Our 36 hours of travel to the hotel began at 5pm after school on Friday. We met Nat and Anna and took a rented van to the airport. We flew to Shenzhen. From Shenzhen we took a taxi to the border of Hong Kong, a bus into the city and a taxi to our hostel. So far that is 5 vehicles.
The next morning we walked to breakfast (if I was getting picky I would count our feet as one mode) and then took an awesome double decker to the airport in Hong Kong. Driving through the city with an elevated view made me want to move there. It is a beautiful city and we were blessed with blue skies that day.
We flew to Manila. From Manila we took an airport shuttle into the city, then jumped into a jeepney as it was waiting for a traffic light to turn green. The jeepney dropped us at a bus station and we began the bumpy three hour drive to Batangas pier. Vendors got on the bus with us at every opportunity selling fruit and donuts and garlic peanuts. We watched a movie about a mean snake that eats people and gets really really big and then staticy game shows. We got the Batangas too late to take one of the larger commercial ferries across the bay to Puerto Galera. However, we were mobbed by men wanting to take us in their little boats. We bargained a price and got into a jeepney to a different pier where their boat was waiting. At this time it was dusk and we were tired and hungry. By the time we got to this new pier it was full dark and raining. The waves looked menacing. We sat in the jeepney long enough to begin worrying that something was wrong. We found out the boat had to wait out the rough waves. It began to rain harder and the waves got worse. We waited about an hour. John and Nat went to scout our surroundings for a hotel or other option. They found a guy in a private car who had just dropped his boss off at the pier and was headed back to town and willing to give us a lift. We piled into this car but were stopped by the guy with the boat. He wanted money! We argued back and forth for 10 minutes or so and finally Nat gave him some money just so he would let go of the car and let us go. The nice guy in the car drove us straight to a hotel for no charge. He felt bad that his fellow Philippine had taken advantage of the foreigners. We ate dinner across the street and went right to bed. It was a long day and it involved 7 vehicles. But wait! We are still not at our hotel! The next morning we took tricycles to the pier (the real one) and got a ferry (a real one) to Puerto Galera. From there we took a jeepney to our hotel. WE MADE IT! It only took 15 different vehicles to get there and it was worth it all in the end.
