Travel Wrong: After Dark, or: A Little Too Loosey-Goosey/BORACAY

Our plane lands in Caticlan, from where we take a trike to the port, as in where the boats be. After a ridiculous exercise in ticket buying involving three different windows, an environmental fee AND a port tax, Jordan and I are ready for Boracay.

Don't fuck me on this, Charon

The boat does its boat thing transporting us across water to our destination, and we then immediately head to White Beach, where Jordan has a friend waiting for him. First we find a nice guesthouse called La Bella Casa, and I find out that Jordan is a fucking mad dog haggler. He busts out the well-honed tactic of loudly and angrily comparing everything to cheaper rooms in Palawan, and has no problem quickly talking the proprietor down from 1000 pesos to 700. That's for a decent room with a TV, aircon, hot water, and laughable yet existent wifi. Even towels and shampoo! I'm struck by what a novice I've been.

We walk to find his friend, but stop on the way for Jonah's Shakes, which I remember seeing lauded on Wikitravel. You know how new parents are always going on about how having a kid is the greatest thing in the world, and their lives in retrospect now seemed so empty and pointless? Those idiots have never had one of these avocado banana shakes. Move over, miracle of life.

It's as cathartically satisfying as...having all three starter pokemon (have I finally found you, core audience?)

Ubiquitous touts mill about the beach eager to bother you about scuba/snorkel/sail trips, but in a strange twist many of these guys don't even speak English. Still, the island is immediately identifiable as an international vacation destination.

It isn't shit.

Sure, Boracay has beaches of perfect white sand being gently molested by clear, emerald waters, just as all those business execs are gently molesting their mistresses on top of that lovely, lovely sand. However, what all those tourist photos take great pains to leave out are the hotels and concrete boardwalk that start maybe ten feet away from the surf. In fact, most of the beach we're staying on (the popular one, I'm later told but can instantly surmise) is literally walled off by tents along the boardwalk, housing expensive beach-side bars and restaurants and Filipino cover bands. After all, what better way to enjoy your expensive beach vacation than by seeing the beach through a layer of dark, insect-and-tout-repelling fabric?

Just a few feet behind me from here, actually.

We locate Jordan's friend Ian at the Astoria Resort, because Ian has infinite quantities of money and intends to spend it. Staying with him is his girlfriend who has never traveled outside of Australia, and both of them are immensely impressed when they find out that I actually eat street food while traveling. Makes me wish it was 100 years ago, where by virtue of simply having traveled a bit I could get invited to rich peoples' dinner parties as a guest of honor. I could also wear a safari hat unironically, which is somehow desirable to me.

Jordan tells his friend about my less-than-stellar experience in Perth and resulting view of Australia, and Ian is simply appalled. They vow to rectify my view of Aussies and by extension redeem their homeland. Then we eat some bolognese at the Astoria restaurant and drink beer. They both say "Out of control!" a lot, but they really are lovely people.

Ian begins the festivities by buying a bucket of beer on the boardwalk, which seems to be the hip thing to do, and we sit down to watch some live music at a bar called Bom Bom.

Despite my general stance on jam bands and their collective stain on the human experience, I must say the Bom Bom folk are good fun. They even have me on stage to sing and drum a little with them, which I suppose was a cunning way of making me part of the problem. Once we're a good few beers deep, one of us starts chatting up some Russian girls sitting close by. By chance, this is the day I'm wearing my one shirt with a nonsensical joke in Cyrillic on it, which turns out to be a crackerjack icebreaker.

The singer from the band invites us all to to come back tomorrow night to continue jamming, to which everyone seems amenable. Around this point Ian leaves with his girlfriend, and Jordan and I in turn leave with our new Russian friends, Jenny and Anya. Jenny speaks great English and is naturally the more talkative of the two, while Anya's English is about on the same level as my Russian. It's a step up from my French, but not by much. However, I'm more far more taken with Anya, enticed by her big adorably chubby cheeks and enticingly impish smile, whereas Jenny sports more stereotypical hard, Slavic features, and eyes that whisper "If this party were to somehow devolve into a bleak fight for survival, you will lose to me." My shallowness is mightily satisfied that Jordan takes the interest in Jenny, and that Anya actually seems to find me attractive, if not interesting. It's possible she is nodding along and laughing at my jokes in a "pretending you are invested in a conversation in French spoken by French people" kind of way, but Sister, I invented that game. It don't bother me none: see previous sentence, esp. with regards to "attraction", i.e. hers in this guy (author gestures to himself).

After a spell of walking along the beach, we lose track of Jordan and Jenny, which Anya and I use as a convenient excuse to more or less collapse where we're standing onto the sand and make out. I attempt to use my mastery of the Russian language to sweet talk her (sweet talking being a thing I've seen in films and understand to be what a normal man does in these situations), but the words for "beautiful" and "red" are kind of similar, and I have a tendency to mix them up. In hindsight, I almost certainly said "You are red, you are red" over and over while getting sand in her hair. Regardless, she rolls with it, due either to my amazing Russian skills, politeness, or some very specific Cold War fetish.

Unfortunately, I can't remember how to get back to my guesthouse, and Anya says Jenny has her key. By now I've drank approximately one thousand beers, so you may be less shocked and appalled that my response is to mentally shrug and sort of wonder if we can't just do it in the sand. Turns out, the popular beach is still quite popular at nighttime, and accidental perverts keep walking by with flashlights and gawking. After my mouth has sufficiently filled with sand and I'm spitting out grit, I make up my mind to find the goddamn Bella Guesthouse, I can't actually remember the name of the guesthouse at this point, but I refuse to let that deter me. I do remember Jonah's, the shake shack beyond mortal description, and I know it's somewhere close by.

