The place largely breaks down to these groups go-gos, freelance, massage/karaoke, online and clubs. As always please chime in to correct the details, or augment them or criticize. Let it be said – Manila is not Bangkok and never will be so get that out of your mind from the get go. It looks slummier and one would think it might be cheaper than Bangkok but it is not. Also – the taxi drivers suck. Best to know about how much you expect to pay or negotiate it upfront. They may start to use the meter but about 5 mins in they shut it off and then start quoting ridiculous prices. Reminds me of KL – I hate it.

Go-go bars:

There are 2 areas with go-gos. Most people only go to P. Burgos street. This is like 2 streets full of bars, go-gos and massage joints. Frankly other than Davinos which has Russian strippers – I find no reason to go to Burgos. In my opinion the drinking is not cheap, the girls are not that hot and the service is generally crappy. There are a few exceptions but even the notable exceptions are lacking on some nights with talent. Feel free to browse but if you are making any comparisons to BKK get ready for a major letdown. Pushy mamasans, no nudity and frankly not that many hotties. The music is good but in general the music across PH is better anyway. Clubs and so on included.

About the only reason to go to Burgos is this place: http://www.zigguratcuisine.com/

The other area with go-gos is EDSA complex. A small nana plaza like setup but there are only 5-6 bars but in general for go-gos I think they are better than burgos. Prettier girls, the go-gos are nice, less touts and the prices seem better. Drinks are cheaper and the barfine is like 1500 pesos and then anywhere from 1500-3000 pesos for the girl. About 3-4k baht though. Considering one can go to Cowboy and pay bar of like 600 baht and the girl 2000 baht – you can see that BKK is cheaper and higher quality.

Freelance:

There are 2 major freelance places that I know of. If there are others please add them in the comments. The most famous is probably LA Cafe in Ermita district. Like a big 2 story pub/bar with tons of girls, food and dance music. The downstairs is free and girls are not hassled for drinks. THe upstairs they charge 100 pesos to everyone. The idea is the better girls who have some coin or upstairs – this is what people say but I did not see much of a difference. The upstairs has a band which for me means to avoid it. There are a lot of girls and the model is like the beergarden in BKK – just walk around and pick one. It runs like 1500-2000 pesos for st/lt. Probably the cheapest of the options but frankly I did not see much worth going after but the average flip does not get my motor running and LA Cafe is not full of above average girls. However it is a scene and worth checking out.

The other spot is Havana Cafe which is across from the New World Makait hotel. It is in Greenbelt – a major shopping mall. As a sidenote cruising Greenbelt is fun and there are a lot of middle/upper class flips running around. To find Havana Cahe either go to the hotel and walk across or go to Greenbelt. Everyone knows where it is. Situated in a large outdoor area next to Starbucks there is outdoor seating and an indoor spot with a band and dance floor. The places stays open until 2am or 3am on some nights. It is a big FL meatmarket but the quality is better given the setting and the prices at the Cafe. Even if you are not pulling it is a fun place to people watch. You will see many mixed race flips here and they are fun to talk to. Met a girl who looked columbian, spoke 3 languages, could dance like shakira and was only asking about 2000 pesos. You won’t find this quality in Burgos or LA Cafe. The food and drinks are okay as well.

Massage/Karaoke:

Just like in Thailand the locals won’t be found at Burgos, EDSA or the freelancer places. You will see them at Davinos in Burgos due to the Russian girls but the locals are not into the local dark skin girls – so just like BKK the locals are in the Karaoke joints or Massage places. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

Fusion massage is a normal oil type of place with HJ. Specializes in 2 girls. I had fun here.

Wilderness is okay – I think none of the massage/soapie places hold a candle to BKK but this is cheaper and has a better selection of talent than the go-gos. There are tons of KTV places that have massage and I am sure some real lookers.

As an FYI there are ways to get the models that fool around for money. This will set you back about 15-20k pesos. Still looking into this.

In general I don’t like Karaoke but the one thing that is nice about Karaoke in Manila is all the girls love to sing, they wear lingerie if you pay extra and tend to get very frisky. This place is one example: http://pharaoh.ktvphil.com/. You get a room, pick some girls, pay to get them in see through nighties, buy drinks and watch them sing whilst you play with them. Just about anything goes with money and the quality is high. Some of the youngest, sexiest girls I remember in p4p in manila came from the karaoke joints.

Online:

The girls are all online in PH. So get on Date in Asia or Tagged and work it. Easy to find girls willing to meet up.

Clubs:

Throughout Quezon City, The Fort area and Makati there are clubs. Tabu in Makati is cool and Tuesday nights is model night. The Embassy in the Fort is cool but I have not been and people talk about Jills as well. There are tons of clubs so best to ask around for what which is happening. Dress up a bit for the clubs or expect to be totally ignored.

In general Manila is no Bkk but nothing is. However it can be a fun time if you get stuck there but not sure I would make a trip to Manila over Bkk if I was just into the p4p.

enjoy!

ps. As a sidenote there is supposedly some apartment/dormitory scene that people talk about but I have not seen. The taxis and a few reputable flips I know talk about it. But it is a place you go and talk to a manager who knows which girls are on the game and you choose to meet them in a hotel. Sounds a tad shady but he said there are some FL uni types. Hmmmm.

In Burgos a few times we would see an absolute stunner cruising with her pimp it would seem but was not sure the process and I don’t like pimps.

Morning sex, and disaster struck. Martha’s period appeared to have begun. Either that, or she had been up half the night delicately filling herself with beetroot juice. You never know.

With sex off the menu, and with Martha being far too pretty to be any good at the art of oral sex (see Poodle’s comment on Part One), I was left with absolutely nothing to do.

The thing about Angeles City is that it’s fine for bar-crawls, picking up girls, and eating vast banquets. But there is absolutely nothing else to do. The nearest beach is hours away, and apparently isn’t even very nice.

So I took Martha for breakfast by the pool, then sent her off home – promising that I’d drop by her bar later on. Back to the hotel room, then, to kill time until On Nutter called, suggesting dinner at 8.45pm.

He’d already been busy, taking a girl for an early evening short-time from the King of Diamonds gogo bar. So at least he was having no problems finding suitable partners.

And I ought to point out that it wasn’t just him, either – there were hundreds of guys marauding through the town every day and night, happily taking girls out of the bars, so the smart money is on my tastes just being completely out of kilter with everyone else’s. High standards, or different tastes? What’s the difference, really?

Our flight was due to leave just after 12pm the next day – I double-checked our confirmation emails to be sure – so we’d need to be up at 9am, and out of the hotel around 10am. Rather earlier than I’d managed all week, but not too unpleasant. We’d have plenty of time to quaff a few final beers after dinner.

After bequeathing the remains of my meal to a grateful On Nutter, we moved out to the Agasya bar on Real Street – an Asian-targeted bar with a relaxed lounge feel, and a series of inoffensive choreographed numbers where a group of girls went through the motions of pop video dance routines. Well, some of them did. One just couldn’t remember any of the moves. Which made the show far more enjoyable than it might otherwise have been.

Then On Nutter had one of his less stellar ideas, dragging me into Midnight Rodeo Country & Western Bar, which he had visited with The Baron on the previous evening. I don’t like Country and Western music. We were the only customers in the tired-looking bar, and the ageing, grizzled band called over to us almost immediately that they would play our favourite C&W songs – we just needed to write them down. A waitress scurried over with a pad of paper and a pen. I was in hell.

