Day 25: More Fun in the Philippines?

"It's More Fun in the Philippines" is the country's new tourism logo.  As we looked out our plane's window to this view we had our doubts.

We woke up at 5 to get on the road back to Bangkok to catch our plane.  We had arranged and confirmed to have the cab driver who brought us from Bangkok come back and get us but there was no sign of him in the morning.  Luckily the front desk found us a van and we were driving by 6:30 and didn't get stuck in traffic.  When we landed in the Philippines it was pouring.  Flooding actually.  A monsoon had struck the day before and didn't move out for 48 hours.  You may have heard about it in the news.  At one point one half of Manila was under water.  Today, five days later, parts of the city are still under water.  The devastation is unbelievable.  We went through customs and went to find a taxi to take us back to Manila, 1 1/2 hours away.  The cab drivers just laughed and told us the road to Manila was flooded and would be for at least another day or two.  We had no choice but to find a hotel room and hunker down.  By noon the next day the roads were thankfully open and we headed back.  The traffic in Manila was more insane than ever, taking us a half hour to go one kilometer because all the underpasses were flooded.  We finally made it back three hours later.