I WILL FIND YOU

Through some sort of sexy miracle, and because this island just isn't that big, I succeed in finding Bella. I knock, since Jordan has the key, and I'm answered by him in a towel and Jenny further inside, also in a towel. He looks ashamed, and Jenny looks...like a stoic Russian. Visible emotional range isn't a strong aspect of their culture. Oh I totally forgot to mention! Jordan has a girlfriend. That probably has something to do with the shame. Bummer for him. Jenny gives Anya their room key, and we are on our way to Sexylvania, Population: Hopefully Me and This Girl That Is Real.

We settle in on the bed, and she turns on the TV. Awww yeah. It's some international MTV station, and Lady Gaga plays followed by some Korean music videos. Not ideal, but I'll go with it. It's definitely time for business. I begin kissing her on her lips and face, and she responds in kind. Yeahhh, you know what I'm talking 'bout. Without getting too crass and making this blog unsuitable for younger readers, it's lucky she has condoms, and it turns out language barriers are no match for a girl who knows what she wants, doing it-wise. She is as applaudable as she is terrifying. After a couple of turns at bat that get a little darker than I generally prefer my lovemaking, especially when soundtracked by an unending cacophony of way-too-cheerful K-Pop, I'm spent both physically and emotionally. I stay the night. She hogs the only sheet.

The morning is a little awkward, as I try to be a gentleman and invite Anya to breakfast, but she doesn't understand. She does say she'll be at Bom Bom tonight, so I tell her I'll see her then. Once I exit, I feel like the cock of the damn walk, happier than a poor kid with a Lunchables. As I briefly mentioned before, I had read on an awful travel-themed pick-up artist blog that you are virtually guaranteed to get laid in Boracay, so sleazy credit where sleazy credit is due. I'm sorry my blog doesn't have any international pick-up tips that you might find in someone else's travel guide, but I can guarantee far fewer typos.

After half-strutting, half-staggering back to Bella Casa, I'm a little surprised to find that Jenny is still in the room with Jordan, but she leaves while I shower. Jordan informs me that last night she started giving him a blowjob, but he had her stop when he felt too guilty. He really is a lovely guy. He makes me promise not to tell Ian, which hadn't even occurred to me. At least he's broken up about it, which is why I changed everyone's names, although it occurs to me that anyone looking on this blog for cheating clues now knows as well. My bad.

After his wits have been gathered, Jordan and I walk down to Casa del Sol in D*Mall. Not a small island stretch of tiny family-owned shops like you'd think, but a spotless hive of upper-class stores and restaurants criss-crossed with paved cement streets. Picture lots of old bald men sucking on shrimp tails, forever. I enjoy a big hearty American breakfast that does my stomach no favors. We can't find Ian, so we swim in the ocean for a stretch, because I haven't been sunburnt in awhile and am way past overdue.

Who needs skin, really

When Ian still hasn't shown up, we head to the Astoria ourselves, but he isn't in his room and the desk doesn't know anything. We decide to swim in his hotel's pool while we wait. It's the least we can do.

We are good friends.

After a break for lunch at a nearby sigis joint, and Ian still yet to appear, Jordan and I exeunt back to our room and have us a little siesta.

Nothing like boiling hot, salty meat to stay cool on a warm tropical day.

blah blah running caramel flan joke i really like it OK

I mostly catch up on TV shows on my netbook waiting for Jordan to wake up, before drifting off myself. When I come to, I snatch my watch from the nightstand, hoping it isn't already past 8. Not quite: according to the watch, 2 in the freaking morning. Whoops.

Jordan's still sleeping, and I feel awful about wasting a night and not seeing anyone, so I decide to go out for some drinks. Maybe the girls will still be around, who knows. I walk the length of the beach while enjoying a few beers, and by the time I've strolled back it's now 4 am and everything is closed. Still, those 6.9% Red Horse beers have already done their job, and during my drunken meandering I'm struck with the bitter realization that my trip is almost over. Despite, well, everything that's happened to me, I would like nothing more than to spend another week or two here and get drunk with nice people and even have uncomfortably violent sex with strangers. Stupid finite amount of money. Stupid good friend getting married. Stupid life!

Once I've got back into town I'm immediately propositioned by a multitudinous horde of ladyboy hustlers, which eases the pain of having to leave somewhat. With nothing else to do and no one but pushy hookers to talk to, I lie by the beach and just listen to music. Turns out mosquitoes don't give two shits about existential crises, and my feet end up covered in angry, whine-silencing bites.

One bite for every tired platitude.

Jordan wakes up shortly after I go to bed, close to 6 am. I sleep for about 4 hours, and when I awake I can't see any of his things, and am forced to assume he simply ditched me in the night. So much for that Aussie hospitality. But wait! He comes back at 10:30, whereupon seeing me still in bed gives ME shit about sleeping too much. He tells me that he and Ian will be at Cafe del Sol in an hour, and if anything goes wrong we can still rendezvous there at 1 pm. Relieved that I'm not completely alone in this world, I shower and get to D*Mall at 11:40. I'm only ten minutes late, but neither Jordan nor Ian are there. Still, we have the rendezvous! I wait until 1:30 pm. They never show.

I read Murakami for awhile in a morose funk, drink more than a few rum and cokes at a happy hour somewhere, and generally wonder how the fuck I'm supposed to feel about Australians now.

You're making it hard to enjoy a good funk, Boracay.

Sunset hits while I'm nursing a beer and some Travel Lasagna, which is what I've decided to call the Italian cuisine that is everywhere in Southeast Asia and almost never any good, yet you eat it fortnightly because traveling sometimes demands that lizard brain dopamine injection that Italian food dutifully provides. Sunsets here will seriously put a damper on any attempts to feel sorry for yourself. I mean for fuck's sake, I just got laid and here I am pouting like a dummy. Time to go be a dude that is fun-lovin' rather than mope-lovin' again.

FINE, I guess I'll go and explore the night's limitless possibilities and enjoy the wonder of being young and alive. GOD.

