So, I was getting set to fly back down to the Philippines. I visited the archipelago for the first time with my best friend Izzy Badger, who flew out for a rendezvous last August from the Pacific Northwest. We hadn't seen each other in over 4 years, as I had been teaching English in Asia and he had been working for the Oregon state legislature back home. But we decided to fulfill a novel boyhood romantic fantasy of getting ramshackled on rum in a like old colonial Spanish explorers for 3 weeks, first in Manila, and then onto Palawan. And now less than 6 months later, I was setting up to leave for a second go around, a Christmas and New Year’s celebration back to the island of Palawan again but this time with my lovely little Filipina lolita, Sophia - my exotic little jungle flower, my Tequila Rose, plucked from the gritty, soiled strip, my Tequila Rose - whom I met one drunken evening with Izzy on a melee down Burgos Street in the Malate district of Manila that last August.
Airfare
purchased and just days before I was set to leave, a story broke across
my Facebook newsfeed. The story read that a mayor from a southern
province was just shot dead outside Terminal 3 of the Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport. The very same terminal that I would be passing through in no less that 72 hours. Gazing away from the screen and out the window of my 3rd story villa apartment in Seoul, I briefly reconsidered my motivations for the trip and pondered my decision to tempt fate...
- This was a working girl whom I was flying down to meet, after all. What kind of ties did she have? What was her angle? Did she play me for the last 6 months over Facebook IM chat and pull one over on me? She being only 20, was she really that saavy? was I that incredibly naive? no i thought, i have a very finely attuned bullshit reader, i've prided myself on that for many years. it's sensors being so carefully set. Dialed in, so to speak. i know the score. i mean i've heard the stories of foreigners getting taken by Southeast Asian harlots looking for a way out of poverty predicament but I felt differently about this. I've got a pretty good read on this one. she is different. she ain't gonna fuck me. or will she? all of a sudden my whole trip seemed lost in the lurch. -
Looking back to the screen, I finished reading the article, which explained that an armed assassin in a ski mask fired shots at the political entourage and then made his escape through heavy Manila traffic by motorcycle. The mayor, his wife, and one of his political aides, as well as, a 19 month baby, with no relation to the mayor or his political entourage. Lying limp and motionless, face down, each body began coalescing blood beneath as screams erupted from the Christmas travelers, bystanders and onlookers. All three were pronounced dead on arrival to the hospital. This was the third and obviously, final assassination attempt on this mayor's life by his political enemies. “Nice,” I thought, as I finished the article and gazed back from my desk to the bed where I had my trustee travel bag and stream lined possessions and travel gear spread out. As you get older it’s remarkable to notice how tragic news stories that once seemed so far away now somehow fold like ornately woven origami into ones travel itineraries. Like quantum physics, worm holes in the fabric of a fifth dimensional quantum entanglement that as awareness increases so does one’s plot entanglements with cosmic uncertainty, linking one’s telos in an ever increasing chain of seemingly unrelated causal events, yet ever so real.
Manila is a crazy place, that much is clear, a place where one is constantly on guard. Machete wielding mango cart merchants, dead looking new born babies in the arms of almost Garden of Eden naked beggars, shotgun toting armed security gaurds at banks, condo complexes, 7-Eleven’s. Hands always ready on their pistol griped shotguns. Armored trucks that look like small rectangular tanks. A place where you see colonial architecture mired in frenzied globalized filth. Construction sites that lack most first world safety oversight, complete with bamboo scaffolding, and workers in sandals not wearing hard hats and general overall lack of bureaucratic oversight. A modern city blossoming like a lotus flower out of dirty stagnant cockroach infested flood waters of the Pasig river. An old world citadel slum seeking a modern first world stride. As was once remarked about Thailand by, but could also be said of Manila: it is like a collection of 10,000 villages, or barrios, or barangays, which is the Tagalog version of the term for neighborhood or city district. Beautiful Spanish catholic cathedrals next to the seediest girly bars. Alleyways where ferel cats scour bags of pungent jungle trash. Palm trees sprouting through the sidewalks like large feathered tendrils swaying in the island breeze. Jeepneys bombing down the dusty city streets like somekind of Madmax science fiction looking tanks that somehow look like the spawn of a futuristic Magellen vision of European colonization. A vestige from the past. A leftover manifestation of European colonization. An aggressive chromed out armored looking chariot belonging to another era - that of the Spanish conquistadors, emblazoned with gaudy catholic ghetto names, like . . . . “ “ I think of Cervantes and fighting windmills. These jeepneys look about as absurd, yet like Cervantes, are charming and endearing in their eccentricity. Like always waiting for a group of Madmax of Dune-like post-apocolyptic thugs to jump out at any moment and lay waste and ravage a certain section of the city proper. They look like vehicles that A walk through any barangay of Manila will yield so much mania, poetic poverty, dirt and grime and filth, and desperation, and enough anxiety to make even the most versed and saavy traveler question there motives for deciding to spend any time at all here. Manila is a place that action movies are fond of using as a setting for international crime, etc.
