Kevin and Spencer dropped us off at LAX around 8:00 PM Tuesday and our journey began. Our international flight was delayed by an hour and by doing so skipping our layover in Guam. Our original fight was scheduled to take off at 10:10 although we didn't end up leaving LAX until midnight. Our plane was a 747. It was the largest airplane we have ever been in. It had two stories with a staircase in the middle. For whatever reason we were not seated together on our flight, but luckily a nice man that we nick named "GI Joe" found an empty seat allowing us to have our own row, window and bulkhead area. It was very nice. We landed in Manila at 4:30 AM after a 14 hour flight. It was now Thursday. Shortly after customs we located a taxi to take us to Batangas pier where we could catch a ferry to Puerto Galleria. After a few stops at travel agents and CB radio conversations with his friends the taxi driver took us on the two hour journey to the pier where we were escorted by armed security guards to the ticket office. Tickets to Sabang (on the island of Mindoro) were 170 pesos each ~$3.25 for a distance equal to Long Beach to Catalina. The car ride through Manila was an experience to remember. I cannot believe Shelley did not puke (even though she got very car sick) There were no stop signs or signals (at least that anyone followed on our route). They honk at each other almost continuously. It is always everybody's turn. Shelley closed her eyes until we were safely to our boat. Our boat was a standard banca and surprisingly there was another white person on the boat. He grated us with "I haven't seen one of you in a while" he was a very nice guy and gave us lots of travel tips. He is a student who lives in Hong Kong (originally from Washington DC) and has been traveling here for two weeks. We saw flying fish and a pod of dolphins on the way over. We found a condo on the beach for $16 a night with air conditioning, TV (with American Cable), refrigerator, shower, and free geckos on the walls. We talked to a dive shop and they said they could get Shelley scuba certified in 2 days, so she starts tomorrow. We wanted to go snorkeling so he loaned us some fins for free and told us to bring them back whenever. We swam about 80 yards off the coast and it was wonderful. There are tons of corals, clownfish, butterflies, linka and chocolate chip stars, and more. The water had about 70 feet visibility where we were. Excluding the 4 or 5 hours we slept on the plane, we have now been up for about 42 hours and traveled about 8,000 miles by plane, boat, and crazy taxi. Off to bed!
