Day 10 - Booking hotels in the pool (Angeles)

Yeah, I did nothing today.

I met up with Wayne in the morning to grab some breakfast at Phillies and then I literally spent the afternoon wading in the courtyard pool while I did internet stuff on my laptop.

I am leaving for Palawan Island in 2 days but I’m not travelling alone. Hanging out on a beautiful island is pretty cool – but hanging out there with a beautiful woman by your side…

Just a little bit better…

So, I invited the girl I met here last week, Methzie, to join me for my five day jaunt over to the island. I don’t pay any more for accommodation as I’m staying in hotels there. So, it’s really only costing me about $150 for her flight and I’m sure there will be a little shopping here and there. Oh, yeah, I should probably feed her too…

It’s weird because this portion of my trip doesn’t resemble anything of a backpacking trip. Staying on an island in a hotel with a beautiful woman is a far cry from the $5 dorms awaiting me in a few weeks when I head over to the rest of Southeast Asia.

It almost feels like two trips and my “real” trip has yet to begin.

Not that I’m complaining – it’s gonna be an awesome week!

In Palawan we’ll be staying in El Nido, a resort town 6 hours north for 3 nights bookended by 2 nights in the main city of Puerto Princessa.

Booking the hotels was a bit of an adventure as I quickly realized that I probably should have done this much earlier as most of the places were already booked.

I found a place I liked for the 3 nights in El Nido and did the online booking through Agoda. Click, click, click and I went to enter my Mastercard info.

Processing…

Error! Um… what?!? I had let Mastercard know I was travelling over here and I had used my card here problem free.

To make matters worse – the room I was booked was snatched away from me while I was trying to figure this all out so I had to now look for a different (more expensive) place.

Turns out nothing decent was available for all 3 nights so I actually had to book two different hotels (Pure Vida Inn and Big Creek Mansion) on El Nido for different nights.

Meanwhile, I’m in a pool with a Mastercard that doesn’t work, no other credit card with me and not enough credit to call them.

What to do? What to do? I emailed my mom to get my Visa card number from her hoping she would get the email right away. I then thought, well, this email looks kind of suspicious – hey, it’s Todd, can you tell me my Visa number, expiry date and that little security number on the back? Thanks!

So I also added some stuff only I would know onto the email so she would know it was, in fact, me.

After about 10 minutes I actually called her on the phone, hoping I had enough pesos on there to basically say “hey, it’s Todd… check your email!”

The call lasted about 2 minutes as my pesos expired and my phone cut off. At least I was able to say hi…

Shortly afterwards she emailed me the information I needed and I was able to book the hotels using my Visa card.

I also booked the Deep Forest Garden Resort for our two nights in Puerto Princessa when we arrive and then leave 5 days later.

In all, there were 4 bookings and amazingly my Visa didn’t get blocked. Considering I never let them know I was travelling over here I was actually surprised all the bookings went through cause, honestly, it does look a tad suspicious to see a bunch of hotel booking overseas.

I also booked Methzie’s flights to and from Manila. She is actually on a different airline than me going into Palawan leaving and arriving about a half hour before me. Next Wednesday I’ll be flying to Cebu and she’ll be going back to Angeles via Manila.

Anyway, that was big exciting afternoon.

Tough life, I know!

At night I hung out with Wayne. We went to Cafe D, a German eatery here in Angeles. I had meat loaf with mashed potatoes.