- This was a working girl whom I was flying down to meet, after all. What kind of ties did she have? What was her angle? Did she play me for the last 6 months over Facebook IM chat and pull one over on me? She being only 20, was she really that saavy? was I that incredibly naive? no i thought, i have a very finely attuned bullshit reader, i've prided myself on that for many years. it's sensors being so carefully set. Dialed in, so to speak. i know the score. i mean i've heard the stories of foreigners getting taken by Southeast Asian harlots looking for a way out of poverty predicament but I felt differently about this. I've got a pretty good read on this one. she is different. she ain't gonna fuck me. or will she? all of a sudden my whole trip seemed lost in the lurch. -
Looking back to the screen, I finished reading the article, which explained that an armed assassin in a ski mask fired shots at the political entourage and then made his escape through heavy Manila traffic by motorcycle. The mayor, his wife, and one of his political aides, as well as, a 19 month baby, with no relation to the mayor or his political entourage. Lying limp and motionless, face down, each body began coalescing blood beneath as screams erupted from the Christmas travelers, bystanders and onlookers. All three were pronounced dead on arrival to the hospital. This was the third and obviously, final assassination attempt on this mayor's life by his political enemies. “Nice,” I thought, as I finished the article and gazed back from my desk to the bed where I had my trustee travel bag and stream lined possessions and travel gear spread out. As you get older it’s remarkable to notice how tragic news stories that once seemed so far away now somehow fold like ornately woven origami into ones travel itineraries. Like quantum physics, worm holes in the fabric of a fifth dimensional quantum entanglement that as awareness increases so does one’s plot entanglements with cosmic uncertainty, linking one’s telos in an ever increasing chain of seemingly unrelated causal events, yet ever so real.
Manila is a crazy place, that much is clear, a place where one is constantly on guard. Machete wielding mango cart merchants, dead looking new born babies in the arms of almost Garden of Eden naked beggars, shotgun toting armed security gaurds at banks, condo complexes, 7-Eleven’s. Hands always ready on their pistol griped shotguns. Armored trucks that look like small rectangular tanks. A place where you see colonial architecture mired in frenzied globalized filth. Construction sites that lack most first world safety oversight, complete with bamboo scaffolding, and workers in sandals not wearing hard hats and general overall lack of bureaucratic oversight. A modern city blossoming like a lotus flower out of dirty stagnant cockroach infested flood waters of the Pasig river. An old world citadel slum seeking a modern first world stride. As was once remarked about Thailand by, but could also be said of Manila: it is like a collection of 10,000 villages, or barrios, or barangays, which is the Tagalog version of the term for neighborhood or city district. Beautiful Spanish catholic cathedrals next to the seediest girly bars. Alleyways where ferel cats scour bags of pungent jungle trash. Palm trees sprouting through the sidewalks like large feathered tendrils swaying in the island breeze. Jeepneys bombing down the dusty city streets like somekind of Madmax science fiction looking tanks that somehow look like the spawn of a futuristic Magellen vision of European colonization. A vestige from the past. A leftover manifestation of European colonization. An aggressive chromed out armored looking chariot belonging to another era - that of the Spanish conquistadors, emblazoned with gaudy catholic ghetto names, like . . . . “ “ I think of Cervantes and fighting windmills. These jeepneys look about as absurd, yet like Cervantes, are charming and endearing in their eccentricity. Like always waiting for a group of Madmax of Dune-like post-apocolyptic thugs to jump out at any moment and lay waste and ravage a certain section of the city proper. They look like vehicles that A walk through any barangay of Manila will yield so much mania, poetic poverty, dirt and grime and filth, and desperation, and enough anxiety to make even the most versed and saavy traveler question there motives for deciding to spend any time at all here. Manila is a place that action movies are fond of using as a setting for international crime, etc.
