Angeles City, leaving The Philippines

Got woken up next morning by some guys playing basketball, shit I thought, I am late. Not really, it was 6.10, I guess the guys couldn’t sleep anymore.

Went down for some breakfast and the guys for the shuttle bus were already hurrying people to get out with their luggage and get ready, even though it wouldn’t leave for another 30 minutes. I sat down and ordered breakfast while checking email, that obviously annoyed the guy a lot, haha.

Went back to the room, packed the last stuff and was down ready to take the bus 1 minutes before planned departure. Yeah, now we just sat there waiting for another 30minutes before leaving, so what was the hurry?

Our bus did not have Internet, but some of the other buses on the freeway did, so when we were close enough to some of them, there was internet for a few minutes. Nice
We arrived at the Swagman hotel in Angeles city, one guy was asking a question about something, the lady on the bus said they had moved the office, that’s why we were here now. He got out of the bus pretty angry and I was ready to argue as well, because I had gotten a hotel close to their offices too, so I didn’t have to walk too far with my only semi dry dive gear.

A few minutes later the bus started driving again and the lady came around asking us for what hotel we stayed at. Sounded like they were going to drop us off at our hotels, couldn’t be better. At some point she walks up to me and asks if it is ok they drop me off here, and I can walk to the hotel by myself? I guess so I say and I am kicked out. Now I am standing in the middle of Angeles city and really don’t know where I am, I can’t even see the hotel I am supposed to stay at. Oh well, can’t be far and I start walking. No it wasn’t, 10 steps and I am in front of it, haha

I am taken to my room, which the lady calls the cutest room they have. It is small, I have to admit, but still it has the best bathroom I have seen so far in the Philippines, with a real shower cabin that closes tight and with the best equipped mini bar I have ever seen.

Now Angeles City is probably everything else but when the name suggests. Close to Angeles City lays Clark Airforce base, or what used to be the airforce base. The American’s built in back in the 50’s after liberating  The Philippines and was until the 80’s the airforce base with the longest runway except for Edwards airforce base in California, long enough to be able to let the space shuttle land in case of emergencies

Where there is an American base, there is a city next to it serving the needs of a big military installation. Angeles City soon became the party place for all the soldiers and prostitution soon became one of the major things going on there. The base later shut down and was handed over to the Philippine airforce, the airport was later commercialized to be used by regular airlines as an alternative to Manila airport. The party and prostitution image the city hasn’t lost and it is nowadays a place single men will travel to from mostly the US, UK and Australia to have a good time.

I arrived at around 11 in the morning, sat down in the bar with a view of the street, just sitting there watching people. The nightclubs are really not just for the night, they never close and your constantly hear this bass beat. I had lunch and just sat there watching the guys and girls in the street, bars changing shifts, customers come and go from the different bars. They had girls working in front of the bars trying to attract people’s attention in the street to enter their bar. They weren’t actually as aggressive as I have seen it done so many other places, they merely sat and smiled to people.

It didn’t take long before they noticed me sitting in the bar having a beer. They started smiling to me, to come over. I had another beer, and they slowly crossed the street very discretely and popped their heads up over the edge of the wall where I was sitting, laughed then ran back to the bar. Her friend came over again and the other girl was shaking her head and shouting something. My friend thinks you look cute, she said, the other girl now covering her face obviously embarrassed. It doesn’t take much to be cute in this town I guess, haha

A lot of guys sit down with their girlfriends for the weekend, old Australian and British guys from what I can tell on their accent, hanging out with a 20-25 year old little Philippine girl. Again, I am not the one to judge, but doesn’t that seem a little wrong, just a little bit?

