After mostly mall-hopping in Manila, just after the New Year, we decided to take a break and head out somewhere. I had looked for beach destinations in Luzon itself and that’s when my girlfriend suggested LiwLiwa beach in Zambales province. The town/village we would need to get to was San Felipe and we would have to take a bus from a company called Victory Liner to get there.
So we took a taxi to Victory Liner’s Cubao terminal, in Quezon City.
Although we did get to the terminal by 8:30am or so, unfortunately the tickets for the 9AM bus to Iba were already sold out
So we only got tickets for the 11AM bus. Tickets to San Felipe cost ₱484 (₹726/$8/€8) for one. We booked our stay at Cafe de Liwa which offers a few cottages as well. The owners recommended getting down at San Felipe Public Market. So Victory Liner buses going to Iba or Sta. Cruz are both good. See this route map (orange is Zambales line) to get a better idea.
We sat at the terminal and I used the wait time to get some work done on my laptop.
We boarded our bus by 10:45 in the morning
The bus left on time and the journey would take us around 3 and 1/2 hours. Watch the video at the end of this post which features clips from our bus journey.
We drove past the Philippines Arena and Sport Stadium
Philippines Arena is where a lot of major concerts now take place. Now I know why Filipino K-pop fans complain whenever events are held at Philippines Arena — it’s so far from the city!
After nearly 3 years of COVID-19, I was itching to fly international again. I hadn’t seen my girlfriend in so long that when Philippines announced in May 2022, that they would re-open the country to tourism, I began my planning. I finally decided that I would fly before Christmas to spend the New Year and celebrate both our birthdays together in January.
But when it came time to plan and book my tickets, I realized many carriers hadn’t resumed their pre-COVID schedules. Options for daily connections were mostly limited to Thai Airways, Malaysia Airlines, and Singapore Airlines — and their return ticket prices were very high. Understandably so. After all, I was flying right before Christmas to a majority Catholic country and this was the year end.
So in order to save money, I booked my onward journey on Thai Airways and then split my return ticket with flights on Air Asia and IndiGo, flying back to Bangalore after a few days spent in Bangkok.
Upon arriving in Bangalore airport, I did run into an issue with security. After clearing immigration, I had to pass my bags through the scanners and the security staff marked my bags for inspection. Since I packed my drone in my carry on bag, the security personnel informed me that I cannot carry drones in my carry on — only check-in luggage! I told them the reason why I place it in my carry on is because I wished to declare it with customs, because that’s what I used to do pre-COVID. The security officer then informed me: “oh, actually customs has moved downstairs and you have to declare goods before you check-in bags”.
The whole experience was frustrating as they had to call a Thai Airways staff member, who had to herself clear security just to get to us, talk to customs, deal with security personnel… long story short, I got fed up and told her I will just place my drone in my check-in luggage (which Thai Airways staff had to retrieve). A lot of time was wasted on this but oh well, lesson learnt!
Fortunately I had plenty of time as my flight was slightly delayed. After boarding, I just watched some comedy shows until meal was served.
I had a fish curry meal and it was pretty good. I missed Thai Airways’ meals.
After having my preferred drink when flying – gin and tonic – I tried to get some sleep.
I turned on the airplane view as it neared Bangkok at sunrise. TG325 was an Airbus A350.
I was back in Suvarnabhumi airport (BKK) since my last trip in November 2019
Suvarnabhumi means traversing the many, many travelators Thailand’s largest airport has!
I had to move to a different concourse far away to get to my connecting flight to Manila
Once I got to the transfers area, I couldn’t find my Manila flight on the digital display. I went to the Thai Airways customer service desk who informed me of my gate but told me the connecting flight was also delayed. So I decided to use my Priority Pass card to access a lounge so that I could eat breakfast and sit somewhere properly.
All my major travel objectives on this 2014 excursion across Philippines was over. Now it was time to wind down a bit and just enjoy my last few days in Manila.
For lunch today, Gale took to me to Little Tokyo, located on Chino Roces Avenue, Makati City. When she told me about Little Tokyo, I thought it was going to be like an entire area dominated by Japanese establishments, like Chinatowns elsewhere in the world.
Little Tokyo turned out to be a privately run complex housing many Japanese eateriesChino Roces Avenue has a few Japanese supermarkets tooWe went in and checked out the restaurants insideQuite a few choices — some exclusive ramen shops, some sushi bars — but mostly restaurants serving allWe came back out and sat at the more popular Shinjuku restaurantI had Tenshindon, rice topped with fried egg and crab meat gravyGale had a bowl of ramen and Kani salad (pictured above) — which was very nice!
You can check out the Shinjuku menu on its Zomato page.
Date: May 17th 2014
In my quest to see more attractions within Manila or close to it, I decided to visit the Marikina Shoe Museum today. It houses a large collection of shoes owned by the infamous Imelda Marcos, widow of the former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Aside from the many allegations of amassing immense illicit wealth, Imelda Marcos was infamous for possessing a collection of over a thousand pairs of shoes — most of it from expensive fashion brands. Some of those pairs are now housed inside the Marikina Shoe Museum.