Sophia. She was a 19 year old working girl. She worked at at a red velvet lounge named
Rascals and that was her stage name. A nice name. Soft consonants that roll off the tongue like a gentle Spanish island kiss. She was a physically gifted mamacita.
As
we entered the bar early that evening on the false pretense that we would just
"pop in for a drink" we were overwhelmed by a greeting suited for a couple of Greek gods. Ushered in by a 300 lb Filipino bouncer that looked like an
extra for a . . . . into an empty lounge bar and about 15 girls in negliges
walking towards us in six inch heels. High backed half-moon shaped booths
surrounded by mirrored walls, a bar set deep in the back and the cued hip hop
of lil Wayne, we stepped through a heavy crushed red velvet curtain and down
three stairs into a lair of harlots on smart phones {smoothing the transition
from the sidewalk to the bar stool} . Sophia caught my eye instantly,
although already surrounded by girls soliciting our attention as we ordered our
first round, Sophia came over cocquetishly but confidently and sat down next to
me, in a bold direct maneuver edging out the others that completely surrounded
us. She maintained eye contact from the moment she saw me looking at her at the
side of the bar until she sat down next to me. She said nothing. After
a moment of trying to gracefully turn away from the others eager to secure the contents contained in my wallet, I turned to her and said hello. Sophia was
young. She looked young. She was a young lolita vixen though and
new it. I wondered to myself how much she made. Some people have a
hard time with girly bars. They have a hard time enjoying them.
They have a hard time getting past their morality about it all. the
thing is these girls make there livlihoods off these jobs. I'm not saying
that it is right but it is a fact.
25th Manila Airport Layover
On the flight from Manila to Palawan on Christmas morning, all was quiet and fine, until a sextet of drunken German idiots sat down in front of me, taking over the entire row, on both sides of the aisle of the small aircraft, much to my chagrin. The loudest and most obnoxious, was big Alpha Top Dawg sitting directly in front of me. His big undefined arms on display, peaking out from beneath his vacation singlet. His audaciously unfashionable facial hair groomed elegantly to form an egregiously sculpted chin strap from side-burn to chin. His drunken chorus responding to every humorous aside from their Aryan ring leader. It was just a matter of time, I thought. Drunkards are like pendulums, slow, direct, always linear moving, like wrecking balls. As long as I stayed out of the wayward attention of their collective drunken belligerence I would be fine. Christmas morning on a way to a beautiful island vacation is really no time for a drunken confrontation with a group of strange foreigners. But now I see that they've unsheathed a bottle of liquor and begin brandishing it like they just one the World Cup, and begin passing around shots. "Prost!" in an unharmonius clank of early morning shots. This didn't look good. Luckily, my dark black Rayban shades were on. Despite the close quarters, and the increasing claustrophobia, thanks to my Deutsche speaking flying companions, I felt a level of anonymity that was just comfortable. But it was then that I heard a random slew of English nouns in a heavily accented German. ">>>>>>>"
Looking around the cabin to notice if there were any other captive English speaking audience members and only noticing Filipinos, a Chinese family, and a Korean couple in my general vicinity, I knew that these tangentially spatially related proper nouns related to random American geographical locations were directed at me. I knew it. Goddamn, I knew it. At least my anticipatory skills were on par for the begrudging early morning Christmas festivities. "Here we go" I thought "and so it goes" with a furrowed eye-brow and slight incredulous smile starting to build into the side of my mouth. I briefly pondered the random association of American geographical locations, as well as the former president's full name, and concluded that this was his best attempt to insult my national identity... or was it my intelligence? an egregious attempt to recall a high school civics class on American geography and impress the token American? how did he know I was American anyway? A question better left unanswered. After allowing a pregnant pause, I gathered my thoughts into a sober line of reasoning and recanted from behind my Jack Nicholson shades, affecting an ominous narrative tone, saying,">>>>>>>>>>" It was a fine performance. I would have marked a solid B+ on the delivery if it was an acting class. Bravo!
