I felt a bit like the movie Groundhog Day when I woke up and realized that I needed to head off to the airport to catch a flight to the PI AGAIN, but I wasn’t in nearly as much of a hurry to check out of Dynasty Inn as I was to get the hell out of the Rajah Hotel on Soi 4 the day before. I had also slept better the night before, probably due to the better surroundings.

I again spent my morning at Bus Stop for breakfast and then the internet place across the street re-checking about possible hotel options in Manila, someplace I was planning to stay overnight for the first time as I usually just head straight for Angeles. I didn’t reserve anything because I knew it would be a last minute decision as to what part of Manila I wanted to stay in. Being my first time there at night, I knew I wanted to see Makati AND EDSA AND LA Café, but was still debating over which to choose.

THIS TIME everything went smoothly checking in at the airport for my early afternoon flight, and the trip into NAIA was extremely carefree. As I was on PAL, we landed at the domestic terminal, and after exchanging some money I was quickly harassed by a group of people selling taxi tickets. I HATE dealing with those pushy leeches, and headed outside with my full compliment of luggage, only to find that the taxi mafia has carved themselves a sweet deal at the PAL terminal: They all worked for the ticket selling companies. So I had to go back inside to buy a ticket, and it ended up costing me 300 pesos to go from the airport to Pasay City to the hotel I had decided to try, the Copacabana, located directly across from the EDSA bars. The trip ended up being less than 3 miles and 15 minutes from door to door, and would have been about 50 pesos if the fuckers had to use their meters. Score another victory for the taxi drivers of the world at the expense of tourists.

As I mentioned above, I had not made a reservation at the Copacabana, nor was I even entirely sure what the rate was, but the place is SO huge that I’m sure they always have available rooms, and I didn’t get gouged on a walk up rate. I think I paid something like 1600 pesos for a ‘studio room’, and while the room definitely was showing some age, it was very large for the money and the location was AWESOME for the EDSA bound monger, and a shitload cheaper than the Heritage Hotel next door. Of course I never even managed to check out the EDSA bars, so the location ended up being wasted. I planned to (and in hindsight, SHOULD HAVE!), but things didn’t quite work out in the one night I stayed in Manila.

After cleaning up I had two needs before heading out and seeing what Manila mongering offered for the first time: I needed an ATM for more ammunition than I’d acquired at the airport, and I needed to eat. The desk staff suggested the casino next door at the Heritage for an ATM, so I headed over there and up to the second floor to find a ATM that apparently was permanently out of service. My luck. And heading back out to the street, walking around along the main boulevard in front of the Heritage didn’t look like a promising idea for finding either an ATM or an attractive dining option.

SO, I got the brilliant idea to head for the LA Café by taxi for dinner. I was dying to check the place out, having heard so much about it, and as I’d been in the general area before, I knew there would likely be several ATM’s. What I certainly did NOT plan on was spending the entire evening at LA Café, but that’s the way things worked out.

The first thing I realized was that LA Café was further than I expected it to be. It took a good 20 minutes in some rather heavy traffic to get there. I don’t know why, but I had always assumed it was only a couple miles away. When I did finally get there, I was immediately impressed by the place. The place seemed close to packed with people, and there were a rather impressive number of girls running around, all seeming to vie for my attention.

A waitress seated me, but had to evict a girl from a seat in the process as all tables were occupied, and another remained seated right next to me. Both the seated and the standing girl seemed at least average looking at first glance (though noticeably older), and both immediately seemed to focus all of their energy on me, asking tons of questions and wanting to touch me. I normally don’t appreciate aggressive bargirls, but there was no pressure on me to buy anything for them – ahh, the beauty of a freelancer bar – and I was kind of flattered by the apparent sincerity of the attention.

I ordered a beer for myself and nothing for the two girls, and neither seemed in any hurry to stop what they were doing and leave. It was rather easy to play it cool with them as I was perfectly happy to look around and openly check out the other options in the bar. Eventually the standee (who had GREAT tits) took the hint and made a few laps (returning every 5 minutes like clockwork), but this backfired as the tiny chick sitting next to me took up the slack by starting to massage my shoulders and back. And it felt AWESOME. The chick had very talented and incredibly strong hands for being so small.

One beer led to 4 before thoughts of dinner and an ATM began to re-surface, and eventually after about 45 minutes of continuous massage I volunteered to order my bite sized chick a drink to show my appreciation. She had certainly grown on me, though I still was resolved that she wasn’t attractive enough for me to consider doing anything further with.

