Quote:
Originally Posted by mdroz247
What made you choose Philippines specifically? Do you plan on going to other countries in the area or chilling there for awhile? I plan to visit SE Asia in the next year or so
Was in Thailand from April of 23' to Oct 23' loved the food, the beach, my very nice while also cheap hotel and of course the women. But ran out of time as I stayed the full 6 months allowed for the calendar year.
Went home in mid October and was tentatively planning to stay there till the new year and then go back to Thailand.
However got home and was hating life so decided fk it I'm going back! Figured Philippines was as good a choice as any, and english being spoken to a degree would be a plus.
Ended up being a much more difficult transition than I thought, found myself comparing everything to Thailand. The food was pretty big for me, love thai food and the seafood is incredible there you can get a plate of 6 large shrimp and a bunch of squid for under $5 (in pattaya anyway).
I also have a gluten allergy, Thailand is the best for easily avoiding gluten whereas Philippines is more the opposite. I dont care for a lot of the philippine foods even when there isn't gluten. Thankfully my girlfriend loves to cook and with the apartment now its easier for her to make us most of our meals.
Have visited Manila, Angeles City, Subic Bay, Malaybalay, and Cebu. (All for 10 days +)
Drove through Cagayan De Oro and Davao City.
Decided Angeles suited me best and took out a 6 month lease on an apartment. It has more reasonable traffic than some of the other cities, everything is fairly easy/convenient for foreigners, partying, poker etc.
I want to visit other areas of Southeast Asia as well, but waiting on girlfriend to get her passport she had issues with her birth certificate which take 6 months to be fixed.
I'll maybe try Cambodia, Bali, Malaysia at some point and definitely going to visit Thailand again.
*wanted to visit Vietnam too but am a little sour after my last "attempted" visit. Usually I'm extremely thorough with travel plans as I hate the actual process of getting from one place to another/dealing with airports etc. And don't want to have to deal with any issues on top of that.
However I got lazy and didn't check that you got visa on arrival in Vietnam so when I showed up at the airport in Bangkok I was rejected for not having a visa. Every other place in SEA I'd researched you received a visa on arrival as an American, somehow I just forgot or thought I'd checked already but was thinking of a different country.
In the end I lost about $300 on hotel and flight (maybe another 100 on taxi to and from bangkok). I always do non refundable, no insurance for lower price and only time I've cancelled so far. I had to scramble and make a border run the next day (to avoid illegal overstay in thailand) which was a headache. Obviously all my fault, thankfully monetary loss wasn't that large.
Guy i talked to at the airport says it happens quite a bit. Anyways any country that makes it more difficult to get there isn't at the top of my list.
Last edited by WPNdonk; 04-25-2024 at 12:18 AM.