On my nighttime stroll back through town, I'm joined by a couple of local coquettes who I assume to be on the clock, as it were. Lucky for them, I popped a couple Xanax with my drinks so I'm feeling loosey-goosey, and much more amenable to answering their questions and participating in this little farce. Yes, I'm American, thank you for thinking that I am a Handsome Man, however I must inform you that I am also a Poor Man, with nary a cent of your land's currency to my name. To which one of the girls curiously replies that it'll be free, whatever "it" is. Interesting.

I say I don't believe her; she insists Really, free. She isn't offended that I brought up money, and I'm pretty sure I didn't misread the situation because what the hell else could this be, so I have to ask..."Why?" After all, I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy. She says that she had an American boyfriend once, and she likes me. She's known me for a couple of minutes now, so it's very possible. Damn my animal charisma. She hands me her cell phone as some sort of collateral, which you don't tend to hear about in love at first sight-type situations. I feel like even with her friend playing backup, she should be more wary of me; after all, prostitutes are like beads- you have to string them along if you want to make jewelry out of their bodies.

Still curious about exactly what the fuck is going on, I follow her down an alley, the other girl behind me. I am getting increasingly ready to fight off a pack of Filipino thieves should they emerge from the darkness, but instead our fearless leader stops to have a conversation with her friend in Tagalog, probably about just how hard it is to get laid these days; you can't even give your pink pita pocket (TM) away to some assholes. Hell, you even give them your cell phone and they still don't trust you!

Her friend breaks off from their huddle to report to me that my paramour's place is very far, but we can get a room at the hotel in this alley. I had previously told them I didn't have a room of my own, which could be why that option isn't brought up. Damn my keen survival instincts. Sensing my hesitation, my would-be lover starts kissing and licking my neck, while I stand there kind of awkwardly and wonder about the possibility of neck-transmitted STDs. Sorry lady, I'm not falling for your game, if indeed there is one oh god I hope I'm not being dumb. I try to leave the alley, but she won't let go of my hand, so I'm forced to drag her behind me like a sexy anchor. I knew it! These two had some friends waiting in that hotel and they were totally going to rob me or worse!

Then I realize that I still have her phone, and that's probably why she's latched on, and instantly feel bad about the whole thing. I sheepishly hand it back, and book it out of there back to Bom Bom and comfortable familiarity.

Trying to repeat a fun night always works, right? Pretty sure that's what people say.

After watching for a bit and remembering that I still hate tourist-pandering cover bands, I move on, and almost immediately run into the Russians. I apologize for not seeing them last night, but Anya doesn't understand and Jenny doesn't care. The atmosphere has definitely cooled since our separate nights of passion and light adultery.

They're heading back to Bom Bom, and since I don't have any better ideas I figure fuck it, I can suffer through Bob Marley covers for at least a few minutes. The band actually recognizes me and invites me on stage again for a song. I struggle unpracticed through a couple acoustic guitar covers which seem to impress the girls. Once the band's wrapped up, the bassist (who I immediately assume is cool because he plays Mario riffs when bored) suggests we all go somewhere. By now I've had a few more drinks plus a couple Jager bombs with the girls, but I'm not feeling too drunk. That lasagna might have had supernatural properties. Unfortunately, feeling far more sober than everyone else is putting me off my rhythm, or rather confronting me with the fact that I've never had rhythm, and am stepping unrhythmically further away from ever having it.

We go to a club and dance, but the bassist is somehow making a play for both girls, until he's joined by a friend who immediately zeroes in on Anya. Even worse, she's either into him, or beyond the point of discrimination. I've never been the aggressive "that's my woman!" type, so I switch gears and dance for a bit with Jenny. Anya keeps disappearing for reasons which would probably hurt my ego were I to dwell on them too much, and now this damn bassist has cut in between Jenny and me and jumps right into a well-rehearsed move routine. I thought you were cool, man. Mario would never do this to Luigi. He does this oh-so-annoying bit where he takes a looong drag of her cigarette and kisses her, which come to think of it might not be a "bit" so much as just having the confidence of a semi-professional musician and choosing to kiss her. I hate him, and am starting to hate the whole concept of sex and courtship. Still, it's my last night, I'm alone, and I've got nothing else to do. It probably wouldn't hurt for me to practice a little of my own confidence, and roll with some competition. I promise myself that good or bad, I'm going to see this through. I'm really gonna give this pick-up thing a shot.

Jenny starts to legitimately worry about Anya's absence, until we finally find her down at the beach. Elated, Jenny suggests we go swimming, so the five of us strip down to our underwear, leave our shit on the beach, and run into the surf. The water is full of phosphorescence, even more luminous than Maya Bay. The bassist's friend takes off, which provides the bassist himself the opportunity to start intertwining with Anya further out under the waves. Urgh. Still, that leaves me and Jenny by ourselves, floating in this balmy, magically lit current. I probably won't get a better chance than this to try my luck. Seizing the moment, I lean in for the kiss. Round One, FIGHT.

And...Cheek block! FATALITY.

Maybe she didn't notice I was making a move? And turning her head at just the right time was an accident? And then she didn't say or do anything afterwards because despite her white-hot lust, society won't let her express her sexuality? Clearly drunker than I know, I remain embarrassingly optimistic as we get out of the water and march on together to another bar. Anya continues to make out with the bassist, which doesn't make me feel great and inspires unkind thoughts, but then some of us were being lampreyed by a maybe-hooker just a couple hours ago. Stones and glass houses. A pretty Filipina smiles at me from across the bar, but I abstain from changing my course. I told myself I was going to see this thing through, and I am a man of conviction, even when it's for a wrongheaded, inconsequential drunken idea I only shared with myself. Perhaps even moreso in that case. Of course I'm making a mistake, but that seems to be my pick-up style: Foolish and riddled with catastrophe.

As the bar closes Anya leaves with the bassist as was written, while Jenny and I find a spot further down the beach to watch a disappointing, cloudy sunrise. Still, a sunrise is a sunrise, right? After some gentle conversation, I try to kiss her one last time. Once again I receive The Cheek. "Just friends," she says, turning away.

