I don't remember his name. Only that I had called him up after I had seen a poster about diving. And then when I had met him he said he didn't really do any diving work and was just paid to do marketing, which I suppose means pasting posters around.
Potential Diving Mate says that him and his roommate had transferred from Sabang (he pronounces it sabaang) to White Beach after one night because of the overload in sex tourism. There's nothing that puts me more off, he says.
But I want to have a night out and so he agrees to take me along with Guy working for Dive Instructor.
Sabang is instantly recognisable with its bright lights and neon signs. The resto-bars creep into the sea and the streets are narrow and busy. Posters of travel and tours, bars here and shops there.
We enter what they call a girlie bar and sit ourselves at the bar near the stage. The girls are in bikini tops and mini skirts and sway ever so slightly to the music as they walk up and down and around the stage. I don't know, maybe too many MTV music videos, make me expect more (movement) and I am disappointed not to be seeing more action. Employer of Dive Instructor explains that they're all from Manila. That the locals don't really 'work' and that you can take them upstairs for something like 1,000 pesos. Or was it 500?[note, the writer returns to this blog entry after about 3 weeks. Googling pictures of Sabang led to the discovery of a live show room... lol. But no, it didn't go further than that because you have to pay to see some real action]
Anyway, I am both sad and curious for the girls. Prostitution is an option I think every woman has thought of at one point (or maybe that's just the loose cannon thinking that is me).
I wonder if they feel ashamed having me there watching them from the front row... I wonder how long they will be in this... and how they got into it in the first place...
Girlie bars have many kinds of girls, I will discover later. Girls who you buy drinks for, girls you watch dance and then girls who work (who might also do either or both of the former duties). Single women (ie. not accompanied by a man) are not allowed to enter girlie bars. They would be competition, I'm guessing.
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When I get back to my adorable bamboo hut of a hotel room, I am greeted with a bill. I pay it and then realise I am out of cash. But I reassure myself that I can just pop into town again tomorrow and get some out of the ATM.
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The next morning however is pouring with rain. And Former Belgian Investment Banker texts me to tell me that the hiking trip is cancelled due to the rain. I figure I should go to town anyway to get cash but when I get there the ATM is offline and I am advised to go to the next town to try the ATMs there.
I ask a trike driver for his price and he says something exhorbitant. I say no thanks and try a jeepney. The driver says, P700 and we leave now. With just 1000 pesos on me, I say no thanks, I'll wait till the jeepney fills.After about an hour it eventually fills and I only pay something like 50 pesos. The ride takes about an hour and my seat mate is nice enough to lend me his bag to lean on for napping.
I thank him when we get there and get into a trike and ask him to take me to the nearest ATM. We get there and it's offline. He takes me to another. Offline. A third and fourth. Offline, offline, offline!! By this point I'm pouring tears [melodramatic me is trying to express the potential gravity of being broke and stranded] and the poor trike driver doesn't know what to do with me. I also tell him that I need to pee and so he takes me to his house (maybe he needed to pick something up). I meet his wife and family, pee and we're off looking for ATMs again.
This time he takes me to Philippine National Bank and tells me that if any ATM will come back online, it's this one and why don't we wait in the guard house since it's still pouring and I shouldn't get any more wet than I already am.
I agree and the guard makes sardines with rice for all of three of us in that little guard house. We down it with Nescafe instant coffee as he talks to the guard about how sorry he feels for me. I had told him that I had travelled alone and that I wasn't Filipino.
Eventually it stops raining and the PNB ATM goes on and I withdraw my cash. YAY!! Finally.
Trike Driver advises me to buy dry clothes at the nearest shopping mall and that he'll even take me there. I'm not too fussed about being wet as I'd planned to head straight back to White Beach but I'm so touched and charmed by his efforts to take care of me that I agree for him to take me to the mall and so we go shopping, my trike driver and I :)
I choose a grey puff skirt, which I still own and love to this day and a simple black t-shirt. It costs something like P400 in total. And then he says he'll take me to this hotel to rest until the next jeepney back to White Beach. Again I agree to his suggestion and stay at the hotel he takes me to. I pay him P200 for all the driving around and he promises to be back in the evening to take me to the bus stop. But as neither of us have cell phones we rely on his word.
But I'm not able to sleep at all. And so after about 2 hours of trying to, I leave a note at the reception and some money for My Trike Driver and head to the bus stop.
It so happens that there is a jeepney waiting to go. And so I board it and as soon as it fills up, we're on our way back home.
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