MIKE AND JESS' TRAVEL DIARY

At 7:30 PM local time, I walked through the airport corridor into the large open room, filled with hundreds of people, all standing and smiling as they wait for their loved ones to arrive. In the sea of grinning faces, I spot Mike. We happily reunite and walk back to the huge van that we will be transported in. Mike’s work and personal friend, is also landing in an hour and a half.  Our driver offers us privacy in the van as he elects to wait in the airport for Mike’s friend. Thankfully, his plane landed 40 minutes early and we were on our way quickly. Both of us had not been able to sleep on our 25+ hour journey, so we were pretty silly when we chose to go out to dinner before going to bed. We hit the infamous Heckle & Jeckle near the red light district area.

We ordered far too much food, as will continue to be the usual on the trip, and caught up over a couple beers. Once we consumed the ridiculous amount of spicy masala peanuts, chicken biryani, chili dynamites, and spicy fries, we were falling asleep while sitting up.

Our driver quickly dodged the million cars, bikes, trikes, trucks, busses, and pedestrians, sometimes a bit too closely to be comfortable, and got us safely back to our rooms. Unfortunately, not by choice, both Mike’s friend and I awoke at 5 AM after only 5 hours of sleep. No time to make it up, though. We had a seaside villa to get to on the island of Mindoro.