I ask why. She replies, "Because you fuck my friend." Well, I had to ask. I sit there in silence on my cold rock, feeling more uncomfortable than when the tip of your manhood brushes the inside of a toilet bowl. I succeeded in following the night through, and this seems about right for what I could expect. She's right. I fucked her friend, and consequently became insane with power, such that I delusionally thought finishing out the pair would be smooth sailing.

I bet they actually have very smooth sailing around here.

Perhaps to lighten the mood, she starts going on about how she doesn't "normally act like this", and "what happens on vacation stays on vacation"; a sentiment which my typing now seems to heavily disagree with. You might think this would be the time to throw in the towel and call it a night, or hours and hours ago when common sense dictated. Instead, instead!, glutton for punishment that I am and still drunk, I try my luck one last time with a few compliments, and the admission that I'm leaving today, so you know, last chance and all. Though it must have taken stupendous willpower, she remains unfazed and uninterested. Yeah, I don't think I would've convinced me, either.

I walk her back to her place, where we hug goodbye. Once safely in bed at Bella Casa, I treat myself to a moment of reflection. Tonight was not a good look for me, and should time travel become an option I would elect to not repeat it. Once you've tested the waters and found them cold, stop testing the goddamn waters. Especially don't then keep coming on to the waters like the world's saddest sack, unless you're going to write about it later for some weird form of catharsis. End of reflection.

Hey Boss, Looking For Girl?/ANGELES

I fly into the Philippines budget flight hub of Angeles, with the intention of making my tired way to Boracay, knowing two things: Boracay is a beautiful island of perfect white beaches where it is impossible to not get laid, and Angeles is a disgusting sex tourist-ridden cesspit where it is also impossible to not get laid (but grosser). I'm psyched.

And reportedly no bird flu. Now I know three things.

I exchange for some pesos at the airport and get a taxi into Angeles city proper. A friend of Malcolm's back at the Singapore Flyer recommended I stay at the Marlim Mansion hotel, which at 30 bucks a night is far more than I usually spring for, but it definitely buys a nice room.

Fewer bloodstains than I've become accustomed to, definitely.

I browse the internet with junkie abandon till about 4 am, when sleep finally overcomes my hunger for webcomic updates. Around noon I check out, but with no plans for the day I hang out in the lobby for another couple hours, no idea where to go or what to do. Finally I suck it up and take my backpack to wander the streets like a fucking renegade.

Luckily, there was nearby accommodation with a wide variety of sleeping options. Here is one example with a classy and convenient menu of pricing choices.

First item on the agenda: find another room so I can immediately put my backpack back down again. I look around for one of the cleaner pay-by-the-hour motels, or at least the one with the nicest hourly-sex-pricing sign outside, and check in. You can probably imagine what depraved excuse for shelter such an establishment might offer, and I gotta say, you'd be wrong. The digs weren't too shab-a-dabs for 800 pesos. Also, 800 pesos (close to 20 bucks a night) is about the cheapest I can find, probably because sex tourists tend to have more money than dirty backpacker scum.

There's even a weird seafoam chaise lounge for your classier perverts.

These pay-as-you-go fuckbunkers definitely get a bad rap. You could absolutely describe this room as "habitable". And if that wasn't enough, there was a lightbox on the wall that clearly spelled out the laws of the land, a powerful final barrier to keep out all the riffraff:

Where's the last place you stayed that had a chambermaid? Bet it wasn't pay-by-the-hour!

Once I'm fully checked in to my rape-hovel, I stop in at a Japanese restaurant to get a fruit shake. The guy making my shake says I look like the lead guitarist of Linkin Park, which is a statement I still don't entirely know how to take. Is he ugly? I hope he isn't ugly. I literally cannot bring myself to care about Linkin Park enough to look up him up. What a heady conversation starter. I chat with the shake artist and his female coworker about the area, and ask where they like to hang out, but they seem to only judge nightlife by how beautiful the girls are. That's too narrow of a metric, guys. According to these two, the girls in Angeles are the hottest in all the Philippines, because they come here to make that money. In their words, Boracay can suck it. The girl coworker goes on to say that she'd also be out there in the clubs raking in that sweet sex worker cash, if only she was hot enough. My heart goes out.

On a different note, check out Curry Steve's for truly "authentic" Indian cuisine

Once I've had enough of reassuring a girl that she could absolutely be a hooker if she wanted to, the world is her oyster, I exit back into the dusty concrete eyesore of Angeles' Balibago district. Everything is squat gray buildings boxed up next to each other, stitched through with low power lines and on every surface boasting the usual tourist fare in Tagalog, English, and Korean. Always Korean. That's new.

There's a hum of electricity and desperation in the air, or maybe my mind's still stuck on that last conversation. Just so's I feel a little better about being in the Filipino Mos Eisley, I decide to take in a little culture. Turns out there's a cemetery where you can see a marker dedicated to...the Bataan Death March, which passed along here during World War II.

Is "passed along" a somber enough turn of phrase? It doesn't feel right.

Sorry.

Maybe that's enough culture for now. There's a park nearby, so I spend sunset there watching Filipino flair bartenders practice their bottle tricks.

This city can't be that great, because I am far from alone.

With the fall of night comes decisions. How far am I gonna take this town? I mean, I'm here, so I might as well dip a toe in, and see what pond life pokes its head out. But do I actually want to, as the French say, pay for sex? I'm not exactly the Mayor of Morals Town, but I do draw a line. Although that line has always been drawn mostly 'cause I've always been a real-life pauper without prospects. Let's just be open to destiny.

Be nice, destiny.

I find a sleazy looking bar called The Margarita Station, which is actually pretty nice, unfortunately. No go-go girls, just a lot of normal-ish people and commendable drink prices.

