Jenna was very good in bed and performed miracles with her lips. I stayed another week in Cebu. She was only twenty-three and still had to go to university in the morning before working at the office/travel agency from 5:00 PM to 11:00.
At night we would break sex records and she asked me to stay longer with her. During the day I had nothing to do and walked around the city a bit or went to the Ayala mall, which was packed with beautiful girls. I always took a jeepney bus there which was the cheapest way of getting across town. It was almost guaranteed that any time you get on a jeepney there’s always a hot girl on it.
I started to fall in love with the Philippines. The friendly people, the fact that a lot of people speak English, that it was always warm and everything is quite cheap. If you look you can find delicious food for only a couple of dollars. I had to continue travelling but in my heart I didn’t want to. The same feeling I had before came over me; I was getting tired of packing my bag every three or four days and wanted to relax a bit with someone who actually cared for me instead of hanging with drunken backpackers all the time. I left for another island but promised Jenna she would see me again.
Philippines – Palawan
It’s a short flight from Cebu to Puerto Princessa on Palawan Island, and finding a guesthouse was easy. There were already some hawkers waiting at the airport and they took me to a place close to the water. The guesthouse was a nice place and had all the things a guesthouse needs: a restaurant and bar, television, bar and a few young girls working there. The place was owned by a fat old Australian guy who was married to a Filipino girl he yelled at from time to time. I didn’t like the guy but sometimes I could understand his anger. At times the cultural differences really show up, with some huge gaps. They probably say the same of us. Actually, they probably think we’re crazy, because they have a way of taking everything literally, so our way of looking at the world must strike them as totally nuts.
Accommodation isn’t as cheap in the Philippines as in other South East Asian countries, so I took the dorm room, which I shared with two young French girls. They were both good-looking and I asked them to go out with me to find a restaurant and drink some beers in the city center. The girls were both studying in Kuala Lumpur and on a short holiday in the Phils. We choose a restaurant that also doubled as a karaoke place. It was a big outside place with a roof and a small podium in front. Filipinos are very musical and will grab any chance to sing a karaoke song. No matter what drunken state or how awfully they sing.
I had the idea that the girls sort of liked me, but not in a romantic way. It’s not that easy to pick up a girl when she is travelling with a friend. So I focused more on one of the staff members back at the guesthouse, named Dana. She wasn’t the prettiest girl around but I could see she liked me and was up for some romance. I had all the time in the world to talk to her since I wasn’t very active in those days.
I went with the French girls to a beach close by the guesthouse, but it was kind of dirty. Later an almost two-meter tall American, Greg, and a Swiss girl joined us. The beach was nearly deserted by then but there was a group of Filipino guys doing a lot of drinking. They came over and wanted to talk. One of them was an older guy who was only wearing an old-fashioned pair of underwear; he was covered in sand, even his face. He was very drunk and a bit annoying. He challenged me to a sparring fight. I declined, even though for sure I could kick his ass in a sparring or even a real fight, but he had at least seven friends with him. I had just met Greg, who was tall and strong, but I didn’t know whether he’d help me if the all those guys ganged up on me.
Once I’d said no, the drunk guy, who looked utterly ridiculous in his underwear and with his face covered with sand, started challenging the American. It was hilarious because Greg was at least two heads taller than him, muscled, and sober. As it turned out the drunk guy didn’t really mean it and all his friends apologized for him. I had forgotten that I was in the Phils, where people are super friendly. A similar situation in Europe would end up with Greg and me getting beaten up by a group of guys. Here, they just offered us the bottle of rum about forty times while the drunken guy started rolling around in the sand again. It was one of those situations where you had to be there to see how funny it was.
The World Cup was still on, and since the Dutch team had a match that evening I went to a foreigners’ bar to watch it. The whole place was orange, Holland’s national color, since there are quite a lot of Dutch expats living in Puerto Princessa and they were all there to cheer on the team. I met a nice Dutch girl named Kyra who worked for an NGO there, actually. I’m still in contact with her every once in a while. She always hates it when I post pictures of me kissing girls on Facebook.
