NOTE: This trip report involves what was pretty much the focus of my trip. Girls and Diving. This was not a family-friendly outing. It was my first such vacation and I’m still a little awed by it.
Arrived in Manila on the 27th of April…blah blah…..had trouble getting a hotel…..called the fix-it-man…
Spin forward–> Ferry dropped us off at my front door on Sabang beach and then checked into the Mermaids Divers resort. Not a bad little place at all–excellent location with adjacent walkway upstairs for getting to the resteraunt next door, Cap’n Greggs. Right on the beach. Room is small with a queen bed, (foam mattress). Small window AC unit. No frige. Small TV and a wall locker. Bathroom is likewise sparse but what the hey—its a dive shop!
1st day:
did nothing. Ate at the Tropicana. Good seafood and noodle medley bowl. Humidity is kicking my ass.
Night: Stayed in. The humidity from the day kicked my ass pretty bad. Didn’t even get dinner.
2nd day:
Signed up for diving courses with this really cool cat at the dive shop named Rickey. Met 2 of the travel friends on the ‘far end’ (near Sunset Club) while I was shopping for some shirts. (People–please be sure to take shirts with you. Shorts, hats, equipment…they have. But the only shirts are missized tourist print shirts that say “Puerto Galera”. My XXXL was still a western ’small’)
Night: We hooked up again at night and went to the Sabang Disco for the first stop. About 40 girls working. I had one latch onto me within 30 seconds of sitting at the bar, so that was that—-barfine! My friends had gone out the night before and still had the girls from then. I guess the plan was to keep some handy companionship for the week or 2. Anyway…Sabang Disco is the single hottest, poorly lit place in the town. By poorly lit, I mean the girl didn’t even look the same once outside. I dunno, they liked it but it was a sweatshop for me.
Second stop was across the alley to the Village. A much nicer place but for some reason, the girls didn’t let us stay long enough to get seated. hmmm…never figured that one out.
3rd stop was to the Broadway Club right behind my dive-shop room. Broadway is pretty much the best place around. They have a 2-table pool hall in the front open-air deck with a bar staffed with some really cool and energetic girls. Fans all over the place. TV’s and occasionally a live chick band. Upstairs is the disco–the only regular club in the whole town…more on that later. We went to the back where they also had their own girlie bar. 80 girls on staff! Mike was the manager, a former divemaster, and runs a really clean place. This place has the best aircon around.
We started drinking and throwing money around so we became the VIP’s in no time flat. The manager himself started bringing us drinks. “Dad-dy” (as the girls called him, so shall we) has a flock of girls around him and managed to get them all into each other. “Chopper” left early so I’m not sure what happened with him. Never asked. At some point, my date got drunk and started crying about how she didn’t want her daughter growing up to do this work…to which I lit her a cigarrette and ordered her another tequila to shut her up.
Ended the night somehow…pretty drunk, I remember that. Oh yea…ole girl took me to the Red Apple restaurant since they’re open all night. Now she was pissing me off by talking to the waitstaff like servents. Ended up shagging up later in the room. Of course.
Day 3:
Daylight brought reality into focus and as I looked into the bed, I realized that I must’ve somehow been drunk before hitting that first bar. Told girl that I had to go diving (which was true enough, sorta) and didn’t really want her in the room so I gave her money to go shopping…2000P. She goes directly to mamasan and barfines herself for another night.
I’m new to this whole sort of thing so I went with the flow… don’t remember much of that night.
Day 4:
Lots of diving. 3 Sabang wrecks (small), drift dive, generic reef dive….ear problems really bad on one side. . Ate B’fast and lunch at Cap’n Greggs. Excellent food with huge portions and pretty easy on the price. Chopper tells us his girl didn’t want to leave that morning and got really upset when he asked her to leave. Yelling at him or something. She goes back to the house and starts badmouthing him to the other girls (I heard from my girl). After the 3rd dive, we break until the evening.