All eyes on us, all I could think of was the scene in The Blues Brothers where they accidentally get a gig at a C&W club, and play Stand By Your Man.

It wasn’t as funny in real life.

On leaving the bar, I noticed that the upstairs floor was occupied by a gay kickboxing-themed hostess host bar.

Fittingly, it was in fact time for me to man up. Given that Martha was riding the crimson wave, and that we had to be up relatively early to fly in the morning, I wasn’t going to barfine her. Instead, I had to visit her bar and say goodbye.

She took it better than I’d feared, but was still blinking back tears as I bid her adieu. A great girl, and one who deserves a better life than this. I hope she gets snapped up by a more worthy guy than me sooner rather than later.

From there, we had one last bar crawl to round the week off – Bedrock was uninspiring, so we ducked out without even ordering, but had a decent time in Nero’s Forum. In fact, we saw probably the best dance shows of the week in here, really energetic and fun, with some cute lookers.

Typically, since it was our last night and since we had to be up early for the return flight, this was the night all the stunners came out of the woodwork. There were plenty in Nero’s.

From there we hit Club 68 (“We owe you one”), where On Nutter reprised his palm reader routine. A new low was reached when he soothsayed “Aha, I see you have one baby already!” to a Cherry Girl. Oops.

68 was slim on lookers, but their 12am-2am happy hour – 60 pesos (฿42) for San Miguel Light – was a nice touch, and from there we returned to old favourite Club Asia – another stellar lineup, and I was beginning to actually feel sorry that I’d soon be leaving.

Finally, down to our last pesos, we crawled down Blow Row for the final beers of the trip. I had just about enough cash left to end the week as I began it – with the same Service Provider, no less.

We settled up, and I tipped my remaining 250 pesos to the girl swilling the Listerine, as we braved the onset of Typhoon Mirinae on the way back to the hotel – I set my alarm, and slept.

Day Eight – Cebu Pacific, How I Love Thee

Up at 9am, packed and ready in the lobby by 10am, we settled the hotel bills, and our carriage awaited. On Nutter tipped most of the remains of his pesos to the hotel staff. I’d already given mine away the previous night.

And so off we went in the taxi to our destination – where we were greeted by a surprised-looking airport employee at the closed doors of an empty airport.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“We’re here for the Cebu flight to Bangkok”.

“But that doesn’t leave until 8.15pm. Ten hours from now”.

Cuntflaps.

Evidently, since we’d booked our tickets, Cebu had changed their schedules. And not thought to actually inform anyone. We had the best part of another day to kill.

If there is a worse airline anywhere in the world, I would like to hear about it.

And so into a taxi, paid for with the last pesos in On Nutter’s wallet, and back to the hotel, where the surprised-looking staff laughed, and said of course we could store our bags behind the desk until the evening.

We were out of cash though. We hadn’t seen a single ATM in Angeles City so far, but were directed to the SM Mall, about a mile or so away.

On the way there, as we passed the usual irritating street vendors (“Viagra!”, “Porno!”), we met the most surreal one yet.

“Folding tables!” he beamed. I stopped, and looked. He was indeed holding a wooden folding table under each arm. Fantastic.

After a long walk, and the unpleasant experience of queuing for an hour behind people who appeared never to have used an ATM before, I was able to actually withdraw some money from my Thai account – which was a nice surprise.

We took a trike to Perimeter Road – it was my turn to sit in the sidecar – and eventually found ourselves in a bar called Honey Kos, where we spent much of the rest of the afternoon.

Daytime gogos always frighten me a little. It seems horribly unnatural to be sat in a darkened bar, watching bikini-clad girls performing the chrome pole shuffle, in the knowledge that it’s still broad daylight outside.

We had a good time though, and when one kind soul (not me) rang the bell, I was delighted to note that all the girls on stage removed their tops. Was this common practice at all the bars? Surely not. I’d have rung a few bells myself if it was…

Kicking back on a couch at the rear of the bar, On Nutter and I reminisced on what had been an entertaining week. A bargirl or two on either side attended to our needs in terms of massage and other forms of groping, as we went over the highlights.

“I liked it when The Baron asked that girl whether her home province was further away than the moon”, I said.

“Yes,” said On Nutter, “and she said that the moon must be closer, because you can see it from here”.

We chuckled. I once had a friend in Bangkok who had a map of the world on his wall. Whenever a bargirl was leaving his place, he’d offer to double their pay if they could find Thailand on the map. They never could.

On Nutter, it transpired, had been asked by the mamasan, after a marathon palm-reading session in Fantasy Club, where he had learned the mysterious art of palm reading. He’d told her that he’d trained under a master in a temple in Bangkok. She had nodded, sagely.

Another bargirl had asked him whether Thailand was in Europe or Singapore.

Most troubling though, was the waitress that he’d taken from a smaller bar on Day Five, after I’d retired – defeated by my mammoth burrito.

In hushed tones, he confessed that he’d somehow ended up shagging her without a condom, and been unable to pull out in time.

I thought on this.

“You know,” I said, “there’s a very real chance that in a few short years time, there is going to be a half-English, half-Filipino toddler wandering the nurseries of Angeles City, stealing all of the other kids’ half-eaten rusks”.

It was soon time to make our way back to the hotel, collect the luggage, and from there, make our way home. On Nutter had been on the San Miguel Light all afternoon. I’d been on the orange juice, and couldn’t finish the last one.

“Are you going to…” he began to ask.

“All yours”.

We found our way back to the airport, having expertly managed our purchases so as to have spend precisely all of our pesos once again, thus ensuring that we wouldn’t be taking any worthless currency back to Bangkok. So it was rather annoying to discover that there was a 600 peso departure tax.

It was even more annoying, for me at least, to discover that there were precisely no smoking facilities airside. Security even confiscated my cigarette lighter for good measure – a first, anywhere in the world.

Smoking is a polarising issue, of course, but since smoking was not only permitted, but practically encouraged everywhere else we’d been in Angeles – restaurants, gogo bars, hotel rooms, hotel lobbies, trikes – I just hadn’t been prepared for two hours in a bleak departure lounge without the opportunity to punish my lungs any further.

We had been looking forward to arriving in Bangkok in the early afternoon, heading to our respective homes, perhaps enjoying an afternoon nap, and making to the Big Mango Bar’s Halloween Party in good time.

Now, with the flight showing as half an hour delayed from a time already eight hours later than advertised, it wasn’t looking quite so simple.

The phrase STP has entered the popular Bangkok vernacular in recent times – Straight To Plane refers to having a final night of one’s trip to Bangkok so epic that one stays up partying all night, and woozily makes one’s way to the airport the next morning, still wasted.

On Nutter and I countered this with SFP – Straight From Plane. We took a taxi from Suvarnabhumi airport direct to the Big Mango Bar, and while we missed the peak of the party, we still had time for a number of beers with pals before the end of the night.

On the flight though, and even in the taxi on our way, I had been reflecting on the differences between the Filipina girls and their Thai sisters.

The Thais are always being accused of being more mercenary than in the good old days. People complain that diva attitudes have ruined many of the girls, and even some of the bars entirely, and that the money is now the only thing on the girls’ minds. There is a brash side to many of them now, rather than the sweet, loving and innocent young maidens of yesteryear.

A hint of rose-tinted glasses there, of course – and most of the complainants are themselves less attractive prospects than they were ten or twenty years ago – but it’s a gripe I hear too often to entirely disregard.

