infinitepossibilities

traveling often brings new experience. no two travels are the same.

they’re HARDLY EVER the same even if some of the factors are the same and you decide to tread down the path of unknown places on your own.

thanks to cebu pacific flight promos, entities such as i are given access to the wondrous experience that is traveling. as soon as i heard of the piso-fare promo back in march, my trigger happy fingers immediately logged on to cebupacificair.com and booked myself a trip to iloilo and a return trip from kalibo. haha, first mistake. i picked up two dates that were so closed to each other. reason back then was i couldn’t afford to be away from work that long. well, i could have opted to change my return flight to a much later flight, but i opted to stick with the original flight schedule. don’t want complications and extra charges.

so on July 21 at 8 A.M., i flew to iloilo. the flight time was roughly 35 minutes. got my pack from the carousel and headed out of the airport. interestingly, we landed on iloilo’s new airport. the floor tiles are all gleaming clean and the airport itself is big . anyway, at the arrival section several people in white carrying placards [just one folder-sized boards] with offers of metered taxi/shuttle services greet you. but for some weird/wrong inspiration, i headed out of the airport. second big mistake.

i wish i had read this earlier and i wouldn’t have been cheated of my 200 pesos. hehe. i tried to go back to the airport, but couldn’t find the entrance, or was just too excited to hit to my destination that i just didn’t mind being cheated by the first taxi driver who came up to me. blame it on my tendency to say "yes" the first instance that i’m asked a yes/no question. i told the driver to take me to Ortiz Wharf [boating station to hoskyn port @ jordan, guimaras] and he blurted out that it’d cost me PhP450. My brain shouted "cheat" but for some reason I agreed to the PhP400-peso fare. Well, i hate haggling [the 50-peso cut was all i could muster as far as haggling is concerned + my Filipino voca is far from excellent. [try: Patawad, manong... hehehe, i didn't use that but often that comes to mind first... very, very wrong... why ask for forgiveness when you mean "wala na bang tawad, manong? [can you come down on a price or something?... and often what comes to my mind when taxi drivers do this is "well vet, you're helping someone put food on his table. so never mind that you've read somewhere that PhP250 is the highest you could spend on a taxi from the airport to the city. " well, to compensate for the exorbitant price, you also get yourself a tour guide. the driver generally gives you a crash course of the place. where to go, how to get to places blah, blah... [this is the part where your Filipino language prowess gets tested since you speak no ilonggo and the driver doesn't speak bisaya]. the cab driver was actually very helpful if you could remember all the information blurted out in one sitting. truly, you could use the conversation as the city is a very long drive from the airport [i'm talking a wide stretch of trees/greenery on both sides of the road] before reaching civilization [of buildings and commercial complexes].

had it been a metered taxi with a flag down rate of PhP30 pesos, the fare from the new iloilo airport to Ortiz Wharf is 227.50 pesos. . [more later on the trip to guimaras].