Fortunately being the weekend, my friend Gale accompanied me today.
We took the train to Santolan
From Santolan station, we took a taxi to get to Marikina.
Marikina is dubbed the “Shoe Capital of the Philippines” because of the many shoe production houses in the districtThe Marikina Shoe Museum is right by Rizal Street and is a small building right in the heart of MarikinaThere is an entry fee of ₱50 (₹71/$1/€0.90)Filipino Shoes of Fame(?)Photography is restricted and I couldn’t take close ups of the shoes, especially those belonging to Imelda MarcosThis is my friend posing in front of a portrait of Imelda Marcos (when she was younger)Besides housing Imelda Marcos’ shoes, the museum also houses shoes from famous Filipino personalitiesVenus Raj is a Filipino beauty pageant queenThis is a collection of shoes donated to the museum from a former mayor of MarikinaThere are some art decor aroundWooden shoe moulds line the pillarThe collection of Imelda Marcos’ shoes is on display both downstairs and upstairs. We went upstairs next.They had photos of Imelda Marcos with all the famous leaders and personalities she met the world over. That’s Imelda Marcos meeting Indira Gandhi.I couldn’t take close up shots of the shoes because it’s not allowed, but you will see all sorts of high end brands of shoes here : Pierre Cardin, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and such
And that was it. We were in and out in just 30 minutes. The Marikina Shoe Museum does not house every single pair of shoe owned by Imelda Marcos, only a handful. But still, I didn’t mind. Manila doesn’t offer too many attractions and coming to Marikina by public transportation isn’t that expensive, so I would say Marikina Shoe Museum is worth a quick look.
Shoes of all shapes and sizes, all around MarikinaWe went in here nextThis was like a promotion facility for the shoe makers of the region. They had a showroom in the front, and at the back was a workshop with all the tools and material used in making shoes.I asked them where the leather comes from and a worker there told me it’s mostly from Taiwan and some sourced from across Philippines.Cafe Kapitan restaurantOur Lady of the Abandoned Parish ChurchWe didn’t go inside as there was a mourning going onMarikina seemed very clean and well maintained
It was a nice visit to Marikina. Feels like a nice neighbourhood to live in, to get away from the chaos of Manila.
Tonight was actually my last night in Manila, and if there was one thing I wanted to do in Philippines but hadn’t yet tried, it was karaoke! Like at a proper karaoke bar. Karaoke is probably the national past time in Philippines, especially given every Filipino sings in some shape or form
So Gale took me to Trinoma Mall in the evening.
First we had dinner at Fish & Co. This was a pretty good value meal: fries, crisps, 3 fish fillets and 3 beef sliders… for about ₱350? I forgot.Then Gale suggested Red Box for karaoke. Being a Saturday night, we had to wait a bit for our room.
Red Box is a popular chain of karaoke lounge bars in Manila. It’s clean, reasonably priced — I believe it was ₱100 an hour for a room, and they had a great library of songs across genres.
*Clearly* the most popular song of the year but not something I was ever going to singInstead, I loved Westlife’s singles from their first three albums. Such good sing-along songs. So I sang them… all of them! I wasn’t as good a singer as Gale was, but it was fun. I mean that’s the whole point of karaoke anyway.
We ended up singing for 2 hours. She chose her classic favourites, I chose “Easy Lover” by Phil Collins and so on. We could have hung around longer, but it was getting late.
I’m glad Gale took me to Red Box. I didn’t know about the place and was instead thinking of hitting the many dingy karaoke bars that line Manila’s city streets.
May 19th 2014
I left Manila feeling sad that my trip was over. My 2014 trip to Philippines was better than my 2013 trip, but still not as great as my 2011 trip was. But I doubt I’ll ever enjoy quite the experience of that first trip. This time around I finally got to visit Oslob and have a proper whaleshark experience to make up for the disappointment at Donsol. I finally did the Mt. Pinatubo trek which was awesome and thanks to Gale, got to know about other festivals and places to check out.
But after three trips, I still couldn’t go to Batanes, which is still far beyond my reach (literally). There are places like Vigan I feel I should check out, but I like to think for an Indian tourist, I have covered Philippines pretty damn well. Would be nice to be recognized by the tourism board of Philippines and invited back (for free), but that remains a dream too.
It was late in the evening when my flight took off from Manila
I landed in Hong Kong on time but my connecting Dragon Air flight to Bangalore was delayed because the plane coming from China was late.
Spotted an A380 for the first time. You wouldn’t get an idea of just how big this airplane is until you see it parked next to an A320 or something smaller.I landed back in India later than scheduled but the worse part was this queue at immigration. Fancy new extension and they still couldn’t get enough officers to man the counters.
It took me an hour to get out of the airport. My younger brother picked me up and I spent the night at his place because it was too late to head back to my apartment.
As I slept that night… I was already missing Philippines. The whalesharks, the natural but now familiar beauty, Gale, karaoke, the friendly people, jeepney rides, errr… the food not too much. (Sorry :P)
Until next time Philippines. Whenever that may be.