BOOO

Since I don't know anyone, and no one is actively making an effort to talk to me, I drink a fair share and watch TV shows on my mp3 player. Destiny's playing it a little slow tonight. There's a cocktail on the menu called a Stinger, which I order because Bukowski girls always drink it. It's god-awful dog swill. Whoever decided cognac needed creme de menthe should be drowned and then shot. It's going to come as a surprise to myself and probably my audience that I don't vomit later tonight, considering I followed that success story with a Tanduay Ice, the Filipino version of a Bacardi Breezer. Why? Destiny, and also I don't remember. Probably misread the menu. Now that I'm loaded with enough confidence-juice to make something happen, I chat up the bartender about the sitch'. Turns out, he hates all the Koreans in town. Apparently this is where they all come to vacation, and go absolutely fucking nuts. According to my barman, they're loud, unruly, and spit everywhere. Which, yeah, but I guess even more so than in Korea. Whoa.

Beyond that, no directions or advice. Just antipathy towards Koreans.

Time to plunge in: Fields Avenue, the official Walking Street. Many Southeast Asian tourist towns will have a Walking Street, but few come close to this. Here is where the bawdy neon lights of the city are, a profligate signal flare of excitement and low culture coiled into the urban sprawl. Go-go girls and their unimpressed madames line both sides of the road, offering endless variations on the same venal spiel. Eagerly salivating over them are a depressing number of older white gentlemen and what I assume are the Korean businessmen I was warned against. The Koreans seem to have the edge in numbers. There are local men too, every other one a tout asking if I want a trike ride or cheap cigarettes or knock-off sunglasses or fake viagra or stolen electronics. They all call me "boss". After Singapore, it feels like home. I walk a lap up and down the street, psyching myself up to bite the proverbial bullet and explore one of these dens of sin.

My first go-go bar of the night will turn out to be representative of many: bored, uncoordinated bikini girls sharing raised stages that zig and zag through the bar, languorously dancing repetitive "routines" that only serve to remind you that dancing is not their true profession. It's little more than a haphazardly neon-trimmed dive bar that happens to have a few poles that the girls use more for support than any kind of eroticism. The money seems to have gone entirely to the outside decor (which the competition ensures is fantastically eye-catching indeed), with little to spare for the cavernous space inside. The audience is predictably made up of overweight and middle-aged white guys or loud Korean businessmen, all swilling double-price beers. Considering I am almost none of those things, I turn out to be very popular with the ladies. I'll say it, it's a bit of a shock.

Not that they have much to talk about; in between the not so subtle hints that they're available for take-away, every girl I talk to simply rants about further crimes of the Korean people, A middle-aged Swiss man strikes up a conversation with me, perhaps out of loneliness, but it's a welcome change. I can't make out a lot of what he says over the terrible sound system, but he doesn't seem like a predator. Still, probably wouldn't except any massage lessons from him just yet. When I finish my drink, he asks if I'd like for him to show me his favorite bars along the strip. When in (the fall of) Rome!

It isn't long before some Koreans behaving poorly make themselves known. At one bar there's a real specimen videotaping the girls with this massive IMAX-sized rig and trying to feel up their legs. The girls are too...professional, I guess, to tell him off, instead just looking away, obviously uncomfortable, and occasionally brushing off his roaming hand. Finally one gal has had enough and gets right up in his face and shouts until he scurries off like the licentious rodent he is. My Swiss libertine picks up the check, as he's been doing all night, and off we go to the next one.

I'm getting trashed on all these free San Migs (side note: not a bad beer for a shitty cheap lager), on top of the 5 or 6 drinks from earlier in the night, but the Swissman is very calm and casual when he points out a girl to me he fancies, and calls her over. They negotiate for a spell, and just like that we have a new addition to our happy group. He asks if there's any girl I'd like, and I ruefully lay out how paying for it just isn't my bag. I make sure, however, that he knows what a great guy I think he is, and how cool and judgement-free I am with his whole scene, man. He leaves to party with his new gal pal, and I leave to find more bars to drink more beers. My mind disappears with my friends, and all I remember is stumbling somnambulant through door after garishly decorated door, dressed up like temples and jungles and saloons and vintage nightclubs, finding each one the same inside and stumbling out again. In my hypnagogic state the bars and the girls all blend into one another in a horrible panorama of beer and butts and bad Koreans, yet despite my best efforts to override my programming with drink I manage to stay single to the end. Oh well.

Amazingly, I make it back without difficulty to my love hotel room that will remain absent of love. It almost feels like I'm being selfish, just using it for boring old sleep. I noticed that even the premium hotels in the area offer hourly pricing as well. They know their demographic. I wanted to see Angeles, and I feel sated.

After waking in worse shape than usual, I go through the alcoholic's morning ritual of making sure all my stuff is still with me, and check out.

Other than some mystery thigh bruises, all good in Jamiesburg.

After a trike ride to the bus terminal, I'm having trouble finding the bus to the Manila airport. A local is kind enough to show me, and then wang enough to ask for a tip. I stiff him, because Never Back...nope, doesn't really work here. The bus shows Con Air during the ride, which is terrible for a hangover, modern classic though it may be.

After the bus another taxi, where I'm charged another fare that I'm sure is unreasonable but haven't been in-country long enough to be sure. I am so tired of learning new price standards and currency exchange rates, and trying to remember to not let everyone take advantage of my rotating buffet of inebriation, apathy, white guilt, comparative wealth, and attempted cultural sensitivity (which can reliably be interchanged with flat-out ignorance). I'm also tired of saying I'm tired of things. Pick up your balls and get on with it, dude.

At the airport gate I grab a Cinnabon, which unlike Con Air is amazing for my hangover, and is always a good life decision. Unfortunately, we're not in America, so it's not nearly as frosting-drenched and gross and delicious. Still, it passes the time and fills the hole in my life where sex and companionship should be.

Cinnabon: Distracting you from the depressing realities of the modern condition since 1985 

Despite my state last night I somehow bought an expensive plane ticket to Caticlan, from where Boracay can be reached. I have no plan beyond that, which is just as well when I meet an Aussie on the plane, also traveling alone. We arrange to find a place together. His name's Jordan, he seems nice, and right now that's enough for me.