Not unexpectedly, the Dutch team won.
The next day, the French girls and most of the people in the guesthouse left the city to visit other parts of the island. Clearly my flirting with Dana had worked, because I got to kiss her that night. Now I wanted to find a place to bang her.
I went to a club with her and the two other girls working there and was treated like a rock star. At this point my hair was already touching my shoulders. When I stepped in line for the toilets all the guys would let me go first and some even took pictures with me. “You look like Axl Rose,” they said, and one of them even compared me to Jesus, which was pretty funny. I mean, yes, by all accounts Jesus was a bit of a bum, essentially backpacking around Judea and staying in the equivalent of hostels, but I’ve never heard it suggested he was gathering flags from all the cities there. Or maybe they just left that bit out of the Bible. You have to admit that “Hey baby, I’m the son of God” would be a pretty good pick-up line. I was told I look like Kurt Cobain a lot, but I guess that’s just because I had the same hairstyle. It surprised me a bit how popular I was there, because Puerto Princessa sees its share of tourists. Guys were handing me beers and it just became ridiculous at one point. I’m just a backpacker with long hair, people! Maybe it was because I rolled in with three girls on my side. Anyhow, ridiculous or not I didn’t refuse the beers.
A day later one of the single rooms was freed up and I took it. Dana made a lot of last-minute resistance but I knew I was going to have sex with her. At one point when the owner and his wife were gone I finally got Dana in my room. We were-half naked when suddenly one of the other girls working there shouted “The boss is coming!” Dana didn’t want to lose her job and jumped out of the bed and out of the room, pulling her clothes back on. It turned out the girls had been joking and the boss wasn’t anywhere around. Needless to say, I wasn’t very happy with her co-workers at that moment.
Later that day I had sex with her anyway. It was a very different experience from Jenna since Dana was quite tall, especially for a Filipina girl.
Later that week I finally got my laptop fixed. I still hadn’t managed to get rid of that stubborn virus I got in Malaysia on my own and now it was eating away my hard drive. Some guys at a computer store fixed all my drives and installed a brand new copy of Windows 7 for only six dollars. Back on track, I went to another part of the island.
Philippines – El Nido
El Nido lies in the far north of Palawan Island and I took a local bus there. It was the cheapest option and it was half the price of the tourist bus. Always take local transport if possible; not only is it a lot cheaper but more importantly you can enjoy the local people and culture way better sitting on an old chicken bus than being surrounded by fat stupid tourists in ugly hats being herded around like a pack of overfed hogs and all taking the same photos. And for immersing yourself in the local culture, nothing beats taking an over-packed, stinking and noisy local bus ride. It’s uncomfortable, there are babies crying for hours, the food in the “highway” restaurants is terrible, but most people respect you if you’re not a fat money-throwing day-tripper on an air conditioned bus with an underpaid guide. They respect the fact that you’re willing to see them instead of just looking at their country. Most tourists just think the poor local people are
part of the scenery. Taking their buses, you know that they’re real.
Nearly the whole road was a dirt road and the driver was an absolute maniac. I don’t think he ever used the breaks – in fact, I’m not completely sure the bus had breaks – and it was more like a rally race than a bus ride. We broke down twice along the way and stopped at a roadside restaurant where the driver repaired the bus with only a screwdriver and some duct tape. The restaurant looked horrible but I had to eat, so I took the risk. It didn’t taste bad but I feared my bowels were going to explode once I got back on the bus. By some miracle I was fine and had no trouble at all. Maybe it was all those young moms breastfeeding their babies on the bus that kept me distracted.
El Nido is one of the most beautiful places to go in the Philippines, comparable to South Thailand. It has beautiful beaches with lots of coral, excellent water for diving and snorkeling and it’s still pretty secluded from mass tourism. Of course when I arrived the weather was terrible and the guesthouse there sucked. Instant karma for peeping at those breast-feeding MILFs. (Actually, I’m not sure if it’s fair to call them MILFs when most of them were ten years younger than me.)
