I arrived in Manila almost instantaneously. I was drunk off my ass when my Quebecois buddy Pierre dragged me from some forsaken balcony in Itaewon, and put us on the train to Incheon airport. I blacked out as soon as we got on the plane to Manila, waking up in a different world. Consistent with my inability to plan, I had no idea what awaited me. Pierre joked that he was glad to finally be in South America, and the reality is that our knowledge of where we were was limited.
I had read the Wikipedia page on the Philippines some years before flying into Manila, and had a Filipina friend in college. I wasn't fully ignorant -- I simply enjoy chaos and spontaneity -- but I knew nothing about the city. Pierre, however, had been told one word: Malate.
However, I am not sure whether I was blind or a fool, but it quickly became obvious that Pierre and I were unusually popular with the ladies. Of course, we're both good looking guys who exude confidence, but that was overshadowed by the fact that we were North American. The very first two girls who approached us were tricking, they told us that straight up.
We fled to the next bar and walked into a sea of women. There were maybe 60 girls and 6 guys standing around listening to the music. Pierre and I approached a couple of American dudes, clearly Marines, who simply told us they worked in the US embassy. "They'll ask your for cab fare once you have sex with them," the Marine in black told me. The dude was trying to show us the ropes, how to get the most bang for our buck, when an old white guy came in and stole the show.
He was balding, nearly blind, and stumbling with a cane as 4 hot young brown girls trailed behind him. He sat down, one of the girls lifted his shirt and started rubbing his massive beer gut, as another started scratching his shiny bald head. The old guy gleamed contentedly behind his magnifying specs; he was nearly blind.
Disgusted, Pierre and I walked out. Along the way to finding a hotel, we were approached by about 10 or 12 kids begging for money. It was late night and they were no more than six or seven years of age. Perhaps they were older; frail bodies sometimes betray the truth of age. They were mobbing us for money, and Pierre and I angrily shook them off: "get the fuck away!" I screamed after I noticed my book bag was suddenly open. We knew we quickly needed a hotel to stash our bags, or we were gonna get jacked.
We continued walking, stumbling past families sleeping on the sidewalk. Many of the kids sleeping with their mothers were wearing nothing more than a raggedy t-shirt. Pierre and I got the very clear impression that the cardboard box they were lying on was the only thing on earth they owned. We eventually walked over a family blocking the sidewalk, and were approached by a man trying to promote his "club."
His club was patronized by 10 times more women than men, and the promoter was very eager for us to drink with some of the girls. We tried to shake off the promoter, and walked out into a mob of more promoters, each trying to outbid the other in interest for us. We kept walking and they tailed behind while promising drinks and "many regular girls," but we entered the first brightly lit hotel lobby we found and ditched them. We needed to change, prepare for the night, and stash our belongings.
We each booked a 60 euro a night room, and I took the elevator up to the 51st floor. I dropped off my bag, showered, and changed into something clean for the night. Before Pierre and I met in the lobby again, I decided to look down from my window. Down below, I saw the same families we'd walked around, and some of the same homeless kids. I knew that I was as powerless to help them from up above, as I would be a few hours later while drinking down below.