Night: Started at a restaurant called Tamarind or something. Nice atmosphere. Packed wet sandy floor. Menu was a little sparse but the food was excellent for what we ordered. Chopper ordered something and didn’t like it…he seemed to have bad luck with most of what he ordered anyway. I got some excellent steak with pepper sauce. Dad-dy had something with prawns…..bad move on his part.
For clubbing we started at, (of all places uncomfortable), Sabang Disco. Dad-dy starts negotiating for a bottle of tequila but the bar won’t sell it to us. They had been making a fortune off the ‘lady drinks’ we were buying. Then his prawns come back to haunt him and food posioning kicks in. He leaves with a quickness and the hotties he had with him just dissappear back into the crowd. Chopper leaves too after another hour. I went back to the room and tried peroxiding my ears while girl watched some ‘pop diva’ dvd she picked up. Just a sit-in night except my ears burned from the peroxide—it’s some seriously strong stuff…not diluted like in the states. Just an easy night.
Day 5 :
Pretty sure I was diving this day again. I send ole’ girl packing because I had found out she was telling the girls from other bars that we were married and had a daughter in manila—whoa! A little territorial. Told her I might catch up with her in a few days–she was cool with this. Don’t remember what all I did this day. Every where we went, I remember the girls recognizing us and stopping for a chat. Inviting us out again for the evening.
Night: Chopper is shacked up in his room with some Chest pains. Dad-dy comes by exactly 24 hrs after food poisoning. I decline to go out…not really feeling the mood.
Day 6:
Don’t remember what we did during the day. Probably not much.
Night: We went out but had a plan this time. Started at the Broadway pool hall and met another of our travel group. Liza had come over from another PI location to party with us. She was known from the year before in Boracai. We moved into the back girlie bar. Chopper and Dad-dy picked up some new company. A bunch of drinks later I was warming up to this one girl next to me when we abruptly left–my tab mysteriously paid already.
Went to the ‘other side’, (east leg or the street), and into the Sunset Club. This is a very small place with about 20 girls or less. Honestly, most look a little off their game. Mama-sans are really pushy here and some of the less enticing girls won’t leave you alone. Call me difficult if you want but I prefer a full head of teeth. For every one I was trying to shrug off, 3 more were telling the bartender that I was buying them drinks.
Here, I made a serious faux pas. I had been eyeballing this little fireball that was full of energy and flirtatious as hell. Perfect bod! Well, the girl next to me asked about barfining and I agreed. Then she tells all her friends and gets mama-san over…..only I realized that it was another girl that had slipped in somehow. I had to make a scene of trying to explain that, which as you can imagine, didn’t go over so well. Anyway..we took this one girl out finally and went to Sabang Disco.
Sabang Disco is where we made our HQ for partying. We paid off the waitstaff and security guards with cash and drinks when they told us no pictures. We had body shots going. We had girl on girl going. Shirts were on and shirts were off. We all got really hammered and the wait staff made a months pay in one night. Lil’ fireball rocks my world that night….over and over again. And again for wake-up.
Day 7:
ugggg…hangover. A little trim in the AM helps a bit. I tell ole’ girl to stay, that I’m only diving for an hour but she insists on going to the house. Diving: oh hell. Hurl into the regulator and don’t tell anybody. Diving the ’shark cave’ although theres no cave…just an overhang that sharks sometimes hang out under. Dragging ass. Goto the room and crash again.
Night: Dad-dy comes by. I agree to have dinner with him at Cap’n Greggs but not to go out. My ears were still hurting. He gets a steak plate and I get the Surf-N-Turf. Steak and a single huge 6 inch prawn. I made fun of him as I peeled the prawn and slowly ate it.
After dinner, I drink a lot of water knowing that I’ve got a 0730 dive in the morning. Around 0300, I still keep tossing and turning and get up to urinate. Since my shower is an all-in-one, I just turned on the shower to cool down and started to let loose there……thats when it hit me. That damn prawn. I fell down on all 4 and just happened to land with my face over the toilet when the heaving started. I was convulsing for 45 minutes with it coming out both ends……that damn dirty prawn!
