Thirty years ago, the hotel had been one of the premiere spots in Manila but it had not been kept up well in recent years.  When he finally got to the room he discovered that several of the lights weren’t working and the general appearance was in a declining state of repair.  It presented a bit of a gloomy atmosphere but he didn’t really care, all he wanted was a few hours of sleep which again he was about to be denied.

He noticed that his room was separated from a joining room by a thin door which allowed it to be opened up into a double suite as was the custom with many of the older hotels.  He didn’t think much of it at the time and proceeded to attempt to contact me on the phone as we had agreed to do to let me know that he had arrived safely in Manila.

Despite my excitement and worry, I too, was exhausted and had fallen asleep while waiting for his call.  When he got no answer, he assumed the obvious and laid down to try to get some rest.  Unfortunately by that time two men had entered the adjoining room and began a loud and animated discussion which lasted till about 5 am, about one hour before he needed to get up and start preparing for the next leg of his journey.   With the loud  discussion going on in what sounded like the same room he was again unable to get any real sleep.

I woke up with a start at about 2 am and began to panic as I checked my phone and realized that I had missed several calls.  I was afraid that he might think I was backing out and would get on the plane back to the US.  I quickly called and was relieve to hear his tired voice answer.  He wasn’t quite here yet but my relief was great and enabled me to get a sound sleep for the rest of the night despite my excitement for the events of the coming day.