The weather finally changed after a few days and I took a daytrip to the islands. I took a small fisherman’s boat to the sea with two local guys and four tourists.
The sites were beautiful; we snorkeled above the coral, saw hundreds of colorful fishes, went into a few caves and even fished at the end of the day. It was a perfect day out and only cost five dollars each. Where else in the world can you do that for prices like that?
Back to Puerto Princessa
After a day or five I took the bus back to Puerto Princessa. Just my luck – it was the same driver! Eight more hours of praying that I didn’t go home in a body bag. I’m not overreacting here. The guy was insane. Sometimes you just have to close your eyes and remind yourself that he’s clearly done this run many times and he’s not dead yet. It’s just a bit hard to trust that his luck will hold.
Once I was back in Puerto Princessa, amazingly alive, I looked up Dana and we took a hotel room in the city. I was lucky to be with her because I would never have found it on my own. The room was OK, had a bathroom and was even cheaper than the dorm bed I had in the first guesthouse. It was two hundred–fifty pesos only as they say in the Phils. Now Dana and I finally had some privacy and we banged till daybreak.
The next morning we walked around town and she introduced me to a highly addictive sort of ice cream named Halo Halo. We relaxed a bit and then went to the TomTom club to watch the World Cup Final between Holland and Spain.
I’d told people in El Nido about how this was a great place to watch football, and invited them down to watch the final. All the people I’d invited were there and so were Kyra and her friends. Unfortunately my country lost the final from Spain. It was a very aggressive final and both teams were kicking the shit out of each other. It looked like they we’re up for another 80 years of war between Holland and Spain just like in the 1600’s. Unlike the Football final Spain couldn’t win that one.
My last day on the island I spent with Dana and her family at the beach. It was a fun day. First we went with the whole seven-person family and all their food and drinks on one tricycle. The thing could barely drive and the family paid as much as I would normally pay for a 500-meter ride. No matter how much you haggle sometimes, if the (taxi) driver is smiling you are still paying too much. I don’t mind paying a bit extra since I have way more money than the driver, but I hate getting ripped off.
The food brought by the family was delicious and I repaid the favor by bringing a bottle of Tanduay rum and a few bottles of Coca Cola. You can actually buy a bottle of rum for a dollar and a half there. We swam a bit in the water, which was filled with green goo and seaweed. I played football with the kids a bit, and it was just a good, fun day. The next morning I said goodbye to Dana and went back to Cebu to see Jenna again.
Philippines – Cebu and Bohol
Jenna was happy to see me and quite frankly a bit surprised too. She said she never expected to see me again. Unfortunately she was on her period, but when she saw the disappointed look on my face she said the magical words,
“I will suck your dick for four days.”
And she did. She works miracles with her big lips. I think she’s the best I ever had, even better than the Vietnamese girl in Phnom Penh.
During the days while Jenna was working it was kind of boring for me and I flirted with Jenna’s girlfriend from university. She was a typical 18-year-old virgin girl and she ate up everything I said to her. She wasn’t the hottest-looking girl around but she still had that cute innocent look and I liked it. I gave her my diamond ring routine and she loved it. I was playing a tricky game this way and knew she would eventually say something to Jenna about it. I stopped when Jenna became a bit suspicious.
The diamond ring routine
This one’s a bit hard to explain because it’s a push-pull routine and you need to work some facial expressions, but it works very well in less developed countries.
When I’m sitting down with a girl I always sit within reach of her. We talk a bit and suddenly I grab her hand or her fingers and look at them with a frown on my face.
Girl: “What? Why are you looking?”
Me: “Where is your diamond ring?”
Girl (smiling): “What do you mean?”
