29 September 2005

I boarded the ferry last night about 8:30. When I arrived at the pier I saw a yellow motorcycle that looked like Jacky’s and thought that perhaps she had come anyway, but as I looked around I couldn’t find her. I was both glad and sad. I was glad because I knew she was sick and sad because I would have liked to see her one last time. Joel had purchased my ticket for me early in the day to ensure that I would have a ride and had come and dropped the ticked off. The ticket was 160 or so pesos and I had given Joel 500 and told him to keep the change. As the pier was about 10 minutes from his house and my hotel about 5 minutes I thought it was probably more than fair for his trouble. The ferry is a sleeper ferry which means that instead of having rows of chairs it has rows of beds. I rather like this approach as you can get a good sleep while traveling, and the heat doesn’t bother you so much while you’re asleep. The sides of the ferry are open letting the air blow through the decks, but tarps can be pulled down over the sides of each deck if it starts to rain. The basic bunk is little more than a steal frame with a piece of plywood with a thin cushion of foam rubber. A pillow and blanket can be had for 10 pesos each and for me they were well worth the small investment. The ferry left about 9:00 and we were on our very very slow way. There was no wind last night, and the movement of the ferry wasn’t fast enough to create even a breeze across the decks. There was an elderly American gentleman at one end of the rows of bunks. I nodded to acknowledge him and I asked him how this journey was. He looked up at me as he was on the bottom of one of the bunks and said, slow and hot, but the girls here, he pointed to his wife and who I presume was his daughter, say that the ferry will arrive at about 3:00am but that we should stay on the boat until 6:00am because there are to many pickpockets thieves, muggers and kidnapers and others looking for no good waiting at the docks at that hour in the morning. I thanked him for the advice and was about to go when he began to say something else. Not to be rude to an elderly gentleman I stayed and listened. After about 10 minutes of him talking and telling me about the Philippines and other things, he invited me to come back and take the cot adjacent to his as it was empty. I accepted as he was an interesting man and obviously had a great deal of knowledge about many things, but more so just because it seemed like he wanted someone to talk to and listen to him. He spent the better part of the next hour and half telling me about his experiences back when he was in the army, his experiences in the Philippines, and his ventures with buying and selling land and all sorts of other things. Eventually it was getting late and his wife and daughter were trying to get some sleep, so I suggested that we might want to get a little sleep ourselves before morning arrived. He looked at his watch and agreed and so we both called it a night. The boat arrived at the pier at roughly 2:40 this morning, and that was more or less the end of my restful sleep. Many of the guests aboard the boat disembarked, while many others stayed behind to continue sleeping. The boat allows this and has no problem with you staying on until morning proper. I figured that when most of the guests had finished disembarking things would settle back down and I would be able to sleep until 6:00, then catch a taxi to the NS Royal Pension where I would be staying for the one night. Unfortunately there seemed to be other people and other animals that didn’t want me to go to sleep. One of the main perpetrators was a truck full of pigs that had been transported somewhere on the boat. Apparently the pigs didn’t like being disembarked at 2:40 in the morning either and so for the next hour as they were wrestled off the boat they screamed keeping the rest of us passengers awake. Finally when the pigs had quit screaming at the people manhandling them, some men thought that they should make up for the lost amount of noise and began hollering at each other from different decks. Once again keeping the rest of us passengers awake. So after a while the men got tired of yelling at each other and it was quite for a few minutes. Now apparently someone with a truck thought it completely inappropriate for it to be this quite so he had to honk his horn right next to the boat every two to three minutes to make sure those that remained behind didn’t fall back asleep. When this was all finished it was about 5:30 and it was getting light outside so I decided it was time to get going. The elderly gentleman and his wife and daughter were a few minutes ahead of me in there rousing from bed, and we disembarked together and wished each other a safe and happy journey, and departed separate ways me to the hotel, him to breakfast and then the airport. From that point forward I have done little today. I went to the SM (for Shoe Mart) mall and had some film developed. Bought a couple of pair of shorts and have come back to my room. My plans for now are to get some supper, and get another manicure and pedicure as the shop is close by for now that’s it. When I get back from that I will finish preparing to leave to Bangkok tomorrow and call it a night.