On the flight from Manila to Palawan on Christmas morning, all was quiet and fine, until a sextet of drunken German idiots sat down in front of me, taking over the entire row, on both sides of the aisle of the small aircraft, much to my chagrin. The loudest and most obnoxious, was big Alpha Top Dawg sitting directly in front of me. His big undefined arms on display, peaking out from beneath his vacation singlet. His audaciously unfashionable facial hair groomed elegantly to form an egregiously sculpted chin strap from side-burn to chin. His drunken chorus responding to every humorous aside from their Aryan ring leader. It was just a matter of time, I thought. Drunkards are like pendulums, slow, direct, always linear moving, like wrecking balls. As long as I stayed out of the wayward attention of their collective drunken belligerence I would be fine. Christmas morning on a way to a beautiful island vacation is really no time for a drunken confrontation with a group of strange foreigners. But now I see that they've unsheathed a bottle of liquor and begin brandishing it like they just one the World Cup, and begin passing around shots. "Prost!" in an unharmonius clank of early morning shots. This didn't look good. Luckily, my dark black Rayban shades were on. Despite the close quarters, and the increasing claustrophobia, thanks to my Deutsche speaking flying companions, I felt a level of anonymity that was just comfortable. But it was then that I heard a random slew of English nouns in a heavily accented German. ">>>>>>>"
Looking around the cabin to notice if there were any other captive English speaking audience members and only noticing Filipinos, a Chinese family, and a Korean couple in my general vicinity, I knew that these tangentially spatially related proper nouns related to random American geographical locations were directed at me. I knew it. Goddamn, I knew it. At least my anticipatory skills were on par for the begrudging early morning Christmas festivities. "Here we go" I thought "and so it goes" with a furrowed eye-brow and slight incredulous smile starting to build into the side of my mouth. I briefly pondered the random association of American geographical locations, as well as the former president's full name, and concluded that this was his best attempt to insult my national identity... or was it my intelligence? an egregious attempt to recall a high school civics class on American geography and impress the token American? how did he know I was American anyway? A question better left unanswered. After allowing a pregnant pause, I gathered my thoughts into a sober line of reasoning and recanted from behind my Jack Nicholson shades, affecting an ominous narrative tone, saying,">>>>>>>>>>" It was a fine performance. I would have marked a solid B+ on the delivery if it was an acting class. Bravo!
But at about this time, my Palawan
tricycle ride early morning to Balayong Pension House – 1,000 pesos
Sleep
until early afternoon strung-out
Walk
to get lunch at Vietnamese place and coffee
Walked
thru the city, fruit stands
Got
some late afternoon beers and watched MMA in the room
Skylight
hotel dinner down the street – Tuna, vegetables, San Miguel, Tequila
Walked
back to the hotel, changed
Got
a tricycle to the Tiki Bar and watched a live cover band with Filipina singers
Got
drunk and walked back to hotel, keeping an eye out for girly bars, passed out
26th
Balayong
Pension – 1,200 pesos (2 people) \
Woke
up in time for the breakfast (cut-off is 9:30)
Walked
down the street and looked at used clothes shack
Bought
a collared shirt for 20 pesos, bought a coffee, bought scissors for beard,
walked to the pier, and thru some alleyways, took some pics
Found
a seamstress, sewing alteration shop across from the pension, had shirt altered
from the shop for 100 pesos, shop details, lazy island breeze, etc
Flagged
a tricycle down and took a ride to Honda Bay 11 am – 430 pm – 440 pesos
Drank
in the bay at a shanty resto bar – got a nice afternoon buzz off 6 San Miguel
pilsen beers (350 pesos) in the open island air, chatting with the young
Filipina manager who could speak English
Took
tricycle back to the airport 40 minutes to meet Maribel
At
the airport met some young interns at the Tourism office who seemed flirty in a
strange way
Then
met Maribel, she was standing there sweetly waiting for me
Took
the tricycle back to the pension, she laid her head on my shoulder and grabbed
my arm, and was smiling and laughing sweetly not saying much
Slept
and watched cartoons, had sex. . .