I still maintain that there are plenty of girls out there who just want to have fun, but can see where some of the grumblers are coming from.

Certainly in Angeles the girls, although less pretty, seemed more demure, a little more classy, better educated at least as far as English was concerned, and generally closer to the kind of girl you could consider taking home and introducing to mother without breaking into a cold sweat.

“Did I show you the photo of that girl’s tattoo from yesterday?” asked On Nutter in the taxi.

“No, I don’t think you did”.

The End.

After afternoon intercourse (we woke up at 3pm), Martha pointed out that it would be her birthday tomorrow. I’d actually noticed this on her license card on the first night, but had immediately forgotten about it in my boozy haze. Apparently there would be a party at her home, and she would love me to attend.

Once I’d confirmed that her parents would not be present (just her sisters, aunts, cousins and friends), I agreed. It would be an interesting experience, hopefully without too much pressure being put upon me to marry the poor girl.

She was unable to join us for breakfast, due to her weekly STD checkup, so I wandered over to the poolside restaurant alone, where I found On Nutter sitting near the water’s edge, reading a newspaper. I was surprised and disappointed not to see a pair of comedy eyeholes cut out, through which I had imagined he would be watching the frolicking hookers in the pool.

I had a Spanish omelette for breakfast. And, yes, finished it.

I was beginning to worry about the Martha situation. Sure, she was slim, attractive, great in bed, and good fun to be with, but she was also becoming increasingly clingy – behaving rather like a lovestruck teenager. Which, at 19 years old, I suppose she was entitled to be – but I was already dreading having to comfort a weeping lovelorn hooker when it was time for us to leave Angeles.

Attending her birthday party would make things worse, of course, and the right thing to do would arguably be to just dump her at once and avoid her bar for the rest of the week.

The trouble was, she was still the hottest girl I’d seen all week, the sex was great, and I didn’t much fancy my chances of finding a suitable replacement. Onwards, then…

After breakfast, we returned to Gobbles bar. On Nutter’s girl from Day Two was pleasant enough, to be fair, but I didn’t think much of the other “talent” on offer. Still, On Nutter’s girl was too pleasant for him to resist, at least. They retired to the dingy back room again, and I headed back to the hotel.

Later, a few drinks before dinner. We’d spotted a Mexican place nearby – Tequila Reef – and were eager to try it out. I like Mexican food.

Firstly though, a quick beer in Blueberry Hill, where a middle-aged Filipino was crooning karaoke for our listening pleasure. Or lack thereof. One and out, and to Tequila Reef.

I particularly like burritos – Bangkok’s Sunrise Tacos chain is not renowned for excellent food, nor for speedy service, but their large burritos are sufficiently huge to fill even the most girthsome of guts. Allegedly.

Wary though, that I was in an enclave of American eateries, I plumped for the regular-sized (“pregnant”) burrito. The large one was referred to on the menu as “pregnant with twins”. Classy.

On Nutter went for the ribs and chicken combo, and we ordered a side platter to nibble on while we waited – quesadillas, nachos, etc and so on. San Miguel Light is the perfect companion to Mexican food, and we were making reasonably good work of the starters when the main courses arrived.

On Nutter’s “ribs and chicken combo” was half a roast pig, upon which proudly sat the singed corpse of the world’s largest chicken.

As I smirked, my burrito arrived. In writing this, I was struggling to come up with a more accurate phrase than “like a baby’s arm” to describe it. It’s a good phrase, but the burrito was far bigger than that. So I have opted for “it was like a toddler’s torso”.

The amount of food on our table could surely have fed most of the impoverished, the malnourished, the beggars; the general unfortunates of Angeles City. We ate it all anyway.

Two beers later (Valhalla, and then Dollhouse) I was ready for bed. I staggered by Martha’s bar to bail her out for the night, and didn’t even have room to finish my San Miguel Light. Luckily, On Nutter was on hand to finish it on my behalf.

And so back to the hotel, Martha in tow, where I was, regrettably, too stuffed and tired to be capable of stuffing and tiring her.

Day Six – My Name Is Peter North

I was rudely awoken from my carbohydrate-fueled slumber by the birthday girl herself, at the ungodly hour of 8am. She had to head home to make preparations for the party. I grunted an acknowledgement, eyes closed, heard the door close behind her, and drifted happily back into sleep…

…for about two minutes, until the phone rang because reception have a policy of calling the room whenever a girl leaves unaccompanied. A nice, well thought-out policy, but an irritating one on the morning in question, all the same.

She returned at around 11am, physically dragged me out of bed, and we took a trike to her place – I imagine it was on the outskirts of the city, but really can’t vouch for that with any certainty. We both fitted neatly into the sidecar though. If only On Nutter weighed 38kg – our dignity could still be intact…

Martha’s place was a small but pleasant bungalow on a sleepy suburban street. There were, as you would expect, no other white faces to be seen in the neighbourhood. Her sisters, their boyfriends and husbands, her aunt, some other friends and the token unconvincing ladyboy were already in attendance, sat drinking beer outside on the porch – upon which a rented karaoke machine had been set up. Karaoke. Oh, joy.

The Filipino guys were all drinking large bottles of Red Horse beer. The girls were all drinking small bottles of San Miguel Light. I smiled, introduced myself, and was swiftly handed a cold bottle of San Miguel Light. Evidently I was one of the girls. Oh well.

Food began to appear, and pretty soon the table was laden with barbecued fish, fried chicken, pasta salad, pork chunks in sauce, spaghetti bolognese, and boiled potatoes which were, for some reason, purple.

The beer was flowing freely, and the karaoke session soon began in earnest. I was, of course, implored to sing – and, of course, absolutely refused to do so. I can think of no worse torture than karaoke parties, particularly when most of the songs are in Tagalog.

There was, however, one highlight. I had been previously unaware of the work of Parokya Ni Edgar, and so was unprepared for his masterwork, “Papa Cologne”:

My name is Peter North, and I’m from
Houston, Colorado
I play a lot of tennis and I
Know a little judo
My darling likes me smelling good
It always turns her on
That’s why I always use
Papa Cologne

I have since checked, and apparently the porn Peter North is from Nova Scotia, and not Colorado at all.

But I didn’t know that at the time.

Karaoke aside, the party was actually pretty good fun. The food was fine – I’d been warned that the local food in the Philippines was awful – and helped to soak up the beer breakfast.

Everyone was friendly enough, the lantern-jawed ladyboy hardly tried to shag me at all, and it was a relief once again to have absolutely no problems with communication barriers – everybody spoke English.

As time drew on though, it was time for me to take my leave – I had a dinner date with On Nutter and The Baron. Martha had to get to work, although I’d obviously be barfining her again later.

I shook hands with all and sundry, and slipped the guy who’d bought all the beer a thousand pesos for his trouble (he looked like he’d won the lottery). A friend of the family pulled up outside on his trike – a free ride back to Fields Avenue, to take the whore daughter to work and drop off her spendthrift English customer. Nice.

It might seem odd to the outsider to have dropped the birthday girl off to work in her bar, but I doubt I could have stopped her really. As in Thailand, the girls at the bar act as each others peer group, and form their own support network – as well as close friendships.

I left her to celebrate and get drunk with her pals, as I headed to the restaurant to do much the same with my own.

We were in the same restaurant we’d visited on the first night, and the cold cuts and cheese platter was already on the table when I arrived. This time around, The Baron had been ordered not to ply us with wine, and so tutted and rolled his eyes as On Nutter and I commited the cardinal sin of drinking beer with dinner.