Day 8:
Cancelled diving. Cancelled meals. Cancelled reality. Original ole’ girl texts me because she had heard I was sick (how?!?!) and she’s coming over at noon to pamper me. Barfines herself in advance. Since she’s a nurse in training, thats cool. Its better to have company while I’m miserable than being alone so I’m hip with the whole idea.
Day and night merge together.
Day 9:
Feeling a bit better, but not to steady…I still cancel off diving. In a clearer state I realize that the Philippines must have some seriously shade-tree standards for nursing since this girl was already taking classes and had no idea what loperamide or salicylic acid were nor what acetaminophen and paracetamol were…much less that they were the same thing. I thought she had been feeding me antibiotics but it had just been Tylenol and Immodium.
Dad-dy comes by saying he has the lil’ fireball on hold and that she was asking about me…nope, had to beg off. Too sick still……second night in a row wasted.
Day 10:
Whoa! much better! Ole girl leaves but wont take her stuff. The last of our group arrives…the party meister himself “C”! I don’t know what else to call him w/o using a real name, (not to be confused with my monkier “DC”).
Night: Well hell. Start at the Sabang Disco, I think. Always with that hot ass place. This time C turns it up a few notches by spreading the wealth and getting the stage girls involved. Lots of details…lots of video…but I’ve not the patience to list it all. Moved to the bakery club (never did catch the name of that place) and partied again like theres no tomorrow. Spread money and the corner was ours. Kickin’ night that ended up with hot tubs and more girls than we left with.
Day 11:
Honestly…I’m not really sure if this is day 11 or not. Or if the others are quite right. But it keeps the timeline intact so screw it. U’mm I’m sure there was a dive in here somewhere during the day. Perhaps 2. Oh yea, did a night dive on the wrecks.
Night: It got all kinds of sketchy and the memory only knows of the highlights. Went to every bar and club. Broadway Disco was off the hook. Sometime later in the evening there were 3 of us guys and 5 girls in a penthouse at the main Mermaids Resort up the hill. Nice place. Some one threw condoms at us. They got thrown back at some point. I recall seeing clothing thrown into the ceiling fan. Something about shaving that I seemed to have missed but C apparently has on video. I heard later there was shaving cream on the ceiling. I remember asking where my underwear was and they kept handing me this girls grey shirt. We’re all sure there were 5 girls but no-one can recall who the 5th girl was. I feel sorry for the cleaning crew that had to clean that room in the morning.
Day 12 thru 15:
ummm…we went diving a few more times…..not really sure how many. I remember having equipment failure at 15 meters down when the O-ring on my BCD inflator popped out and I started venting ass loads of air. Had to use someones spare while we shut me down and unhooked the BCD hoses. I finished the dive with only manual inflate capability and half my air. But I’m an air-hog anyway. Day and nights kinda melted together and we wound it down the last few nights. More partying. More hedonism. Diving was far from our minds the last day or two.
C, Dad-dy, and Chopper left a day before me and I heard there was some drama where one girl followed them to the boat early in the AM screaming about not getting paid. Calling mamma-san and security. Trying to get the boat stopped. It was a joke. She had about 5000P in her pocket so I’d say she was pretty well paid. Yes, she came from that sweatshop Sabang Disco. Later in the day, the divemasters were asking me about it, (although I wasn’t there), because it was becoming a big stink on the beach. Oh well. Nothing came of it in the end.
I had to roll out a day early on the 13th because of ferries being shutdown on the following election day. Then I was in the Cherry Blosom in Manila for a day and a half with NO BOOZE. Election stuff and all that. Had the fix-it man get me a nice girl who, unsurprisingly, already knew my friend C.
Well people….it was a helluva blast and I’m missing it already.
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Whoops, had some pix in there that shouldnt have been.
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