Lotus
Garden for dinner, 1,700 pesos Calamari,
Tricycle
ride to Tiki Bar, driver telling me I was a lucky man
Beers
and snacks at Tiki Bar 1,500 pesos, 300 pesos on hotel snacks
27th
Morning
empanadas
Balayong
extension 1 hour, 120 pesos
Bajao
Seafood Restaurant 1,500 pesos
Shuttle
to San Jose bus terminal, ostrich farm, bumpy ride thru traffic, rushed, as we
were late
ATM
withdrawal, 10,000 pesos, after multiple attempts to find online bank
Lexus
Shuttle van to Sabang (2 tix) 600 pesos
Dinner
250 pesos in the rain at the Sabang shack
Sabang
Pension at the pier 1,500 pesos
28th
Fried
banana churros/nescafe/mango juice 300 pesos
Walked
Sabang beach
Hotel
Breakfast next door 350 pesos
Scooter
Rental, taken for a dumb tourist, 2,500 pesos (3 days)
Went
swimming and had a massage.
Bambua
Nature Cottages check-in, relax, dinner spicy chicken curry soup and drinks
1,200 pesos
Bambua
lazy evening drinking rum after dinner, then having crazy sex, maribel crying a
little after telling me story about kissing another man.
29th
Longsilog
breakfast w coffee (2) 500 pesos
At
Bambua
Sheridan
late lunch 4 pm – Tuna, beef, onions, garlic, Tequila, San Miguel, Tequila
Rose. . . 1,500 pesos
Rum,
Coke, soap, crackers at local market – 600 pesos at small market “tindahan”
Went
back to Bambua naked and took afternoon showers
Drinking
rum and beers in the room, wandered around the Bambua grounds
30th
Hamburger
/ water at beach while Maribel slept 200 pesos
Green
Verde late lunch – kinilaw, and tuyo
(salty fish) and I had an American breakfast, fish then we did the zipline
together. We went back to Bambua and
change and shower.
Dinner
at Sheridan – Norwegian Salmon filet / vegetables/ potatoes/ 5 shots of
tequila, 1 san Miguel, 1 tequila rose, pakbet and letchon Kawali, 2 bottles of
water 2,415 pesos – it started to rain a little bit and we saw the rainbow and
got the picture on the beach.
Then
went to the philipino island shanty resto bar.
We had lots of beer there.
Then
took the scooter back to bambua after not being able to start like a bobo. Policeman started for me. I was feeling
silly.
Then
we went back to bambua and had more crazy sex.
31st
woke
up late and hungover again and took showers in the island humidity.
Saw
andre in the morning and he took some pictures of us in the garden with the
flowers. We told him our plan to go to
Daluyon to have the new years buffet and see the live band. He said aw u should stay here because were
having a party. There is a german couple
and a dutch couple. He said we paid to much for the buffet, blah blah
blah. Said we should come back after the
dinner and watch the fireworks from
Bambua. We said okay maybe we’d see him
later.
We
took the scooter back in the morning and tried to get the philipino American
breakfast again, but the Green verde for breakfast. Spicy squid and fried fish, and I had club
sandwich and also eggs, French fries, omellete.
Talked
to the philipino man about the boats and the seas and the weather and the trips
to el nido in the traditional boats. Then
we bought bus tickets from the man to go back to Puerto.
Walking
the beach together and we went to daluyon to make sure about the reservation
for the dinner.
Then
we walked back to Bambua because we had no scooter that day.
Took
showers, had more beer. Took a rest and
then got dressed up for new years eve dinner date. Andre gave us a flash light and we walked the
back way to Daluyon for the buffet and music.
Before we went to dinner we went to the small Sheridan by the beach
front and listened to Bob Marley and electronic beats and drank so much tequila
and beer. We got drunk before the
dinner. Then Maribel couldn’t eat very
much. Then went to buffet. Heard live music and I ate so much and we had
champagne (maribel’s first time drinking champagne). So happy together taking pictures being
lovely together. Getting really drunk then elaving and walking to the
beach. And we were playing in the sand
and I was pushing in the swing hammock between the palm trees and you were
going SO high and laughing. Maribel was
so drunk. The stars were so bright and
the night was unfolding beautifully perfect.