As I looked over the menu, bereft of inspiration, The Baron spoke. “You know, the cheese fondue is rather good here”, he said, thoughtfully…

I had never had cheese fondue before.

It was very, very good.

After the meat and cheese starters though, followed by a main course of, essentially, cheese, I was a little bloated. I may even have been sweating.

On Nutter was not.

“I think I still need a main course”, he said.

He ordered, and finished, a main course. I think (but could be wrong) it was pork medallions in gravy, with chips.

We definitely had black forest gateau for pudding, though.

“Just the Jack-and-Jill please”, said The Baron, as a waitress enquired whether we’d like anything else. I wasn’t sure she’d understand cockney rhyming slang.

My fears were well-founded, as she contemplated this request, then eventually brought over a large Jack Daniels in a brandy glass.

Beers followed, firstly in Rhapsody bar, to which I’d promised myself I’d return after being bought beers by the mamasan on our first night. Again, a less than stellar lineup, but a friendly enough environment – I think we stayed for two.

Onto Lollipop, again for the second time. There must have been several gogos that we didn’t visit at all, such is the scope of Angeles, but by this point we’d already hit most of the hotspots on the central strip.

The Baron dealt with the annoyance of being continually pestered to buy buckets of ping pong balls by taking two of the proffered buckets, and carefully slipping one, upside-down, on top of the other, without spilling a single ball.

I think I’m right in saying that I actually applauded.

I paid up, and left the guys to it while I went to collect Martha. On Nutter’s phone has a battery life measured in minutes, so we agreed to rendezvous in Angelwitch in an hour.

Down the road, Martha was a little worse for wear, but still seemed to be having a thoroughly enjoyable time, and was certainly pleased to see me.

A couple of drinks with her and her pals, and then we wandered down Fields Ave to Angelwitch – where they were, for some reason, showing heavy metal videos intercut with hardcore porn. I wasn’t complaining – just surprised…

Martha had just one birthday request – she wanted to finish the night at Sky Trax disco, just up the road. I knew nothing of the place, but gathered that it was the “cool” hangout in this part of town. Fine by me.

On Nutter and The Baron soon arrived – they had been at a Country & Western pub which On Nutter insisted that I must visit before the end of the week. There is little I loathe more than Country & Western – it’s on a level with karaoke. Country & Western songs on karaoke would be the worst possible sound in the world, I rather think.

As I suspected, neither On Nutter nor The Baron had any intention of darkening the door of Sky Trax – so our group split once more. Once Martha and I arrived there, I could kind of see their point.

Some of the girls were p4p, but by no means all of them – plenty of Filipino guys in attendance too, which was an odd sight after seeing so few of them all week. Kind of like spending a whole week on Cowboy, and then hitting a real Thai bar, I guess… “What, you mean there are Thai males as well?”

The music was toss, but perhaps I’m just getting old. Either way, it wasn’t helped by a complete arse of an MC spewing sub-wedding-disco whoops and hollers over the din.

Martha was happy enough though, and it was her birthday. It was my penultimate night in Angeles, I’d had a pretty good time, and I was ready for bed…

I met with The Baron and On Nutter at Azzuro, where I enjoyed a light bruschetta, followed by a splendid lasagna.

“Are you going to finish that?” asked On Nutter.

“Yes,” said I.

He wept, quietly, into his tiramisu.

We also managed to drink 3 more bottles of wine with dinner again, but I was assured that since we were on holiday, they didn’t count.

After the meal, we moved onto Lollipop – a medium-sized bar with friendly but plain-looking medium-sized girls. The Baron lightened the mood by buying a bucket of ping pong balls. Which he threw at the ceiling, predictably causing mayhem.

I don’t think you’re supposed to throw the actual tin bucket. Nobody seemed to mind, though.

Next up was Champagne, I think. There was precisely one hot girl, but on further inspection she had a tattoo on her left tit, and a thin scar on her chin. I’d have left her on the stage in a Bangkok gogo for either of those grotesque deformities, but things were getting desperate. She didn’t seem remotely interested though, avoiding my gaze, and even I can recognise the futility in that situation.

We left The Baron in Champagne, and On Nutter and I tried Crystal Palace, where, bizarrely enough The Thai Penthouse Girls (“Direct from Bangkok!”) were the star attraction. Hilarious. I spoke to one in Thai, she boggled. There was a queue to have your photo taken with them, which amused us no end.

From there to Tropix, which was just awful. One girl had the worst stretch-marks I have ever seen in my life. Cartoon tombstones adorned the back wall behind the stage, in Halloween style. They should bury the bar instead. The lineup was just beyond grim, and although this was the first bar in which we’d seen topless girls (with painted-on tops), it just was not in the slightest bit alluring. Any of these girls would look infinitely more attractive in a burqa. Enough…

From there to Las Vegas, where – again – a couple of decent-looking girls did their very best to avoid my gaze. Had I somehow contracted leprosy without realising it? Looking around any of these bars, all I could see in terms of alternatives were grizzled be-mulleted Americans, or that saddest of sights – bald men with ponytails.

Very few were under 40, or even 50. Without disappearing completely up my own arse, I’m not the most hideous of creatures. Whilst the fact that I could still lose a few pounds is well documented, I do still require a sturdy belt to hold up my 34″ waist jeans. I’m not Meat Loaf. The “Brad Pitt effect” is well-documented, but in most Angeles gogos I felt more like Brad Dourif…

We were going to walk straight past the gaudily-lit Eager Beavers, until I heard the words “blow” and “job” coming from the mouth of one of the door girls, in that order, and aimed in my direction. In we went – words were had, and a (sadly less than stellar-looking) girl was beckoned. She was soon under my table, pumping away as I watched the lineup – this wasn’t a hole-in-the-wall short-time bar, this was just another regular gogo. With extras.

Of course I had to buy her a drink. But the door girl wanted one too. “Buy me drink because I tell you about blow job, I not lie”, she said.

The mamasan informed me she would also appreciate one, because “my daughter suck your dick, you buy me drink”.

I don’t know whether she was really the mamasan’s daughter. I hope not. That would be weird.

Prices are so cheap in Angeles that I think I bought the round anyway.

She was pretty good, to be fair, and was at one point slurping with such gusto that I began to worry that On Nutter might ask her whether she was going to finish it…

Still, sterling as the work was, I wasn’t about to blow my load in the middle of a gogo bar, and had no intention of taking the girl under the table home with me.

Once again, I became frustrated that none of the few decent-looking girls in the club would even make eye contact. Looking back, this is probably due to the fact that there was a fat waitress under the table sucking my cock, but this angle somehow escaped me at the time.

I ended up, I’m ashamed to admit, drunkenly grumbling to the mamasan that surely I was the best-looking prospect in the bar, and that the girls were idiots for avoiding me.

I left On Nutter to his own devices, and sullenly stomped down Fields Avenue in the direction of our hotel. Where, outside one of the gogos, the most beautiful girl I’d seen all week took my arm, and beckoned me inside. I accepted, but told her she’d have to join me for a drink. She looked thrilled.

Within moments, we were gazing stupidly into each others eyes, and she said “yes” before I even finished asking her to come back to the hotel with me.

Anyway, she needs a name, and so I shall call her Martha. Partly because that’s the kind of corny, old-fashioned name that most Filipina girls seem to have, and partly as a tribute to the classic 19th episode of the third (1966-67) season of a certain antiquated aquatic TV show.

Did you see what I did there?

