i just finished a 30 day stay in the PI, my first visit. spent time in manila, angeles, boracay, and la union.

MANILA, stopped in here three times:

hotels: stayed at peninsula ($125), oxford suites ($80), and hyatt ($130). peninsula not that great, got a low rate due to a failed coup a few months back (i guess the coup leaders hid in the hotel and a tank blew out the front door). oxford right in the middle of the action on p burgos. hyatt pretty close to edsa and two blocks from La Cafe. would stay at either of these hotels again (not peninsula though).

lady bars: my first visit so can't compare to the past but friends tell me makati has gone downhill (chick quality) and both edsa and p burgos are more expensive than before. "quoted price" at p burgos is 6,500P (3,000P to the girl and 3,500 to the bar, or maybe vice versa, i forget). generally, the bar fine can be reduced by the amount you spend on the lady drinks. i went to flamingo, hollywood, blush, bandido, and a couple others. none seemed to be consistently the best night after night. at hollywood, i happened to get a daytime girl at the end of her shift (11pm). she agreed to s/t at my hotel for 2,000P with no barfine. paid barfine and gave girls 2,500P or 2,000P for short time other nights (also paid one 3,000P for l/t, stayed until 5pm next day).

edsa bar fine was 1,400P (up from 600P not long ago, so i'm told). reportedly not standard to get reduction on bar fine for lady drinks. i went in to all the places here. liked casino the best. took a gal from here a couple times. paid her 2,000P s/t.

LA cafe, didn't take any girls from here. quality not real good but pricing is good. one girl said she'd do short time for 1,000P. i was at the hyatt two blocks away and it was tempting but i was worn out from my travels.

in general the cost seemed a bit high for the quality of the girls and the time of service.

ANGELES (i'll keep this brief since it gets lots of reports):

hotel: stayed at pacific breeze ($48) and apartelle royal ($40). the staff at the pb really makes your stay enjoyable.

lady bars: i took girls from body shop, stingers, and angelwitch. think the bar fine was 1,200P ($30) and paid the girls 1,500P to 2,000P for l/t (no s/t for me in ac). stopped in alot of other bars, atlantis, camelot, typhoon, treasure island, crazy horse, nifty's, blue nile, etc....

generally speaking, the girls were higher quality than i had expected from reading the reports (but expectations were pretty low). the environment outside of the hotels and bars was far below my expectations. the touts, beggars, trikes, dirt, grime, etc.... were really unappealing. with a hangover, i'd classify it as pure hell. not planning another visit anytime soon. i can see the appeal for certain mongers but not really my style at this point. one guy i know has been living there for more than a year, just loves the place.

BORACAY:

hotel: stayed at red coconut for a week during the chinese new year ($110/nt). with a group of 10 people, 4 of us single. had a "beachfront/ocean view" room but i'd recommend a room off the beach for half the price. i was barely in the room and spent all my time (day and night) on the beach. don't need to pay extra for the ocean view. would not recommend red coconut. not bad but i'm sure there are better places. one guy had a room at hey jude for $60. it was off the beach but pretty good size and new (had internet in room also).

lady bars: not any true lady bars to speak of. however, you can find freelancers at cocamunga (not sure if i have that spelled right, maybe cucamonga) or summer place. cocamunga is on the inside road (not the sand footpath along the beach) opposite guillys (which fronts on the beach). all the trikes know the place. live music. at least one of our group pulled a gal from here each night. price btwn 2,000P and 3,000P for l/t. summer place is close to d'mall, red coconut is close to one side of d'mall and summer place is on the other side. i didn't take any girls from here but some of the guys did. reportedly, one guy got a late night blow job on the beach for 1,000P. i didn't see any real stunners but the girls were not fat or ugly. think most were probably older than you would find in AC or manila (maybe 25 to 30).

LA UNION, on the water, about four hours north of AC by car or 1.5 hours from baguio airport. la union has an airport (san fernando) but is closed temporarily. i drove up with a friend from AC and then flew to mnl from baguio. 2,800P ($70) for the ride to baguio and same for the flight to mnl. cost to drive 6 hrs to mnl was 7,000P.

hotel: i stayed at coconut grove for 1,400P ($35). several hotels are lined up btwn the main highway and the ocean. bali hai, southern palms, cabana are a few of them. bali hai had internet in their restaurant so i stopped in there often (coconut grove did not have internet). the CG had a pool and restaurant was open 24/7. i'll probably try bali hai next time. the beach in front of these hotels was not real nice. another place called sunset bay had a decent beach in front (and internet in restaurant). however, the others were walking distance to most lady bars. sunset bay was not.

lady bars: easy walking distance from the CG are footlights, butterfly, and stilleto's. footlight is on the main highway next to finnegan's bar and restaurant. butterfly is across the street from footlights but back off the road. stilleto's is part of southern palms hotel and is reportedly owned by the blue nile group of AC fame. i didn't see a sign with the new name though (blue nile beach resort and beach club). bar fine is 1,200P at these bars and the lady does not expect much more. i gave them 200P tip. i think the beers were 45P (about a buck). quality was decent, except for butterflys. generally young girls and most had a decent command of english. in these bars, the girls danced a bit on the stage until you called them over for a drink (as i recall, lady drinks were 120P).

another area known as poro point (about 10 minutes by car) had two bars, guyhem (not sure on spelling) and exotic. right across the street from each other. these were more like strip bars and had local patrons (other than myself and my friend). the bars noted previously had expat patrons. at these two places, the girls did three dances. one with clothes, one with some clothes, one with no clothes. girls would alternate so you were looking at flesh fairly often. lady drinks were 300P and bar fine was 2,000P. i'm sure the local rate was far lower. my friend and i did not take any girls from these bars. there were some really hot gals in both. however, i was a little paranoid about the local guys getting pissed off if we hauled out the two hottest gals. we were very low key but i caught a few looks coming my way that didn't give me alot of comfort.

one last item, i'd say there were 12-15 girls in each of the la union and poro point bars.