Aw, airplane friend

Frogress Is Made/KO PHA NGAN

Enough sitting around. I book a boat tour of the island, especially interested in a series of waterfalls that are supposed to be spectacular, and a special beach that some tourist brochures had me really psyched about. Anything to get out of Haad Rin for a bit.

An awful heat hangs over the morning, a real crack-sluicer, as I wait for the tour van to pick me up. The van stops at a place called Friendly Resort near Haad Rin Nok, the sunset beach, where I meet the rest of the tour group. They register my presence with some surprise, as it turns out everyone else going is from a travel package group, making me the outsider butting into their planned boat ride. Play it cool, Jamie. Don't let 'em see your crack sweat. The head of their travel group makes some introductions, but I confess I was too distracted by the very angry cold sore on her lip to memorize a dozen British names on the spot.

Once the boat leaves the dock, the waters start to chop and wave. Our captain has a chat with the cold sore girl, which she relays back to us: Due to possibility of getting trapped by a storm, we won't be stopping at the waterfalls or the special beach. Alright, I probably had that coming. Anyways, I have bigger concerns: This is the first time I've worn my swim trunks since the night I tried my hand at fire rope-jumping, and I never noticed that a 3-inch hole was burned into the crotch, so now I get to spend the rest of the boat ride playing How Many British Strangers Are Going To See My White American Dick.

Quit lookin' perv

The boat pulls into our first stop at Bottle Beach, where the group is led to lunch at a beachside open-air restaurant. After eating a plate of fried rice, I find myself back on the boat sunbathing with a couple other guys from the group, chatting about the Dragon Tattoo movies, The Inbetweeners, the general state of British film and television, and...goddammit. They were nerds. Stupid, smart, interesting nerds. Still, baby steps. I was making progress. Friend progress. Frogress, if you will. No, definitely friend progress.

The tour stops next at a snorkeling spot about a half mile from shore. Masks and flippers are handed out for everyone who wants to get wet. While half the boat is jumping in, the captain starts throwing bride slices out onto the water, setting off a feeding frenzy among the sputtering neon-banded fish nearby. Really, the opposite of everything I had just learned about not disturbing marine life in scuba diving classes. I watch the sight for a bit before diving in myself.

Sorry, Environment.

The area has a great deal of coral, but in lifeless gray-green hues, like the pea-soup screen of an old Game Boy. Still, the water feels great after the day's oppressive heat. Back on the boat, the woman who we'll just call Cold Sore Sally is warning her travel group about fire rope swinging. Apparently one of the Thai rope swingers she knows dropped the rope for whatever reason, only to have it coil around his leg, while his jeans were soaked in kerosene. His legs were horribly burnt, and being too poor for medical care, became infected.  In the end, both legs had to be amputated.

Meanwhile some other assholes complain about their boo-boos.

Snorkeling turns out to be the last activity for the day, and the boat heads back to port. Almost as soon as we start moving, I realize I have to pee, and this is one of those apocalyptic all-consuming needs to pee. Without any handy sinks around, I consider my options. I could try and sit as nonchalantly as possible, legs crossed tighter than the Gordian Knot, feet spasming uncontrollably, and wait for my kidneys to explode, or I could simply announce to the others my basic bodily needs, and have a beautiful, soul-soaring piss over the side of the boat, announcing myself before all creation. I go with not peeing, which somehow feels more shameful, and wait to die.

After three or four years, we come in sight of the dock. "Does anyone else feel like jumping off the boat right now, they have to pee so bad?" someone pipes up. All round the boat, every single person shouts and/or painfully moans their agreement. To think, what would have happened had I been the pioneer to let it fly over the side? What could I have started? Imagine the sight; the boat floating magically, wonderfully into the air, carried aloft by the sheer force of so many desperate golden arcs, our ship soaring out of this world and into the story-swapping sessions of grizzled sailors at their drunkest, telling the impossible tale with hushed voice into an empty whiskey bottle. 

Our group disembarks and the dozen of us all crabwalk over and around each other to the nearest bathrooms. As much as I'd like to make plans to meet up with my new nerd-friends again, my bladder trumps all. I ditch everyone else running into their bungalows to have a good, old-fashioned public urine-bonanza right there on the pier.

Now the narrative is going to try and stumble on.  In the meantime, here's a crab spitting bubbles out of its mouth.

"Blurble"

Feeling like a sufficiently active and outgoing human being once again, I eat dinner for one at an Italian place called Mona Lisa. I order their homemade limoncello cream and chocolate mousse, but they're out of both, and I can only get regular limoncello, and tiramisu. That's the story of this whole trip, really. If you were just reading this blog until I nailed the perfect travel analogy, because you're the most weirdly specific reader in the world, well here's your stopping point, because home run!

Life is pain.

The ritual continues; paying 5 dollar ATM fees to get drunk in the afternoon, and by night dodging the Thais playing badminton in the street and the dogs sleeping on the beach. I'm starting to recognize the locals, and for better or worse they're recognizing me.

The next afternoon I'm having lunch in a Friends bar called Lazy House. On the TV is a UK Jackass-alike called Balls of Steel, which is a lot like Jackass, minus the charisma, personalities, creativity, or humor. While I sit and consider how far-gone a mind has to be to get pretentious about Jackass, the Lazy House bartender starts up a conversation with me. He confirms for me that the island is indeed now filled with Israelis and Estonians (?) for reasons unknown to him, and shares anecdotes about how after the Full Moon Party he'll find the restaurant filled with people after closing who just seem to wander in, despite the walls and furniture being put up.  He also complains bitterly about the same people who stop in, look at the menu, and then leave to find places that are 10 or 15 baht cheaper. "Assholes," I agree, all of a sudden very worried that he can see into my soul, and the guilt therein.