Did you?

Yes. I am funny.

Day Four – Paradise Regained

After a morning round which proved even more enjoyable than the night before’s drunken victorious pillaging of the most shaggable girl I’d seen in days, we moved onto the afternoon rounds, and eventually made it to the pool for breakfast with On Nutter at 4.50pm.

“Is he your Dad?” asked Martha.

“No”, I said.

I went for the bacon and eggs breakfast – black pudding and fried mushrooms were both conspicious by their absence from Angeles City’s breakfast menus. Something must be done. “Breakfast” arrived a little after 5pm. I have no shame.

Martha had ordered the chop suey, which looked pretty good. On Nutter thought so too.

“Are you going to finish that?” he asked, at an appropriate lull.

She shyly shook her head, and pushed the plate over to him.

We spent an hour or so watching the other sex tourists frolicking in the pool with their hookers. Some of them looked capable even of lowering the tone at a Khao San Road street stall.

Martha was gazing dreamily at me.

“You look like Shane. From Westlife.” she said.

I don’t.

We finally left the pool a little after 6pm, as the sun was setting. Martha had to work, but there was no way I was going to resort to the lottery of Angeles gogo bars again. I’d seen the odds. I slipped 1,500 pesos into her hand, told her to pay her own barfine, and that I’d see her later.

Just time to return to the room, catch up on a few websites, watch some Wile E. Coyote cartoons on the iPod, and generally chill ahead of dinner.

On Nutter and I had decided to dine at a Swiss restaurant, where we both took the day’s special – weiner schnitzel. Nice, but a little overwhelming, particularly as I’d had an obscenely late breakfast.

“Are you going to finish that?” asked On Nutter.

“All yours”, I said, totally stuffed.

It was time to hit the bars – this time round, a markedly different experience, since I already knew I’d be taking Martha home again. I was partly able to relax and enjoy it more, knowing that there was no pressure to find anyone beddable. But also partly on edge, in case I saw anyone more attractive than her…

I shouldn’t have worried. We started at Genesis, where we’d been the night before, but got very little attention on this visit. On the previous night, On Nutter had been performing his fortune-telling routine. He professes to be able to read palms. He can’t really, of course, but this doesn’t stop him from studying the proffered palms of bargirls, furrowing his brow, and announcing that they will marry a rich man from England, or Korea, or Germany, or Iraq, or Ethiopia, depending on whether he likes the girl or not.

On our first visit to Genesis, he’d done “readings” for about ten girls. He had told me that on his first trip to Angeles, four years previously, he’d actually had a queue of girls stretching out of the door of one bar. If you thought the Thais were superstitious, the Filipinos are something else altogether.

We moved on, anyway, to Cambodia Club. Decorated like an old Khmer temple, this was an attractive bar, entirely spoilt for our visit by a gang of marauding American squaddies prancing around with their shirts off and generally spoiling the view. The girls actually danced topless here, with no body paint in sight. Which was a very nice surprise, but unfortunately the presence of GI Joe and pals ensured that we left after one beer.

Next up was Club Asia, probably the biggest bar we visited. Two rooms with huge stages contained some of the hottest girls I’d seen in Angeles. This bar was definitely targetting the Asian market – Japanese and Koreans, mostly, and white customers were scarce.

We didn’t hang around for long – Martha had sent me an SMS asking when I was going to pick her up, and I didn’t want to keep her hanging around – but I was more impressed by this bar than any others on the trip so far.

We headed back up Fields Avenue to collect Martha from her bar, and moved on to Voodoo – a 24hr gogo bar. The dancers work shifts, so there’s always a team on the go at any hour of day or night. The lineup was pretty poor when we hit it though, so one and out.

We looked into Vortex, right at the end of the street, but it was completely empty. And so back to Club Asia, for another gawp at the finest lineup in town. Some taller, pale girls here, some of whom wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Bangkok G-Club. I pointed one out to On Nutter, who shook his head. “I like short, brown girls”, he said. No accounting for taste.

Finally, we had a couple of beers in the Dirty Duck – On Nutter “read” a few more palms, Martha and I had a few more San Miguel Lights, and eventually moved on, leaving On Nutter behind with a queue of superstitious bargirls, eager to discover what nationality their future husbands would be.

Some chicken fingers and loaded potato skins from Kokomo’s rounded off the night for Martha and I, and it was time to head back to the hotel for some rumpy pumpy, and some sleep.

Angeles isn’t all that bad, really…

There are, for some reason, three taps in the shower. The one on the right is for hot, the one on the left for cold. The one in the middle must be for… Warm? Soap?

As it transpires, it’s not a tap. It diverts the water from the shower head to the low-set tap. Thus ensuring that the weary traveller can easily alternate between boiling his head and searing the skin off his feet.

Eventually, after skilled and precise knob-manipulating that made me feel like a safecracker – or a fluffer with a cold sore – I settled on a temperature somewhere between “saute” and “poach”, and showered.

Our destination was the Phoenix Hotel – On Nutter says that on his last visit, four years ago, this was home to the finest breakfast in Angeles.

We had planned to get a bus up to the hotel, but none of them seemed to be going our way. A motorbike with sidecar (“trike” – local equivalent of the tuk-tuk, and at least half as irritating) pulled up.

On Nutter eyed the vehicle approvingly, and said “I think we can both get this one”. I eyed the sidecar warily. It wasn’t very big. I eyed On Nutter’s prosperous frame. “Er…”, I said.

He slid snugly into the sidecar, arse-first, and nestled comfortably – like a satsuma in a teacup.

“No, you get on the back”, he said, before I could turn a foolish look into a foolish question.

I eyed the rear fender incredulously.

“No, on the back of the bike.”

The mounting for the sidecar was in the way.

“You’ll have to sit side-saddle.”

I felt a bit like a Bangkok uni girl. But then, don’t we all, on occasion?

The Phoenix Hotel restaurant was comfortable enough – the vinyl tablecloth had a few of those reassuring cigarette burns, which usually mean that even the tea is fried.

On Nutter opted for the breakfast steak, sausages, and poached eggs on toast.

I went for bacon, sausage and scrambled eggs, with toast and a mug of builders’ tea.

One of my sausages appeared to have exploded in the microwave, the bacon had the consistency (and, I imagine, the taste) of shoe leather, and the eggs seemed to have cheese in them. I hope it was cheese. The toast was nice though.

As I struggled with the first slice of bacon, I realised On Nutter was staring at my plate like a hungry dog. He had finished his breakfast already.

“Are you going to finish that?” he asked, visibly salivating. It would not be the last time I heard this question.

“I don’t think so”, I said. I did finish the toast.

On Nutter finished the rest. He said it was lovely, so perhaps it was just my fragile physical and mental state.

After breakfast, we walked up Perimeter Road (I think) to a particularly dingy bar called Nifty’s.

One of the least attractive women I have ever seen stared at me as I walked in, mumbled “oh my God!”, and grabbed my penis firmly, using it as a makeshift rein with which to lead me into the bar.

The interior made the night shift at the Soi 7 Biergarten look like the cast of Dream Gakuen 10.

There was an unoccupied bench seat next to the door, uncomfortably close to a middle-aged sweating Asian man with his cock out, who was being eagerly wanked off by a couple of depressingly ugly girls.

I wanted to see if there were any seats further into the bar that weren’t next to men being masturbated, but On Nutter wouldn’t let me – “just sit here”, he said. I did, but took the half of the bench furthest from Wanky Yoshi.

