Drunk & Disorderly

I've safely landed in the Philippines and will be spending the next fortnight here before moving on to trusty Singapore. The flight was pretty uneventfull and I slept on and off (e.g head snapping back to attention every 5 seconds, god I hate that!) as I was pretty tired as had to catch a 5am taxi from Pattaya to the airport which took around two hours. The taxi driver tried to scam me by insisting I pay the road tolls which I then counter-insisted that I had already paid these to his company and it was up to him to settle. He relented and paid but I'm not sure if I've touched on the subject before but Thai's are terrible at dealing with conflict. If you have a problem with a matter such as a meal or incorrect charging then it's a nightmare as Thai's hate dealing with conflict and prefer to ignore the matter completly then resolve it. This pisses off the foreigners who usually indulge in a great deal of swearing and vow never to return to the establishment.

The problems all arise from the Thai's dislike of "losing face" which I think is best described using the example;

"You ask a thai for directions, the thai person does not know so he gives you wrong directions rather than admitting he doesn't know which would cause him to lose face"

It's kinda crazy and I think often costs them alot of business as admitting a mistake loses them face so the problem gets ignored.

Anyway my last night in Pattaya was pretty bland as I wimped off to bed at 9pm which was futile as the music and noise of Pattaya kept me awake until about 3am. The night before on the other hand was one of the most bizarre nights of my life and involved myself, a married lady, her thai lesbian friend and a bottle of Johnny Walker but I think it's probably not fit for the blog so I'll tell the tale when I get home.

I arrived in Manila at about 4pm and caught a taxi to a guesthouse that I'd spotted online, the taxi from the airports are an utter rip-off and I won't let them rape my wallet again. The guesthouse had 1 room available which was a small room with a fan and a shared bath-room which came in at about $11 which isn't to shabby. Without my girly long hair I don't have many problems with the heat and the fan is sufficient. The shared bath-room can be annoying as I was dying to drop the kids off at the pool this morning but some bastard was having a lazy 20 minute shower so I hope I didn't rupture anything heh. I might actually upgrade to somethin' a bit better but I slept past the 12pm check-out time so looks like I'm here for another night.

After signing up for the room yesterday I took a nick nanna-nap and decided to appease my growling stomach with some overdue food (the plane food was horrible so I hadn't eaten in a day). I wandered about not knowing where I was and chose some fried chicken place to eat at and there were a few other cracka's in there. The chicken burger was nice but I ordered some odd-named fries and when they came out they were green and were served with sugar...what the hell?! (oh and they tasted crap!). Following that I checked out Roxas Blvd which is a stretch of bars and restaurants along the water, was really nice with heaps of people and live music. Now I had vowed to avoid alcohol for this portion of the trip but really I couldn't come to a country and not sample there local beer as I think that's actually illegal and punishable by castration. So I found myself a bar and ordered some of the local bew Sam Miguel, it was horrible out of a can but the next bar served it in bottles which was much nicer. Even better was Sam Miguel Lite which despite the name is a full strength beer but has less calories or some shit so I knocked back a few of them.

Hip Hop and the fashion associated with it is really big over here so you see plenty of twisted caps and baggy jeans but sadly not a single pimp-coat. The second bar I went into had two whiteboys that were wiggin' it up something laughable with huge bball jerseys, twisted caps and mad bling. You couldn't help but notice these two as they were constantly shouting things like;

"Wassup Cuz!"

"Whats crackin' ya'll!"

"She frontin' me dawg she frontin' me!!!"

It was really getting on my nerves but I watched with great amusement as our two loud white crips downed a large gulp of shut the fuck up as 4 big mean looking black guys entered the bar. For the rest of the night I didn't hear a peep out of them!

The black guys sat next to me and one of them wandered over to chat to me about the Philippines and upon hearing I was Australian this took place;

"Yer I hear Australia's nice but dunno how my trade be there"

"What trade is that?"

"The Opium trade"

"Oh...that trade...yes...well...geez look at the time!"

I didn't actually bolt but steadied my nerves with another SM Light and watched as a big steroid lookin' italian dude wandered over to my opium friends and banged fists with them and tried to befriend them which I overheard.

Italian Stallion: "Yo guys where ya from?"

Opium Dealer: "New York"

Italian Stallion: "Oh America, I lived in LA for 2 years"

Opium Dealer: "That right?...what part"

Italian Stallion: "San Pedro"

Opium Dealer: "Never heard of it"

Italian Stallion: *sounding nervous now* "Yes well I lived there"

Opium Dealer: "Sure you did"

Italian Stallion: *trying to salvage situation "so where in Africa are you guys from?"

*Opium dealers suddenly surround Italian Stallion*

Opium Dealer: "I said I was from fuckin' america, not Africa and boy I got a good mind to beat you for that"

Italian Stallion: *pale and looking like he's going to throw up but still not knowing to shut up* "Well at some point you musta come from Africa right?"

It was hilarious and they didn't perform any beat-downs but let him wander away to a corner where he shot nervous looks there way all night, heh normally I'm the one who finds myself in those situations. I'm off to do some sight seeing and will include more photo's next time but Danny knocked together a pimp photoshop of me so here it is heh;