equal to me buying his taxi, the second wanted slightly lower, but when I disagreed he suddenly had no idea where New Manila was. After getting in and out of two Taxis and being brushed off by another two, we finally had a driver who must have been the greatest taxi driver in Manila, as he went down so many side roads, we arrived in good time, and gave him a good tip.
A few days later myself and a friend were going to Baguio, so we decided to get up at 5.30 to get the 7am bus. Well we finally managed to get up at 6am, rushed out and knowing the bus station was only ten minutes away we tried to hail a taxi. Twenty minutes later we were still there, but no problem we still had time. Eventually we got a taxi, twenty minutes to go, so we would still be OK to get the bus.
The taxi dropped us at the Victory coach station and drove off, yes it was Victory Liner station, but the coaches were asleep, as this was NOT the terminal, just the maintenance depot.
So we had to get a motor cycle to the real station, still with time to spare, we purchased the tickets ready to board the bus. The bus had gone, it was still not 7am, around 6.50, the bus went because the clock on the bus station wall was was wrong, but never mind that’s the time he was going by.
Leave a Reply