“You want drink?” asked the barely-human girl whose hands I had by now forcefully shaken off my penis.

“Um, lemonade”, I said.

“HEEEUUUUGH??”, she rasped far too closely into my face.

“Ouch. Er, Sprite?”

“Sprite!”, she shouted to what appeared to be the cave troll from the Moria sequence in The Fellowship Of The Ring, in a fright wig.

“What’s your name?”, she asked.

“Young Penfold”, I lied. After all, I figured the month couldn’t really get much more embarrassing for him – what with his bad call on the WWF Royal Rumble (or whatever) and then sharing his bum-rape shame with the world, and not even winning a prize for doing so.

“HEEEUUUUGH??”

I wiped a few speckles of spittle from my ear. “Young Penfold”.

“HEEEUUUUGH??”

“Young, oh for fucks sake, why am I even here?”, I muttered, looking around in desperation for a towel. None were forthcoming, so I just stood up and walked out. Wanky Yoshi looked up, puzzled. I closed the door behind me, and exhaled.

I get a bit tetchy when I’m hung over. And a bit more tetchy when I’m sat within eyeshot of a middle-aged bloke with his knob out. And yet tetchier again when I’m being hassled by sub-human hookers.

I left On Nutter to it, and decided to walk back into town and clear my head. It worked, particularly when I spotted an establishment called “Wobbly Pensioner’s Home (cheap rooms!)”, and I was in a pretty good mood by the time I got back.

I returned to the hotel, craving a “proper” internet fix – despite being able to use my mobile with the many open WiFi hotspots around town, the resultant thumb cramps were affecting my beer grip. At reception, I discovered that I could rent a laptop for P250 (฿175) a day. Sold!

Meanwhile, it was On Nutter’s turn to explore Blow Row. He was rather taken by a tartlet in the subtly-named Gobbles Bar, and had his way with her in an, um, minimally furnished back room.

On Nutter writes:

I think I told you about the following but I insist it goes in the trip report. The short time room at Gobbles Bar set a new low in basic standards of hygiene, as you can see from the attached pix. On my first visit, there was a pair of rotting knickers on the stool. When I tried to use them as a flannel, they just disintegrated. Sadly, they had been removed by the time of my second visit.

I chilled in my hotel room while this was occurring, then met On Nutter for dinner at Azzuro – an Italian restaurant situated directly on top of the Club Lancelot gogo bar. On Nutter almost wept when I only left him one slice of my pizza, and didn’t order any dessert.

We checked out Club Lancelot after dinner – no wine this time – a nicely done-out bar. Appearing something like a mediaeval banquet hall, or something, the decor was sadly more impressive than the lineup. At least they danced though.

That’s another difference – the Filipina gogo girls may not be as attractive on average as their Thai counterparts, but they do seem to actually enjoy themselves on stage. Watching girls actually moving in time to the music in a gogo bar was a novel experience for me, and one I can heartily recommend.

Then a couple of beers at the Dirty Duck, which, while friendly enough, just didn’t contain anyone who really stood out. On Nutter was frolicking with a relatively cute waitress, and considered barfining her but stopped just short. I was more than ready to try our luck elsewhere.

Genesis, further down the road, was okay – one service girl had comically enormous boobs, but little else to offer. Considering the size of the bar and the number of girls, I was actually quite impressed that I didn’t particularly fancy anyone on the stage.

By this point, I’d spotted another three mullets, and a weirdo on a hand-pedalled low-slung tricycle with a live monkey sat on his shoulder. Yes, really.

Blue Nile had an even worse lineup than Genesis, which puzzled me as the girls loitering outside had all been attractive – and were the only reason I’d ventured inside in the first place. Just as I was considering wandering back out to grab one, they shuffled onto the stage – introduced as the Blue Nile Dance Team.

A couple of dull choreographed routines followed, during which I was amazed to learn from the waitress that none of them were barfineable. Except the ugly one. Astonishing.

“Is he your Dad?” asked the waitress.

“No”, I said.

Sometimes it’s just not your night, and I know when to throw in the towel. I walked back up the street, had a chilli dog at Kokomo’s (a restaurant/bar with 24-hour alcohol and junk food service – dangerous!), and went to bed.

Day Three – On Which I Considered Having A Wank

I woke up at 2.30pm. Which was nice. On Nutter had already eaten, so I had brunch alone at The International – a sports bar with a poker room. Poker is a dullard’s game. The friendly waitresses are all barfineable, of course, but none particularly appealed.

I ordered a tuna sandwich. Angeles is, as I have mentioned, largely patronised by an American presence. Hence my sandwich was the size of a Buick. Seriously, aren’t sandwiches specifically designed to be picked up and eaten? This one was loaded so high with tuna (in watery mayonnaise, I regret to inform you) that it positively wobbled. Closing the bread roll over the filling was physically impossible. I had to use cutlery. For a sandwich. I didn’t eat at The International again.

Given that I still hadn’t seen anybody I wanted to have sex with, I decided to relax with a foot massage. Oddly, I was shepherded into a booth, and asked to remove my trousers. Sometimes the girl needs to reach above the knee, so I’m used to changing my jeans to loose-fitting trousers. But I wasn’t used to being massaged in my underpants. Well, actually, The Heckler‘s underpants. But that’s another story.

Anyway, I found myself lying back on a massage table, in a rickety booth in the middle of a row of rickety booths, with the (pretty cute) massage girl sat on a stool outside the booth, which meant that we couldn’t close the curtains. Which meant that every time another of the massage girls went past, they would stop to stare at the Englishman reclining in his smalls. A lesser man might have felt a little vulnerable – but I am not a lesser man, and waved cheerily as they gawped at the ruck in my slim-fit (on me, anyway) drawers, teasingly suggesting the outline of my mighty gusset gopher.

“Are you married?” asked the massage girl.

“No,” I beamed.

She looked around warily, leaned forward on the stool, and pulled the curtains of the booth closed behind her. She was still sat outside the actual cubicle, but now so were the curtains. It looked deeply suspicious to me, and more so as she oiled her hands and slipped them right up my thigh and inside the leg of my undercrackers.

She started to look really cute at this point – I have discovered in my travels that there is almost certainly a positive correlation between the stiffness of a penis, and the perceived attractiveness of any members of the appropriate gender within line of sight of its owner.

Bizarrely, although she did more than enough to prompt a blustering erection, no extra services were offered. I squeezed back into my trousers, eventually using both fists to hammer my knob into place beneath the belt-line, and limped out into the Angeles early evening.

Aroused and frustrated, I wandered back over to Blow Row. The Black Pearl Bar was a pretty grim sight, but there was one cutie sitting outside. I joined her for a drink, but as I looked more closely, I became concerned about her age. She could have been 18, or even 20. But she could have been younger. I can usually tell with Thai girls, but I have little expertise with the Filipina phenotype.

She wasn’t wearing the usually ubiquitous licence, and while she claimed to have an ID card that proved she was 18, she didn’t seem too eager to go and get it when I asked to see. I erred on the side of caution, and left alone.

As dusk broke, we were about to embark on our third night out in Angeles City – and I still hadn’t got laid. I was seriously considering stomping back to my hotel room and having a wank. My balls were like watermelons, particularly after that massage, and then having to turn down the fledgeling fellatrix…

But sadly, there was no time. I had to meet The Baron and On Nutter for dinner – and another bar crawl…

Here begins an account of what transpired – the first of five (count ‘em!) parts, because I figured people probably hate overly-long individual pieces even more than they hate serial pieces of readable length…

Day One – Outbound Flight

Miraculously, when we arrived at the airport, the flight was not only listed, but was actually running on schedule. We checked in, and went to change our fistfuls of bahts into a more appropriate currency.