As usual when I drink before eating anything, my stomach eventually started rumbling, and I figured I should head out to the ATM before returning to have dinner. But when I told my massager what my plan was, she insisted that it was dangerous to walk the two blocks to the ATM I had seen out on the main drag coming from the hotel alone. And she practically begged me that I let her escort me. Not usually concerned about safety in my travels, for some reason I listened to her, and soon enough we were making the 10 minute round trip to an ATM and back.

By this time it was after 10 PM and I was STARVING. There now also seemed to be even more of a buzz at LA Café as the upstairs area was now open and there was a band scheduled to start playing shortly. I definitely wanted to check out the upstairs area, so I told my 85 lb. Bodyguard that I was heading upstairs and was going to order food. She insisted on coming with. I definitely should have grown some balls at that point and said NO, but waiting alone for food didn’t seem like a comfortable situation with the place so crowded and the girl had grown on me quite a bit. She was a very sincere actress who made me believe that she worshiped the ground that I walked on. I ended up inviting her to eat with me, figuring that would be a convenient parting gift as I headed solo to check out EDSA after dinner.

Upstairs LA Café was ROCKING! The band was setting up, but the DJ was blasting the music the band would end up covering a little later, and there was a group of about 8-10 YOUNG girls on the dance floor that looked inSANELY hot and could REALLY dance. They were damned entertaining to watch. And of course I paid far more attention to them than to the girl at my side, who was apparently happy as a clam just to occupy the seat next to me.

After 3 solid hours of drinking on an empty stomach, I was getting buzzed, and our food showed up about the time the band started playing. And the band was pretty damned good, covering all of the PickUp Disco playlist with only the cutest little accent as the difference and all done with an incredible amount of energy. Xenono has described his affinity for PI cover bands better than I can, but I know exactly what he means and thoroughly enjoyed the live music at LA Café. And it would hit home every once in awhile that this was after 11 PM on a MONDAY night! I caught myself flashing back to memories of the TJ Zona and what THAT PLACE was like on a Monday night (completely VOID of energy), and the comparison was that the places were in different universes.

I’m guessing that Chicken Fried Steak is not LA Café’s signature dish ( gravy too damned SWEET), but it was edible and filling and definitely hit the spot after having only airline food for the previous 14 hours and with close to double digit drinks in between. The booze and the heavy meal and probably some dehydration from travel and booze suddenly had me feeling DAMNED tired, though, and by 12:30 I was feeling a big time urge to just go to sleep. My big plans for an epic night out in Manila sure didn’t look to be going as planned!

But having spent the last two nights in Bangkok without overnight company, I was DAMNED if I was going to spend my first (and likely ONLY) night in Manila without even getting LAID! And without the energy to summon much enthusiasm for heading to EDSA to pick a girl. I also did some quick cheapskate’s math and realized that taking a girl out of an EDSA would cost me significantly more than taking a girl from LA Café – at least double, since the barfine at EDSA was 1000 pesos and the girls were supposedly wanting at least that as a tip too. LA Café seemed a far more prudent hunting ground under the circumstances.

But I had a girl glued to my hip. Getting rid of her to sit alone and try to attract better options promised to involve confronting her and telling her to go away, and I didn’t feel up to it. I also didn’t feel up to approaching the other girls that were dancing around in small groups. I also felt DAMNED tired again. And while I wasn’t that attracted to the girl I was with, I figured that at least I could probably get her cheaply after she had spent the whole evening glued to my side!

I quickly did some math: She’s TINY, gives a GREAT massage, and I can get her cheaply. And the fact that she was older almost surely boded well for her being quite skilled in the rack. And the chick seemed to be in LOVE with me. Dangerous for possible extended exposure to her, but with only one night in Manila? Sounded like it could be promising!

I informed my sidekick that I was tired and heading back to my room, and told her that maybe I’d ask her to my room some other time to let her massage me properly. That got her begging to go with me, exactly as planned, and I told her that if she did go with me that night that I couldn’t pay much and I didn’t want to offend her by giving her too little money. She assured me that compensation was completely up to me, and I told her that as I was used to Angeles City that I didn’t usually spend more than 500 pesos on girls I didn’t barfine. She agreed that was low, but said she’d still like to come with me, and that maybe if I was happy I could give her more for a taxiride home to ‘province’, which was a couple hours away. I asked how much, and she said 200 pesos more.

Knowing that 1000 for short time was a decent rate to shoot for at LA Café, I figured 700 for a possible long time was a bargain and quickly agreed. She got her leftover dinner (portions are American sized and she was a SMALL chick) wrapped up to go, and we grabbed a taxi outside for what seemed like a considerably shorter trip BACK to the Copacabana.

