Today I was heading to Baguio. My driver from Beeline Travel was there promptly. He had a brand new and comfortable Toyota Corolla and kept the air conditioning running inside a locked and running car while he waited for me to finish packing up and check out. There were only a few miles of freeway and the rest of way to Baguio was pretty much narrow two lanes roads with lots of traffic, lots of buses, lots of trikes, and lots of people walking in the street. Oh yeah, lots of horn honking as well.
I seem to remember passing through at least three “semi-large” cities. Homes with tin roofs lined almost the entire route there. Once we turned off the main road and then actually started climbing up towards Baguio, the road got even a little more hairy. Many portions of the road were simply cut out so we were snaking our way through potholes and cut outs on a road that was already pretty snake like. At this point I was wondering if it would have been better to fly.
Here is a view from a lookout point once you reach the outskirts of Baguio.
Traffic in central Baguio was pretty bad and I didn’t notice it being significantly cooler up in the mountains. It was indeed cooler as far as temperature, but it was still fairly warm. I made my reservation at the Hotel Supreme which was based on the recommendation of another site. I think this hotel is actually located in La Trinidad, but it is hard to tell where Baguio ends and La Trinidad begins.
Hotel Supreme
113 Magsaysay Avenue
2600 Baguio City
Philippines
Phone: +63 (74) 443-2011
Fax: +63 (74) 442.2855
Website: http://www.asiatravel.com/philippines/supreme
Email: hotelsupreme@skyinet.net
Overall I was not too impressed with the room. The carpet was pretty filthy and the room was average. I believe the price was somewhere around $35 to $50 US per night.
After I checked in I got out a list of places I wanted to see. These included Strawberry Fields, Athena, Disc Capsule, Peek A Boo, Chaparral, Star City, Parking Lot, Golden Massage, New A Massage Parlor, Wow Wow KTV, and Lion’s Den.
The bad news was that many taxi drivers in Baguio didn’t speak or understand a word of English and I didn’t have addresses for any of these places. I tried the yellow pages to look them up and could not find a single place listed. I finally found one taxi driver that took me to a massage parlor that supposedly offered FS.
This place, called Mandom Health Studio is open 24 hours and is a little bit south of the Baguio Central Mall on Magsaysay Ave. Here is a picture from the outside. You have to turn into what looks like an indoor parking garage, but there are actually shops and other businesses inside instead of a garage.
The prices were 250 pesos for one hour and I think 350 pesos for a steam room. They also had half hour rates available. This place is a total dump and the room only closes by a curtain. You don’t get to select your lady from a lineup; she is assigned and then sent to you. But you can change if you are not satisfied.
I waited about 10 minutes once getting into the room before the first lady arrived. She was a fat, 40 year old Porker delight with big boobs. She provided an adequate massage and about halfway through inquired about extras. I declined. She then asked if I wanted another lady and I said sure. She wanted a tip for her ordinary massage and I think threw her 100 pesos. Then it was another 10 minute wait until the second lady came in. She was a younger version of the same unattractive, fat woman who I had in the room before.
She provided another ordinary massage and then inquired about extras. I was so uninterested I didn’t even ask about services provided or prices. I would imagine you can at least get a HJ at this place. BJ and Sex may be possible, but I am not sure.
I would not recommend it though. The second lady also wanted a tip and was pissed when I threw her 100 pesos. Pissed? The fucking massage only cost 250. Why would I tip you MORE than what I paid for the massage in the first place? Later on I noticed a lot more massage places around Magsaysay Avenue. Many of these were open 24 hours. I didn’t try any of them after this experience though.
I took off and decided to get in my obligatory sightseeing and spent the rest of the day doing that. I finally found a taxi driver that spoke enough English and knew about most of the places I had mentioned from my list above. Out of about 7 or 8 taxi drivers I spoke with, he was the only one that spoke English well enough to understand what I was saying. He said some places on the list were closed and he knew of some new ones to take their place. I think the Strawberry Club was now closed.
I had him take me back to Hotel Supreme after my sightseeing. Since I had to get up early this morning to get to Baguio, I figured I would take a nap and then head out with him around 9 or 10. I got his cell number and said I would call him later this evening. Well, the nap didn’t work out too well. When I woke up I felt like shit and was completely sapped of energy and felt like crap.
I tried at least two or three times to get up and go, but it was just not happening. I started downing water from the fridge and popped a few aspirin in hopes that this would not last too long. Then I rolled over and went back to sleep. I also called the driver who had brought me to Baguio and asked him to come get me around 10am tomorrow so we could return to AC. I would like to have stayed in Baguio and gotten around to exploring the scene a little more. But I figured I had already lost a day of mongering and didn’t want to waste anymore time in Baguio since it wasn’t a major destination. I had now done what I had needed to do.
Overall Baguio was a pretty nice city and there was a scene to be explored there. Unfortunately I was not able to explore it like I would have liked. On the way into the city there were signs that billed it as the cleanest city in the Philippines. It also had pretty mountains and trees all around, but it still didn’t quite feel like a true mountain town.
Here are two final pictures of the city. One is from the patio of the SM Mall. I think the other is from a point on Magsaysay Road.
I am sure he is headed there as we speak! 