Philippine Pesos are the order of the day, but a glance at the rates quoted at the change bureau at Suvarnabhumi suggested that this wasn’t such a good idea – Pesos were offered at ฿0.49 to buy, and ฿0.90 to sell. The actual rate was around ฿0.7, which is almost a 30% markup – in either direction. Caveat emptor.

We bought US dollars instead, which we could easily trade for Philippine Pesos at the countless money changers around Angeles City – as a rough guide, 1 US dollar is a smidgen under 50 pesos. Sure, we paid two lots of commision (baht to dollars, then dollars to pesos), but they added up to a hell of a lot less than 30%.

After the three-hour flight, the highlight of which was undoubtably not the “fun” games our flight crew attempted to get us to join in on (eg. “Hey everybody, first passenger to wave a pen over their head gets a free toy” – fuck off, I am watching Star Wars), we touched down for a welcome respite from the end of Bangkok’s rainy season in the typhoon-addled, yet remarkably dry, Philippines.

Down the steps and onto the tarmac, I took my first glimpse of our destination: aside from our aeroplane and the tiny terminal building, there was nothing else to be seen. There wasn’t a single other aeroplane at the airport.

One of the things that always bugs me about Pattaya is the farangs that I meet there. There are a few honourable exceptions, of course, but most of them are a pretty unpleasant bunch. It’s always riled me that by far the worst of the lot are inevitably Brits. I have long wondered where the trashy American whoremongers were, if not Pattaya. Surely the USA has its own unappealing scumbags, too?

In Angeles City, I found the answer. In the immigration queue, which moved swiftly enough, I counted four hick mullets, plus an elderly bearded gent wearing one of those tattoo sleeves. I could see the seam. Classy.

Although this was my first visit to the Philippines, it wouldn’t be my first dalliance with a Filipina. The initial dubious honour goes to the best of a bad bunch in the Dragon Club bar in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district, who blew me in the bar in exchange for far too much money.

And recently, quite by accident, I ended up on a fun, boozy date with a Filipina living in Bangkok, who works at a local school as an English teacher. Dinner, drinks, and back to my place. In the morning, I reflected on the fact that I was surely now a member of a fairly elite club who can boast at having been sucked off by a Bangkok English teacher, without all the associated unpleasantness of having to join the gays…

We even had a tour guide. On Nutter has a pal who moved from Bangkok to Angeles City earlier this year. Some readers may even know of him – lately of Bangkok, Baron Bonk is a British gent who seems to be channeling the spirit of dearly departed bon viveur Keith Floyd. His appetite for the finer foods and wines of the world is matched only by his lust for women.

And so we checked into our hotel and met The Baron for dinner – a cold cuts and cheese platter to start, then a nice steak in peppercorn sauce with spätzli, rounded off with a slice of black forest gateau, inevitably accompanied by three bottles of wine. In between mouthfuls, The Baron explained how things work.

Firstly, as at the gogo bars of Saphan Kwai (Sutthisan), the barfine is all-inclusive. Barfines ranged from about P1,300 (฿910) to P1,500 (฿1,050) pesos, which is split between the bar and the girl, and covers not only the girl’s departure from the bar, but also her fee for services rendered – Long Time is apparently the standard.

That said, The Baron also advised me that “If you’re a gentleman, you’ll tip the young lady an extra P500 (฿350).”

Tipsy on wine and amply stuffed, I was almost ready for bed. But no – it was time to explore the bars.

We began in Rhapsody, which was decent enough fun, but none of the girls particularly jumped out at me.

“Is that your Dad?” asked one of them – pointing at On Nutter.

“No”, I said.

We were going to leave after a single beer (San Miguel Lite is less than P100 (฿70) in gogo bars, and closer to P50 (฿35) or less in beer bars), but the Mamasan wouldn’t hear of it, and bought us another round.

On Nutter said he had never been bought a beer by a mamasan in four years of living in Bangkok. I’d only ever been bought one myself, years ago, in a tired beer bar in Queen’s Park Plaza – and never in a gogo. Yet we were bought beers by the mamasan – hired staff, not the owner – within twenty minutes of entering our first bar in Angeles. A little customer service goes a long way, and I made a mental note to return to Rhapsody out of principle, regardless of the quality of the women.

We moved on from there to Gecko’s, where I was rather taken by a pretty girl with bleached blonde hair, but she was already in street clothes – presumably she’d already been out for a short-time. I figured I was bound to find something more attractive later on – ideally bikini-clad, so that I could inspect the goods more closely…

La Pasha bar was up next – by now we were getting the hang of it. The Angeles gogo model is not a million miles from the Bangkok version, with the main difference being the prices.

That said, bikinis are ubiquitous. The closest Angeles gets to nudity, I was told, was at a few bars where the bikini top is replaced by body paint – knickers stay on regardless.

Those bastard ping pong balls were present too, albeit again at a discounted price. Bell rings, interestingly, are set-price – the fee ranged from about P3,000 (฿2,100) to about P6,000 (฿4,200) depending on the size of the bar and the number of employees. The walls of many bars were inscribed with lists of the names, dates and times of previous bell-ringers, which is I suppose more recognition than it earns a punter in the average Bangkok bar… I still wasn’t tempted though.

On the upside, the standard of English is streets ahead. English is an official language of the Philippines, so one can have a perfectly pleasant time in the bars without having to utter a single word of Tagalog. I encountered absolutely no communication problems whatsoever.

From La Pasha we headed up Fields Avenue – the main bar strip – to Brown Sugar, in whose toilets I came across a caricature of Mick Jagger in which his index finger had sprouted a bell-end. Which was nice.

Something else I found in Brown Sugar was Cherry Girls. Definitely not something available in the gogo bars of Bangkok, Cherry Girls are, apparently, virgins. I was sceptical too, but am reliably informed that they are the real deal. Their status is indicated by a red “V” on their licence – every dancer or bargirl in Angeles has to wear a laminated licence card bearing their photograph, date of birth, place of birth and other assorted details. It does not indicate how many kids they’ve had, but it does indicate whether they’re a virgin.

Deflowering Cherry Girls was not on my list of things to do, so I didn’t even bother asking the price, but if that kind of thing floats your boat, they’re all over the place. Virgins are terrible shags, and I don’t think one really gains any bragging rights if the defloration comes at a hefty price – further online investigation suggests that the price might be somewhere in the P30,000 (฿21,000) range….

I should point out that they’re all 18 and over, of course – that’s the minimum age in Angeles, and the licence system means that it seems to be fairly rigidly adhered to. There are freelancers working the streets in Angeles, but they’re viewed with suspicion – generally assumed to be diseased, thieves or underage (or all three). Sticking to the licensed girls seems the safe approach. There’s no good reason for a girl to work on the streets when she can easily work in the bars – so if she is on the street, it’s probably for a bad reason…

Then onto Angelwitch - no relation to the heftily overpriced Bangkok and Pattaya show bars of the same name, this was more like a rock pub that happened to have dancing girls. A couple of decent lookers – both of whom asked On Nutter whether I was his son – but nothing irresistible, and we stayed in here for another couple of beers, after which I was very drunk indeed.