Then we went to the resto bar and Maribel worked a deal with the
flashlight man. 1 bottle of rum, 2
beers, a cigarette, a coke, and a scooter ride home for like 200 pesos. Then we ride back on his scooter and we were
laughing and you were in the back arms around me holding tight, and kept
reaching around a putting the cigarette in my mouth. Then we got back to Bambua and Maribel blew
all the good buffet food all over the ground.
She laughed and after blowing said that maybe the dog would eat it. And
then the next day we saw that something ate it.
Then we drink with the german couple and andre and his crazy wife,
getting jealous of andre. Andre telling
so many stories, won’t shut up, rum and coke and everyone was feeling good and
drunk and then mom called Maribel and said about dad with the knife and went to
jail and got so angry and she broke her phone and started crying later telling
me about the family. Then we saw
fireworks with the german couple and andre and then went to bed in the hot
room. Then we had crazy sex and I pushed
Maribel off the bed doggy style. Her ass
was in the air and her knees on the bed but her hands were on the ground and
she kept telling me harder and deeper. Wow.
1st
Bambua
breakfast – chicken adobo / coffee 500 pesos total for 2
We
talked to andre before going to get our bus and he told us we were bobo’s and
we should get money back because he was going to town to pick up a Japanese
guests. So we went back and refunded our
tickets with the man at the beach and then took the ride with andre and his
wife back to Puerto in the small bus. It
was a fun ride and we picked up some philipino villagers on the side of the
road waiting for the bus. They gave me
and Maribel bananas. Then we got back to
Puerto and my cards didn’t work so I couldn’t pay andre back. Shit. Totally
fucked. Maribel’s thinking I’m a
bobo. Getting stressed because ATM’s are
not working. Blah blah blah. Andre says
he can help me and gave me 4,000 pesos after taking us to get rotisserie
chicken at the place in Puerto that he said was the best chicken on the island. We ate at the cheap pension with Andre and
his wife after we checked into the room where we could here the crazy roosters
that were so fucking loud and annoying. Then
we went to the last bar with andre and his wife because his guests were running
late and he was annoyed and he bought us more drinks and was being a nice
man. Remember giving a handshake before
he left and saying I really appreciated his help. He was a life saver. Then we got a tricycle back to the cheap
pension.
Duchess Pension
107
E. Valencia Street
Mobile
Phone: 0917-5530605 / Landline: (048)433-2873
Single
Bed (fan room, common CR)
P200
Double
Bed (fan room, common CR)
P300
Single/Double(private
CR)
P650
Triple
Sharing (private CR)
P750
Family
(4 pax,private CR)
P900
And we got some beers and went to bed.
2nd
We woke up and had breakfast at the cheap
resto bar. Longsilog and coffee. Then we
went for a walk and it’s so hot. Checked
the bank and the atm still doesn’t work.
Getting angry. Maribel is sad
because I got no money. Then I want
haircut but baby doesn’t wanna wait so she goes back to hotel to take a nap and
I go get my haircut by the tattooed philipino man. He likes my tattoos. He gives me a nice haircut shave. Then I go back to hotel and Maribel is
sleeping like a bobo. We wake up and
take a shower together in the dirty shower. Washing each other with soap and
kissing in the pension shower. And then
we go down stairs into the courtyard and I drink a beer and massage maribel’s
legs while she tells me about the price of school and talking about family
problems, etc. then we go up to the room
and have sex one last time. Then we go
to the resto again and eat dinner and then take a tricycle to the airport and
then we were a little early and so we had two last drin sat the reggae bar with
the band and the two friendly girls. Then
I took Maribel and we walked back to the airport and she left and I watched her
go throught the glass window she was smiling and I was sad. Our trip was over. Didn’t know when I would see her again.
And
there I was. Christmas eve, alone on an
island, riding a Philipino tricycle through a still slumbering capital city of
Puerto Princesa, Palawan. And damn it
felt good. Han soloing yet again. Most of my friends married, domestically
committed, or pro-creating and there I was, at 36, finally feeling as alive as
I’d ever felt. On my way to a small
pension on the outskirts of town.
Arriving 3 days earlier than my Filipina Lolita for our first rendezvous
together. Ah, life is good.
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