Welcome to The Dark Side of The Moon. Tips Accepted.

Okay, the rest of Day 1-2.

After my terrifying ride on a kalesa, I called it quits on shopping and decided to go to this resort that I had heard about that was "10 minutes" away. I threw on a bathing suit and hailed a trike, and off across the fields we went. For like half an hour.

The deal in the country side of the Philippines is that it's really eerie to me. It's a very hard to describe mix of gorgeous and awful. Waving fields of hallucinogenicly green rice paddies interspersed with shanties made of trash, water buffaloes and goats nibbling the grasses next to the burned out rubble of a once lovely two story house, where one can still see half a staircase rising to nowhere, garish tarpaulins hanging in an empty field advertising cell phone services, monumental, pristine "Inglesis Cristo" churches whose flanks teem with tin shacks full of ragged squatters....yeah, that.

Resorts in the Philippines are like every other luxury here: a Batman's Joker reminder that everything comes with a price. Yes, you can be the richest mofo for 50 miles around, but that ain't gonna buy you a Mercedes Benz, so to speak. No matter how much money you throw around, you can't buy something that's not there. You can't buy a decent club sandwich, that's for sure.And all this (waves hand at the decaying lemon of resort) means that you can take a vacation any time you want but you can never leave....

The 2 or 3 "resorts" I've been to are a kind of cosmic joke- and very surreal. It's hard to put your finger on why they are so off putting, so let's see if I can set the stage for you. Imagine a rural country road that runs in both directions as far as you can see to the horizon; civilization is limited to farm houses. In the middle of an abandoned field is a shoddily made, oddly designed, massive McMansion with a crappy square pool. This is the "resort". The sea is visible from the second floor but not accessible from the resort itself, as the quarter mile or so between the house and the sea is rice paddies and scrub. The beach is grey pebbly "sand" anyway, not inviting. The pool itself is surrounded by a fence, on which laundry is hanging (yes, really). Two canvas lawn chairs are to lounge in. No umbrellas, no towels. The pool is completely deserted, in fact the entire place is empty. How on earth employee get here and home is beyond you.

The bleating of kid goats can be heard above the faintest noise of crashing surf. You enter the main house. There is a vague, slightly disturbing "Norway" theme, which mostly consists of extremely frightening troll doll statues and some inspirational posters of various Fjords (really.). It's 2.00$ to use the pool. While the staff vacuums the pool, you toddle up to the 3rd floor to have an "elevens" cocktail and survey this blasted moonscape you've landed on. The restaurant is, like the rest of the place, a hastily knocked together movie set, someone's idea of "class", and it's also empty. The waiter is hurriedly pulling on his iridescent uniform shirt. He doesn't understand what "tonic" is, (His first attempt is straight vodka with ice, floating in a martini glass) so you make your own drink, which 1.50$.

Oh, and, guys, guess what's on the stereo?
"The Name Game", in a kind of 1980's remix version. Also on? The other "hits" on this album of the damned, including: oh, who gives a fuck? It was bad enough that the rinky dink synthesizer chorus of "let's try Mary!" was ringing through this place.

There is no one visible in any direction, as far as you can see, which is about 5-10 miles at a height of the 3rd  floor. Outside the restaurant is a sad little roof deck, which is obviously for use by the weddings and celebrations that never happened here. The place SCREAMS "tax shelter for off shore slumlord from Norway."

After the pool is clean, you go for a dip. At first it's very nice, having the whole place to yourself, dozing in the sun, reading the amazing memoirs of Francine Du Plessix "Them", and making sure not burn in the sun. But it's creepy as hell. I don't exactly know what was the main problem, but if I had to guess, it would be maybe one or all of the following:

• *extreme* mismatch between the setting and the house/ buildings
• total lack of human habitation
• the way the place had been designed on a dime budget and probably looked like crap on it's opening day and was now in the early stages of neglect, but in every wobbly chair, cut- rate flatware fork, and dusty liquor bottle you could read the eventual decline of the place as clearly as if in a crystal ball
• goats. Apocalypse goats.
• cognitive dissonance that comes from looking at a lushly watered suburban lawn and McMansion in the fucking Philippines in the middle of nowhere.

So yeah, it wasn't a "bust" per se, but it was awfully weird. Had a sub par club sandwich (cheese which I didn't eat, bacon, ham, and that's it.) It was a "fair" BLT without the L or the T. Had 2 more drinks, made by me, since the waiter was helplessly fumbling when he ran out of tonic and tried to give me a full glass of straight vodka again, which I noticed right away and asked him "hon? This is a little strong. In fact, if I drink this I'll be asleep on the floor." Heh. 

Awhile ago I saw a special edition of "No Reservations" in which the always charming Tony Bourdain (my celebrity "free pass") kind of recaps the last 3 years of traveling the world, with his "greatest hits". It includes the amazingly sexy moment where a tipsy Tony, normally so cranky and sarcastic, leans in to the camera, biting his lip a little abashedly and admits that his favorite moments are when he feels most connected to humanity, in the sweetest, most charming manner possible. "Yeah" he gruffly whispers, lowering his eyes and smiling a little ruefully. At that moment my ardor, which had never really waned, was stoked to a full bonfire. But! that's not the main reference here!

 It also includes a laugh- out- loud- funny series on his awful trip to Romania (I later got to see the full magilla, which was just as pant-pee-ing-ly funny). In this clip, a very chagrined Tony tries to contain his mounting anger at the awful, tacky tourist hell he's been shanghaied into visiting by his guide. In the special, Tony describes "this place is putting me in a homicidal rage for some reason". I didn't feel a homicidal rage, but I did feel a similar out of body "REALLY?" feeling, as when Tony's guide, high as a kite on animal tranquilizers (he took them for a back injury he sustained while pushing the broken down car-- really! Look this shit up on YouTube, you won't be sorry) and local hooch, gives an obscene, far too long "toast" to a table full of stunned, politely disgusted Romanians, where Tony is caught giving the camera a long suffering "I just got here, but please get me the hell out of here" look. I longed for a camera crew to fully document the surreal awfulness of this place. I know *exactly* how he felt. A kind of "is this it? Were those horrible "Left Behind" books true and now I've missed my chance to repent and join those apple cheeked jerks from elementary school who warned me not to use god's name in vain? Oh crap!" 

Anyway, after a few hours, I'd had enough and ordered a trike to take me home. 

Upon reaching the hotel I fell into a coma nap, then awoke around 6.30, and rushed to the bookstore to buy a book, since there's not enough to do here and I was almost done with "Them". After the bookstore I wrote my previous entry for this blog and then went out to do some "night photography", something also recommended on various tourist sites. For some reason, my mood had improved about 500% (probably the sun and the pool, which acts like Valium for me- it's like taking an the world's most powerful opiate, that lasts for about 12 hours. Cancer be damned, almost nothing feels better than sunning myself to a point just shy of pain and then jumping into the pool to cool off, sunning the water off and starting all over again for several hours. As a result I have an enviable, dermatologist scaring, year round tan)

I actually enjoyed taking some night photos, most likely because the crowds were gone and I could actually browse through the shops without being brushed up against 8 million times by jerks who don't say excuse me (the entire native and visiting population of the Philippines). 

I then had a totally wretched "grilled cheese sandwich" (bread that had been waved over a toaster, badly cut wedges of industrial cheese, and TONS of mayo, smushed together by someone's toddler. Barely edible.) and then called it a night. The night's cheesy movie on premium cable? "Fright Night" with Colin Farrell (actually pretty good, but had some holes and flaws, as does everything old whisky eyes touches). Grateful sleep.