After the equivalent of a bottle of wine each, followed by at least seven beers, coupled with crippling jet lag (Angeles is a whole hour ahead of Bangkok), I had little gas left in the tank.

On first impressions, Bangkok spoils us. The average Bangkok gogo girl is several orders of magnitude more attractive than the average Angeles gogo girl, and I don’t even particularly rate average Bangkok gogo girls very highly.

Angeles City is a town in dire need of a good orthodontist, for a start – and this is coming from a Brit! Those girls fortunate enough not to have a grin like a smashed piano were often either overweight, had skin that would benefit from a good sandblasting, or had a big wobbly facial mole – or even several.

To be fair, midnight had long passed before we’d really even started, so the cream of the crop could safely be assumed to have long been harvested, but the paucity of talent was disappointing. Perhaps I should have taken the blonde from Gecko’s, but I wasn’t quite feeling it, and hadn’t seen anything truly tempting since. There just wasn’t a single girl who I really wanted to sleep with.

Blowjobs, however, are another matter, and needs must. And so to Blow Row. An area of Santos St, just off the main strip of Fields Avenue, is Angeles City’s answer to Pattaya’s Soi Six. There are dingy rooms in the back of these run-down beer bars, and short-time is billed at a balloon-chaser-friendly P700 (฿490) – all inclusive. I staggered into the first bar with an acceptable girl in front, and was blown away. Ha ha. No, seriously – one of the best BJs I have ever had in my life, which is not an accolade I award frivolously. I could have shagged her too, for no extra money, but really couldn’t be bothered.

After finishing my beer, and buying the young lady an orange juice for her troubles, I waddled contently to the hotel, and to bed.

As I began the slow drift into unconsciousness, I consoled myself in the facts that it had been Saturday night, that we’d hit the bars far too late, and that we’d only explored a fraction of the area.

Sure, I’d slept with more girls during my recent week in England (1) than I’d managed so far in Angeles (0), but that ratio couldn’t possibly last – could it?

AC, the Pattaya of the Philippines, is located about 150 kms north of Manila. Located adjacent to the now-closed USAF Clark Air Base, it has had an active bar scene since the Vietnam War. 3 airlines currently have daily direct flights from Bkk to Manila, with RT fares ranging from 7500 to 13000 baht.

Currently, AC boasts about 150 bars ranging from sleazepits with about 10 girls each, to multimillion dollar complexes employing several hundred dancers, and sporting modern lighting and electronics. The 2 distinct western bar areas are quite concentrated and very close to each other (think NEP and Soi Cowboy).

At least 100 bars are located within easy walking distance of each other on Field Avenue, and cater primarily to western, Korean, and Japanese tourists. Another 40-50 bars are located a couple of KMs down the road in the Perimeter area, and are popular with expats due to their cheaper prices and ‘sleazier’ environment.

There are plenty of GF hotels in both areas, as well as many restaurants serving western food at reasonable prices, and a large, modern shopping mall. Other than these amenities, the area around the bars is dumpy with dirt and gravel roads, and beggars rivaling those in Phnom Penh.

The local currency is the Philipino Peso. I’ll convert costs to Thai Baht to provide a comparison to Thai prices.

Normal customer drinks (beer and local drinks) are about 65 baht, and lady drinks are about 100 baht. Ladies typically get commissions of about 40 baht on LDs. Barfines (known as EWRs, or early work release) range from about 770 to 1,000 baht. HOWEVER, this BF includes the fee for both the bar AND the lady all-night. Some customers will tip their date another 150-350 baht in the morning, but rarely more. The lady keeps about 50 percent of her BF, the other half going to the bar. She keeps all of any additional tip received in the morning.

Unlike many Thai BGs, most AC BGs expect to stay LT, though they will usually accept the customer’s offer for ST, if requested by the customer. Occasionally, an AC BGs might pull out an excuse to convert LT to ST, but she risks the wrath of her managers if the customer complains. Some of the sleazier and smaller bars offer on or off -premise STs for 450-770 baht, all-inclusive.

Following are a few comparisons of the AC barscene versus the Thai farang barscene. Keep in mind these comparisons are from my perspective, and others may have different preferences and observations. YMMV.

Appearance: The Filipina girls have more variety in their looks: Asian, Asian-Spanish Mix, and a few African mix also. Flip ladies generally are curvier, bustier, and darker than their Thai counterparts. A sufficient number have lite-skin Chinese looks, if that is a preference. Filipina ladies tend to dress more casually than Thai ladies. Also, fewer Filipina BGs have tattoos or smoke cigs, compared to their Thai BG sisters. Appearance preferences are very subjective, and therefore not very meaningful as a comparison.

Language: Filipina girls speak English much better than their Thai counterparts. Their ‘Taglish’ include a lot of cute phrases, the favorite being ‒See how you are”.

Lady Attitudes: As a general rule, I think Filipina BGs tend to treat their customers more respectfully than Thai BGs, and are not as focused on financial compensation. Most stay all night, unless the customer asks them to leave. Most importantly, with very few exceptions, they bring it in the room. As a rule, I find them to be energetic, and open to multiple ‘dances’. Some Thai BGs provide this level of bedroom service, but I find it to be a much lower percent than Filipina BGs.

Bars: Ladies dance in 2 piece suits. No nudity, though some girls will occasionally flash you. Much of the music is 70s and 80s rock tunes, due to the US military influence. One unique aspect that I like, is that the girls often have choreographed dance steps, and many seem to enjoy dancing with their friends. I also get the impression that the bar owners and managers exhibit much more control over the ladies than owners of Thai bars do. AC bar owners are generally very responsive to customer concerns, and the girls generally don’t try to get away with BS that Thai BGs often pull.

Hotels: You can get reasonably decent hotel rooms in AC for reasonable prices. An AC hotel, comparable to the Flipper or Eastiny Hotels in Pattaya, generally runs about 1,000 per night.

Freelancers Much better scene in Thailand. Stay away from them in AC, as there are drug and age issues. The Filipina police issue licences to the girls working in the bars, so there are no age concerns about girls working in the bars. My impression is that ‘Yaabaa’ use among AC BGs is less than that of Thai BGs.

Cherry Girls: Every AC bar seems to have its share of ‘virgins’, who you can BF, but consummate only with an expected LT relationship and significant financial contribution (maybe 20,000 to 30,000 baht). Picking the fruit seems to be popular with Korean and Japanese customers. CGs can be a fun date toward the end of your stay, if your junior partner is worn out and needing a night off. Most cherry girls sleep nude with you, and many provide HJs and BJs. Can also make an interesting double BF night with a regular BG and CG in tandem. You have a better chance of digging up Jimmy Hoffa than you do of finding a cherry girl in Pattaya.

Other Activities: Plenty of non-bar activity in Pattaya, nothing much to do in AC other than eat, drink, sleep ,and *$%#. Not a bad way to spend a holiday, though.

P4P value: Assume you buy 2 drinks plus 2 LDs, LT BF, and normal tip to lady:

AC: 130 + 200 + 1000 + 300 = 1630 baht.

Pattaya 240 + 260 + 600 + 1500 (maybe) = 2500 baht.

The more you drink, the farther apart these amounts are. Bkk prices generally higher than Pattaya. Pattaya Soi 6 ST prices are comparable to AC ST costs.

As in most P4P areas (Bkk, Pattaya, Phnom Penh), the fun level and attitude of bargames in Angeles City is declining from prior years. Some long-time visitors say the current Angeles City bars and girls remind them of Pattaya 10 years ago. Lucky ba$tards.