Ok so I’m back again. Went to eat, and get a manicure and foot spa again at the local beauty shop, same one as I was in the last time I passed this way, and boy what a trip it was this time. Again with the clucking and cooing and the staring, but I tell you what, this time I had three girls working on me instead of two. One girl was working on my hands so she always had one hand tied up, and one girl was working on each of my feet. This left me one appendage free and so many different sensations coming at me at once I couldn’t keep up with who was doing what unless someone did something that drew my attention away from the others. This was nice. In truth I had gone there hoping to get Jenelyne, the same girl I had got the first time, but she was busy with another customer. They again sat me down on a couch propped both my feet up began massaging my calves and feet and when finished with that began scrubbing my feet to take off any calluses I might have, I think I wore off any calluses I had had on the river walk but they scrubbed anyway and took off another inch or so of skin. Really the massaging and scrubbing felt rather good as my feet have been soar all day, beat to death by those rocks from the river walk, but I would do it again if Jacky were to ask me to go again. I however might try to take sandals the next time though. Anyways as the two girls were working on my feet and (one was Vanessa the other Aleza) I had another third girl (Babylyn) working on my hands and one hand free to drink some hot tea they had brought me. Now I don’t know much about beauty salons, but this one had the full range of everything you needed or wanted it seemed, and a full compliment of people to go with it. How can I best explain this they had plenty of young girls and middle aged women working for the salon, and they also had plenty of young men that were, well shall we say, they were the way that young men are that work in salons are. That is, they are gay and pretty. The last time I had been in the salon I only remember two men working there but tonight there were about 5 or 6. Now this didn’t bother me, for one the girls were working on me, for two I figured they knew there jobs just like the girls did and would be as professional as the girls if they were working on me. As the crowd began to thin and I was the only one in the shop that was a customer the discussions started to shift around me, not that I tried to bring this on, but I was the only one sitting there, that didn’t work there, and no one that worked there was leaving even though they did not have customers. Now there are a bunch of chairs in the room, and two couches facing each other. I was sitting at one end of one couch, and there were three “men” sitting on the other, and another two invited themselves to sit next to me. Still this dos not bother me because I’m fairly secure with myself. Now the boys are being a bit more talkative than the girls, and are getting most of the questions in, like are you single, are you looking for a wife, how long are going to be here, what hotel are you in, what room number, can we come up and give you a massage. I take all this light heartedly because in our conversations its already been made clear that I am straight and prefer women, so the guys are just teasing me at this point, and trying to get me to kiss them, or pose for pictures. Meantime I am still sitting on the couch letting my fingernails and toenails dry, and Jenelyn is sitting behind me and playing with my hair, which I am rather enjoying because its been a while since someone has played with my hair, and I don’t know why, but I just enjoy it. I didn’t really know who was behind me but I knew it was a girl by the voice, so I looked back and noticed that it was her. She looked at me smiled, said that I was handsome and that she liked my nose. I smiled back, and told her I thought that she was very pretty. Her answer was, no I don’t think so, no one ever tells me that I am pretty. I said that’s a shame because I think your very pretty, she didn’t really blush, but she looked away and kept playing with my hair. Someone said something to her about it and she stopped, so I turned around and no its ok I like it, so she started playing with my hair again. She asked me if I dyed or colored my hair and I said no, and she asked me if she could cut my hair. I though about it for a few seconds and said just a little bit, just the split ends. She said no let me cut it, and I will wash and shampoo, and give you a head massage, just let me cut it. I am really tempted, but I said can you just cut the ends, just cut the split ends. She answered in a saddened voice, you don’t have any split ends, you don’t need a hair cut, I just want to cut your hair. It’s too bad, because I rather wanted to get my hair cut at that point, a shampoo and head massage sounded rather good. She said maybe I can trim you beard. I said sure I need my beard trimmed, do you know how? She answered no it was just a joke, she has never had a customer with a beard before, but she could shave it off for me because she wants to see my face without the beard. That statement is one I have heard a couple of times here, from different women. For one, Jacky said the same thing, and so did many of her friends without being prompted to do so by her. But on with the current story. After I had been sitting there a while and all my nails were dry including my feet I was still surrounded by the workers of the salon, on the couches were the men, and on chairs behind me and to my other side were women, the guys and galls were talking in Taglaog which I cannot understand and they would say things in English when they talked to me. Jenelyn asked me if I could speak Taglaog, and I said no. she said no you need to speak Taglaog, so I said you teach me. She said gwapo is handsome as she fingered my hair and then reached around and lightly grabbed my nose. I looked her straight in the eyes and said, so how do you say pretty. She looked away and didn’t answer. For this she got a ration from the gay men who apparently thought that if I liked her she should go for it. They asked me if I liked her, to which my answer was. I don’t know her yet, so I can’t tell, but I think that she is very pretty and would like to get to know her. She kind of shied away a little but still sat behind me. One of the men kept professing his undying love for me and asked if I would kiss him. I had to turn him down. Some of the men were sitting on the couch with me and they wanted to take a picture with me. So did Jenelyn as she had taken a little interest in me, which was obvious to me the first time I had come into the salon because she tended to stay around me. That and this time as soon as she had finished with her last customer she had came and sat behind me. The only camera they had was a cell phone camera first Jenelyn took her picture we leaned closer together as I was on the couch and she behind. I suggested that it was time for me to go and put my feet down, and began looking for my sandals. Sometime during my foot spa my sandals had been moved and then through all the jostling of the men on the couch then had been knocked beneath the couch. The boys had a great time with this saying oh good he cant leave, and telling the girls not to get my sandals, but the girls did, and I put my sandals on and was ready to go. The boys all looked heart broken and made pleas for me to stay, and the one continued to profess his love for me and ask me to merry him, to which all the girls laughed and so did I. I said no but I will take a picture with you so a bunch of the boys piled on the couch and made a place for me to sit. I sat down and they flung themselves all over me and put my arms around them. Personally I thought this greatly hysterical and could hardly stop laughing. They took the picture and I got up and went to the cashier and asked how much I owed. I forget what it was now, but it wasn’t much, and I had gotten much more entertainment from both the girls and boys than I had paid for. I tipped the three girls that had worked on me and politely as possible excused myself and wished them a good evening.