Me: “A pretty girl like you who doesn’t have a diamond ring on her finger, that’s just weird. You know what? Tomorrow morning I’m going to buy you the biggest diamond ring I can find and then I’m going to marry you the day after and we will make many babies together.”
Say this with a smile and then keep a straight serious face. Now, the girl laughs and gives you a funny face because she also knows I’m just a poor travelling guy – but still, she has to wonder if I’m serious or not. I just might be a gullible guy with some money in the bank, and she can’t risk passing up on that. And then you go,
“I saw a nice big plastic diamond ring at the toy store in the mall, is that OK with you?”
Now she laughs and probably pushes you away or something. You had some solid touching by holding her hand, you put the image of a relationship and probably sex in her mind and you made her laugh in a way that other guys don’t.
Now completely drop the subject and talk about something else from there on. If you see her again you can use it a recurring joke. Bring it back up and make some jokes with her but remember not to act the funny joker but still be seductive/flirty. I thought about buying a few of those big colorful candy rings to joke around with on a later meeting, but I’ve never actually tried it.
Works well when meeting the girl several times, especially with restaurant, hotel or bar staff where it’s clearly not a date,
Philippines – Island of Bohol
Now there came another test of my courage after that crazy bus ride. I had to take a Philippine ferry for the first time ever.
Back in Holland the only news you ever hear from the Philippines is that Manny Pacquiau’s won a boxing match or that another ferry’s gone down with everyone on it. So even though objectively I knew it was safe, I couldn’t help being a bit nervous when stepping on board.
The ferry ride took about four-and-a-half hours and it wasn’t bad at all. I had bought the cheapest ticket and had to stay on the deck, where there were many rows of bunk beds. I got talking to a girl/woman with an amazing set of lips. Most Asian girls have big lips, but hers were phenomenal – big, luscious, sensual. I tried to game her a bit but she wasn’t too receptive. We shared a tricycle ride into town but the driver tried to rip me off, asking ten times the normal amount. She translated and said it was the normal price. I got really angry with the guy and just pressed some bills into his hands.
It was still too much but at least I got rid of both of them. She probably thought I was some stupid foreigner she could rip off too, and I threw away the telephone number she had given me. Other girls had also asked for my ph
one number on the ferry and some of them were damn cute, but they didn’t speak a word of English. It’s almost no use trying anything that way.
Early in the next morning I took a local bus to see the famous Chocolate Hills, one of the main attractions on the island. The local bus was amazing, I was the only foreigner on the bus and everyone was just looking and smiling at me. Call it ego-tripping if you will but when this happens to you every day of the week, you start to feel damn special, even when you know any other foreigner would probably get the same treatment – but other foreigners aren’t taking the local bus like you are. Especially children are always happy in Asia: they run along the bus, waving and shouting at you. I saw massive green rice fields and ate the local bus food, a dry paste of rice and something else wrapped in a banana leaf. The old wrinkly grandmas who sell it along the way are not the cleanest-looking women and taking local food is always a risk, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t tasty. You learn how to live with it after a few weeks. I was fine this time, and it had actually been a few months since the last time it made me really sick. My stomach was finally getting used to the unhygienic situations. By now, I had forgotten the taste of bread.
The bus stopped every few minutes when people on the roadside waved the bus down. It’s really interesting to see and experience a simple bus ride, and just one will teach you more about the culture than reading half-a-dozen travel guides.
After two hours the bus dropped me off at the road next to the Chocolate Hills. After making sure I wasn’t getting ripped off by a local motorbike driver and getting driven there, there was only one more obstacle before I could finally see these hills that had been hyped up by everyone I met.
That would be the 400+ steps to the top of the hill. It’s not that they were uneven or anything: they were perfectly normal concrete steps, with a railing to hold on to. There just happened to be over 400 of them. Before long I felt like the big bad wolf, huffing and puffing away. I actually had to stop in the middle and catch my breath like an old man. I was getting out of shape.
Around the World in 80 Girls: The Epic 3 Year Trip of a Backpacking Casanova Page 21