Once we reached my room I had almost instant buyer’s remorse. My little spinner chick was OLD! Seeing her in the light of my room had me wanting to just pay her to LEAVE! But like the night before in BKK when I had a freelancer troll in my room more out of pity than any desire for her, I figured I’d just get a massage and a blow job and then kick her out.

And the old broad delivered on both counts, using her strong hands to tear me UP and then sucking like a champ. But, again, I can’t easily cum via BJ, and the more I thought about imPALING the tiny chick on my boner the better idea it seemed. So I did. And indeed it was quite fun to feel like my fat boner was going to puncture through her kidney as I picked her up and violently slammed her on top of it. She apparently loved every second of it, SCREAMING the whole while. I was glad we were on the 12th floor and the room was cavernous, lest someone call big brother to come investigate.

After finally finishing, a good 90 minutes after we’d left LA Café, it was well after 2 AM and my fuck troll was in no hurry to leave. The idea of sleeping with her old ass draped all over me, however, was NOT appealing, and I finally started hinting that I slept better aLONE and that I’d feel better if she left. She pouted, but showered and started getting dressed. I felt bad so I actually gave her 800 pesos, and she was demanding to know when I’d see her again. I said I was heading for the beach the next day and that I didn’t know when I’d be back in Manila. She appeared to accept that she’d lost the game at that point and took her spoils and left.

I was REALLY kicking myself as I tried to go to sleep that night. I’d enjoyed LA Café, but had completely wasted my night in Manila fucking an ugly skank and being too fucking lazy to even make it to EDSA to see what it was like there. If I had a monger’s report card for the evening I’d have given myself a D-, avoiding an F only because the troll had really worked me over once I wound up with her in my room.

Actually, if she had had TITS I probably woulda graded out at a B-, though still have been hard on myself for skipping the EDSA bars. Tits make up for a lot of other shortcomings in my world! Spinners (especially ugly ones) don’t get that kind of slack from me!

"I’m guessing that Chicken Fried Steak is not LA Café’s signature dish ( gravy too damned SWEET), "

Never heard THAT comment about food in the PI before...

"I’d enjoyed LA Café, but had completely wasted my night in Manila fucking an ugly skank and being too fucking lazy to even make it to EDSA to see what it was like there."

I'm sure the old, ugly skanks haven't seen the last of our money. If I had a dime for every old, ugly skank I've drilled... well... I'd have a SHITLOAD of dimes!!

You're just not including enough details about your trip. Please, be more specific: did your CFS come with a vegetable, perhaps bread? How about the seat on the plane - and the food - passable? Did you like the inside of the taxi? How many steps did you retrace into the terminal to get that taxi voucher? Details man, DETAILS!!

I know what you mean about PI coverbands. When Filipinos can sing (they ALL sing, but few know how to do it without sounding like angry cats in a bag) it's good stuff. I went on a dinner cruise up the Chao Phraya river and the singer on board was a Filipina... with BIG silicone titties. Delicious...

E

Hmmm, details... One more: Grandma from LA Cafe was skinny everywhere except for the horrible stretch marks she had about her midsection. Funny how she dressed so as not to show them off inside the darkened bar. I'm sure she gets some fool like me to enrich her once every few weeks.

Christina Aguilar-- perhaps one of the best known all time Thai pop singers is a Filipina.

Fuck, what can I say? Damn good write up P-Man. You told the story straight up. I've been guilty of not being able to put my foot down (it sucks to have a conscience sometimes), and blow off someone who has extended/feigned kindness and friendliness on several occasions over the years.

You may have been able to get rid of her and softened the blow by offering her a "tip" equivalent to $3-5 USD or something.

One of my strategies when I hit Memphis is, if it's a black chick who I'm not interested in, I tell her I'm into white girls. If it's a white chick, reverse the story. Usually handing them a couple bucks and saying thanks, but no thanks and everybody saves face...

Excellent write up. When in MNL, I usually just head straight to EDSA to avoid any possible distractions. As for the fugly appearing in the lights, it happens to the best of us

-DM

Sorry to hear about the fugly, but great story nevetheless. I've found myself on many occasssions kicking myself for caving into the some aggressive ones and pouting about missed opportunities on a given night. I think this happens more when I'm drunk and tired.

I have to checkout the Copacanaba next time.

Porker,

As always a fantastic tale and a great diversion!! I will be putting my Mongering hat on once again after a 5 year break and your writting has reminded me of the great pleasures to be had in the PI!!!! So this summer I will be back!!! I hope to hook up woth you then!