Along with a pork kebab, I order a few cocktails, including a mai tai, which has become something of a game for me. I've found that every bar and restaurant has them on the menu, but will make them completely different, usually with no idea as to what is actually supposed to go in one, so I get a surprise every time. A cat and dog pair saunter into Lazy House, looking for handouts. After playing Jackass 3D, they close early.

With nothing else to do, and not feeling particularly energetic, I'm about go home when I notice Club 9, a bar I had thought closed following the Full Moon Party, was open for the night. Curious, I go for in a drink.

Inside, the club is completely deserted save for two bartenders and myself. After perusing the menu, I order a "rocknrolla", because James Bond and Charlie Sheen taught me if you're just going to have one drink, make it count.

Club 9 offered Hangover Cures at the bar, which I thought a brilliant innovation. And maybe just a little foreboding.

While one of the bartenders futzes with the sound system, and I sip my oversold and overpriced vodka-Red Bull, the other bartender asks me if I'd like to play a game. Intrigued, and not sure how I could say no in an empty bar, I agree. From behind the counter, he produces...Connect Four. Not just the favored game of prepubescent scam artists, it would seem. What the hell. We play a few games, and the bartender predictably dominates. To make up for my loss, he pours me a whiskey sour, although I'm pretty sure I ended up paying for it anyway.

Two guys walk through the door, and I happen to recognize them. They're both from the group I was with on the boat trip, and they also both happen to be the only non-Brits of said group: Sander, from the Netherlands, and Ted, from Australia. Happy to get away from more embarrassing Connect Four defeats, I join them at a table in the corner. After a round or two of skittles shots, they mention that the rest of the group is going to be partying on the beach, and invite me to come. It would cut into my valuable losing-Hasbro-games-to-a-bored-bartender-in-a-depressing-nightclub time, but I tag along anyway.

Sander, Ted, and I find the others at the beach, and I'm greeted with a few surprised cries of recognition. My nerd-friends aren't here, and I got the feeling they weren't entirely missed. For a while I share in the others' drink buckets and make small talk with a Spanish girl who is oddly insistent about me friending her on Facebook, and then the fire rope comes out.

Hello, old friend.

This time, I abstain. Sander leaves for bed, and the rest of them have too much healthy self-preservation instinct to jump in. Without any interest to keep it going, the fire rope guys pack it in, and are replaced by fire jugglers, whom we watch transfixed while draining more heinously intoxicating and intoxicatingly heinous buckets.

Fire jugglers: Stroking the ego of amateur photographers the world over

Then out comes the fire ring. Sorry, let me rephrase that: they brought out a literal Ring of Fire. This time, abstinence is for ugly teens and dudes named Morrissey. I'mma go live a misinterpreted Johnny Cash song.

Sometimes I really goddamn love you, Ko Pha Ngan.

I jump through the ring again, and again, and again. My draw to it is so powerful, it's practically encoded in my DNA. 

Even though you can't actually see my face, I feel like in this second it's become at least three times as handsome.

Once I've got all the ring-jumping out of my system, I settle down, dance a little, and have a couple beers to celebrate a successful injury-free experience. However, something feels amiss. I check my pockets. My keys are missing.

They're nowhere around the table, or the ground beneath. Clearly, they must have fallen out while I was jumping through a flaming hoop, not that there is anything about this sentence I could have seen coming. Desperate, I hunt the surrounding sand, but with all the foot traffic and the tide coming in, the search becomes hopeless.

I hope you're happy. And goddammit, I know you are.

I have no way of contacting the people at Venus to let me in, and it's far too late to get a room somewhere else for the night. I have two options left: Sleep on the beach, or find someone to go home with. Not wanting to be robbed and/or marked as territory by stray dogs, I put my game face on. My seduction face. Which sounds like I was making kissy lips or something, but it was really pretty much my normal face, except I tried to make my eyes more brooding-er.

With the stakes this high, I got to see just what kind of man I was. Turns out, I'm a man who's not very good at picking up girls. After Ted starts making out with the Spanish Facebook-enthusiast, and takes her off the market, I set my sights on a British girl named Cyndi. Cyndi is the kind of girl with a face that's made to be drunk, possessing the perfect elastic qualities and expression of coy bewilderment. She's already rebuffed Tyler, the playboy of their little group, but she's kept drinking steadily since then and seems very interested in Seattle (even if she does think it's somewhere in California). Let me be clear on this: all I really wanted was a place to stay for the night. If anything, sex would be working against my purpose, since everyone had roommates and any busted hanky-panky could result in me getting thrown out. I wouldn't say I was quite on the Light side of the Force here, but I certainly wasn't Darth Vader neither.

However, Cyndi is being very hot/cold, and just when I think I'm getting somewhere, she's pulled aside by the other girls and given a talking-to. There are a lot of comforting gestures, and every once in awhile Cyndi nods in my direction and loudly exclaims "He?!" I don't know what kind of grammar she's using to do it, but I can feel her slipping away.

I turn my laser-guided attentions elsewhere. A cute Asian girl joins the party, who turns out to have actually lived in Seattle for a bit. And, she's even lost her flip-flops in the sand to boot! I help her look for them for awhile, but they've been sucked out into that same bitch ocean with my room key. She thanks me for my help, compliments me for being such a nice guy, but she's really got to get to bed and good luck with your room situation! Exeunt cute Asian girl.

It's past 3 a.m. now, and I've given up hope. The group is disbanding, and starting to make their way back to their rooms in Haad Rin Nok. I tag along for a bit, wondering which part of the beach is neutral dog territory,  when another one of the stragglers, Janice, an attractive brunette with a stern air, asks where I'm headed. 

"Oh, nowhere really. I'm kind of homeless at the moment," I reply, and fill her in on my plight. To my relief, she's sympathetic.

"I suppose...you might be able to stay in our room. My roommate is probably going to be gone for the night, so there's an extra bed."