It just reminded me about a couple of old guys from the US I met in Sabang.  Not sure how we came to talk, but he asked me why I was here, and if I like the girls? He probably thought I was there for the girls like most other people, but I kind of talked around the subject. He had a pretty bad hearing, so I had to almost shout to him all the time. He had been married to a Philippine woman for  over 20 years, living in the Philippines too.  One of the girls stopped by and started chatting him up. I had seen her many times before, always seemed a little drunk or at least somewhat slow. He asked her why she didn’t have a boyfriend, if that wouldn’t be better for her. She said she did have a boyfriend, but he was not here now, so she was just trying to make some money. That apparently made him a little pissed off, because now he was giving her a lecture on what a boyfriend was and that she was a butterfly. She kept insisting she loved her boyfriend, but since he wasn’t here now she could just as well sleep with some men and make some money? He got even more upset and I was kind of relieved in some weird way, apparently we were not the only ones thinking this was a little wrong.

Anyway, later in the afternoon a single guy came and sat next to me. He introduced himself as Phil from Bristol, UK, I think it was. He was around 45 I would guess and a regular here in the Philippines for many years. He had been serving in the British Navy as a machinist and traveled all over Asia for many years before working on cruise ships in Asia. He said, hands down the Philippines was the easiest country to move to and live in if coming from the Western world. The American influence still had changed a lot of things in the Philippines, which made it a lot easier transition if wanting to stay here. I said I really liked Thailand and he agreed, but said that you would never be accepted in their society, you would always be a stranger, not exactly racism, but similar. Maybe he was right, I never thought that far about this subject, just really enjoyed my time in Thailand more than most other places I went to in South East Asia. But always nice with some other opinion as well to reevaluate ones own.

He asked me if I wanted to join him around on some of the clubs, he would just have a beer here and there see what was going on. I told him I would just stay at the bar, and he left for one of the clubs on the street. I ordered some dinner and had another beer was planning on going to bed very soon. Just when I finished dinner and the beer, Phil passed by on the street making a gesture on the street as if to join him – what the hell, a couple of beers wouldn’t hurt me.

Turned out he had been in Angeles City around 15 times, why not anywhere else, makes you wonder, huh? He seemed to know all the places pretty well and could tell the history of many places, different owners etc. Well, we went into a few of the bars, actually quite friendly people. The girls were dancing on stage and were all wearing a number. So if you had interest in a girl, you could tell that specific number to come down and join you for a drink. There was no pressure by anyone and the prices for beers were the same as the other places.

We jumped a few bars and at some point he wanted to go into a certain bar, he said he knew someone working there. Turned out he did know someone working there, she was the guest manager of the place whatever that meant. Anyway we sat there talking to her, she was actually quite funny. At that point it was almost 2 in the morning, I was ready for bed. I went back to my room and passed out immediately.

I woke up to the beat of some music, thinking it must be close to closing time even for those places, 5 maybe 6 in the morning? My phone had not recovered yet, probably it is a lost cause, so had no way of telling time. Well, there was a watch on the wall, but it showed 10am, that couldn’t be right. I got my camera and checked the time there, yup, it was 10am. The room didn’t have any windows, a little difficult to tell if it was light outside or not, but I guess it should be by now.

Since I had to be in the airport by 11am, I was a little bit in a hurry. I got up, had some breakfast and had to pack all my dive gear which had been drying in the room with the AC running. Now it was at least dry, but hopefully it would stay below the 25kg weight limit I had bought for the next flight.

11.30 I arrived at the airport, looked like it could use some shining up, looked like it had been built 30 years ago and never taken care of. My backpack weighed in at 24.55 kg, close enough. I wonder how much it weighs if the dive gear is not totally dry. Went through “security” and proceeded to some waiting area, to find gate number 2. Found the only monitor in the airport showing that every departure/arrival was through gate number 2, haha

Since I couldn’t find the gate, I found some stair going up which turned out to be a brand new departure lounge, but it only had gate 3,4 & 5. Anyways, there was 2 hours to my flight, so I might as well just chill out and relax a little.
When the flight to KK was called nobody moved in the lounge area, I guess I was the only one among the people who was going there? I finally found gate 2, it was packed, but not because of our flight, it was the people waiting for all the other flights, they didn’t want to be late

This was the end of my visit to the Philippine Islands, had a good time, met some interesting people, some of which I hope to meet again.