Wait a minute. Are you saying you paid the barfine in AC(which is 1,350 by the way) and then paid the girl a 1,500-2,000 tip. Not sure if you knew this but this isnt Thailand or Manila. The girls get paid a portion of the barfine, unlike the other places mentioned. Tipping the girl 500 after for LT is considered generous and 1,000 only by clueless Koreans and newbies. Please tell me you didnt tip the girls for LT, thinking they dont get paid out of the barfine. There is no difference in barfine amount for ST or LT.

i agree with blazers on the subject of your tips in AC maybe i mis-read it too.

The point that AC is dirty is a mute point even manila is like that ok maybe not as dusty as AC but still dirty.

I remember walking near edsa and the whole area i was walking smelled like piss. I couldn't believe how bad it was and it was near the robinson Pioneer in mandaluyong. (must be near a squatter area)

At least AC didn't smell like a men's restroom that hasn't been cleaned in a few months.

Hold the presses! Buick yes please tell me you weren't double billed. There's numerous PI reports here stating how the bar fine system works in the PI.

No tip is required either. 50 pesos "trike money" is good (she'll take a jeepney. Call me cheap but the whole idea revolves around P4P that the lowest ranking US airman can afford.

That's who the town was designed for. Pattaya got its start the same way. Granted it's a little more expensive but the whole cost of either place should be about $30 US for a LT.

I'm not trying to beat you up about it. If you enjoyed AC you'll really like it the 2nd time around when it's at a 50% discount.

I remember saying at the kokomos room up by the pool for $16.00 a night for 12 nights because I had discount card. I also had extra pillow. hope the prices do not get out of hand there because the girls from ac are sweet . I think you will get slammed a little for the prices you paid for the girls it sounds to me that you are rich. Sometime I think this hurts the hobby but it can also help maybe the girls will think I have your kind of money and fall in love with me.

(Message edited by cooldude on February 28, 2008)

unfortunately what i reported is the truth (i guess the sad truth). i was hanging with a dude that was basically living there (a friend of a friend). i thought i was following his instructions but maybe i misunderstood what he said. i'd read reports on ac many times but didn't review before i got there since i was going to be with guys that have done the drill before. hopefully my error won't tip the scales too much. should have been better prepared.

Oh, this is depressing. Well, you did make some AC girls deliriously happy! Didn't their reactions tip you off? I got very nice responses for tips of 100 pesos.

MESSAGE TO ALL NEWBIES OUT THERE:

Do your homework. Take notes if you must. The info is ALL HERE.

Buick, you need to change your handle to Mercedes

wow. that's a hell of a lot of rice!

The Jollibee's tab for the crew is on her for a month !!

I agree -- even I don't tip like that . Will buy a hell of a lot of Red Horse and videoke for her Trike sitting boyfriend di ba.

the tip amount was a huge mistake, i had no idea. lack of prep mostly but i hadn't really planned on going to AC. no excuse though. should have at least read the last report to remind me of what i'd read in the past.

i talked to my friend in ac today (i'm in bangkok now so easy call to make) and we just got crossed up. when we first got together there, he said the gals would run about 1,500P. he has been used to the system there and didn't specify the breakdown. probably because i told him i'd read stuff about the place before. not being used to the system, i figured he was talking about the payment to the gal and not talking bar fine plus tip to gal. honest, yet humiliating, mistake.

i'm afraid the girls were professional enough to keep a straight face upon receiving the cash. i'm also surprised that the topic of payment amount never came up again between my friend and i. the stars just aligned against me on this one. and i, the idiot, was there for 8 days...........just being a fool.

I was in AC a little over a week ago. The BF's i paid were 600p ST 1000 to 1100LT on the perimeter and the clubs on fields were asking 1350 to 1450. Call me a cheap bastard but I rather walk the extra couple blks to the perimeter and save a few pesos. I couldn't see the difference in the quality. There was so much to choose from, I am still sick about having to leave. The dire and noise didn't bother me a bit, not with fine women for the taking everywhere. It was my rookie trip, but I did my homework here first.
THX to all those that went before me and was willing to share the info.

Gald to hear things are still about the same out perimeter way. That is my prefered venue. I like the size and freindliness of the bars and have found very adequate talent to make me happy in the Perimeter bars.rbc100

Hey, Buick! Thanks for the report and the numbers crunching!

Re: La Union, I've been meaning to check it out and see what kind of surf is available there. You checked out the hotels and beaches. . . . what were the waves like?

I met a guy named Alan, at the Hyatt Casino, and he and his dad own Sebay in La Union (they taught GMA to get on a board--lol). I've been quite curious about the place, but everytime I make plans some hottie gets me all tangled up and I can't make the long limo ride.

Appreciate any info from everyone!

Thanks for the report!

Question for you: how did the quality of the chicks compare in La Union vs say AC?