Yes! Salvation! Elated, I walk with her to get a couple toasties, while she makes some surprisingly catty remarks about the other girls in her travel group. But hey, whatever you want to bitch about, I'm interested. I even humor her by trying some of her Marmite and cheese toastie, and further humor her by not instantly spitting the Marmite out and rinsing my mouth with Abraxo and holy water.

Once in her room, I ask which bed she wants me to take. She doesn't care. I climb in the one nearest the door, and to my surprise, she climbs in with me. I mean, it wasn't a complete surprise, as I've read in books that girls like to do intercourse stuff too. Still, it was something of a concern. Not only was it past 4 in the morning now, and I was way too tired to be doing anything, but after talking to her it was clear that her roommate was likely to come back at any moment.

Not wanting to offend her or her hospitality, I did the only thing I could: scootched as far as possible to the edge of the bed and pretended to sleep. Janice wasn't satisfied. Every time I would trail off in conversation and close my eyes, she would wait a couple minutes, and then broach a new topic, her hand slowly and steadily moving across the divide towards me the whole time. By the time she started asking if I had seen "this American show 'Glee'", I decided to bite the bullet. Maybe the roommate wouldn't come home after all, and Janice and I could get in a quickie before she would finally let me sleep. I slip my arm around her, and by the waist pull her close. We make out, my reluctance and reservations melting away...

Then her roommate comes home, because of course she does. "Fucking hell!" gasps Bethany, Miss Roommate Herself. Janice and I disentangle ourselves and I go back to the fetal position against the wall.

"Look at this! Haw! Haw!" Behind Bethany is Jake, a topless brodude with the lumpy, ungainly physique of someone who eats too much protein powder. While Bethany gets into her bed, Jake can't sit still, and bounds around the room.  Janice and Bethany argue with each other for a spell about nothing in particular, mostly Janice asking where she's been, and Bethany trying her hardest not to say dry-humping with this guy in the sand. She looks embarrassed to have been caught with him, whereas I don't think Jake has ever been embarrassed in his entire life. Ripping off his pants, he jumps boxer-clad into our bed.

"Let's get this party started!" Jake bellows, starting a tug-of-war with us for our covers.

"Ja-ake! Come on love, just get into bed, yeah?" Bethany pleads with him. He's not having any of it.  He can smell sex in the air, and he's going to be involved in some fashion.

"Whaddaya say we have a four-way? Haw haw! Eh? You know you wanna!" I've started to burrito myself into the sheets, trying not to stare Jake's swinging junk, flapping in and out of the front of his boxers, in the eye.

But neither Janice nor Bethany wanna.  After being stared down by Janice, and berated by Bethany, Jake finally surrenders himself to bed. Bethany turns on the aircon full blast, and switches off the lights, pointless now that it's past 6 and the sun is rising.

"Only spooning, you two!" Bethany chides us before going back to bed, and wrapping herself around Jake.  You got it. If I fall asleep now, I can still get maybe 3 and a half hours of sleep before the girls have to check out of the room.

But Janice isn't interested in sleep. Just as soon as rest was in sight, she starts to grind into me, slowly at first, then gradually picking up speed. Like a sexual Terminator, she wasn't going to quit. Grabbing my available hand under the covers, she presses it to her breast as she continues to grind her ass along my pelvis. In the other bed, I can hear Bethany complain as Jake tries something similar with her. Whether they can see what we're doing, I don't know.

Janice is done playing around. She takes my hand in her left and moves it downtown, pushing two of my fingers into her vagina, while with her other hand she reaches back and starts giving me a very awkward, backwards, over-the-pants handjob. That she does all this while still facing away from me I found extremely impressive. That she was facing her roommate 3-feet away, well, that was something too. She keeps right on fingering herself using my hand as a prop, though if it's making any effect I can't tell. Her backwards handie wasn't doing much for me, but to be fair she would need at least a couple double-joints, and just about every other bit of this situation to be completely different, if she wanted to be very successful.

In the other bed, Bethany has finally had enough of Jake's molestations, and yells at him to either go to sleep, or get out. He chooses to leave, and collects his clothes, muttering the way out. I freeze, not wanting to disturb anybody. Janice has stopped working my hand, and seems to fall asleep, with my fingers still inside her. Without wanting to move, and risk waking her, or angering her roommate, I stay like that, holding hands with her pussy, for an impossibly long time. Minutes, hours, days, I couldn't say. I wonder if it'd be rude to wash my hands after this. My fingers have probably pruned.

After I'm sure Bethany is asleep, I finally withdraw my hand and release my sticky fingers to the light of day. Even if there was time, sleep is impossible thanks to the freezing aircon and morning light filling the room. Didn't I have the option to sleep on a nice, comfortable beach at some point? What happened to that?

Around 9 a.m., the girls awaken to the screech of a travel alarm clock. Bethany heads downstairs to see about extending their stay in the room, while Janice showers. I manage to at least wash my hands before I leave, making vague plans to meet Janice somewhere on the beach, sometime tonight.

I walk of shame back to Venus, but there's nobody there. In all my genius, I got myself locked out on the night before Easter Sunday, and now I get to wait for the family who runs the place to get back from Mass, whenever that would be.

The grandmother finally shows up, but the spare key to my room's padlock, wouldn't you know it, doesn't work. She unlocks the bungalow next door for me to shower in, while she attempts to saw the lock off.  The sawing is unsuccessful, so finally she calls her son in to bash at the door with a hammer, as the locksmith is unavailable because of the holiday.

This is what you get when you "fall into a burning ring of fire." That song is full of shit.

After an hour, he finally smashes the lock off, and I'm able to get inside and nap for a few precious hours. Once I finally feel fit enough to go outside again, I head down to the lobby for breakfast. It's there, on one of the tables, that I spy a familiar bottle.

Hello, beautiful!

The gigolo didn't steal it after all! So, there's a moral to all this bullshit in the end. Don't be quick to judge people. Or something.