Homeless Diver

I dont really remember when I started but it was around 04:30 when I woke up and left for Isla Baila, which is still closed for construction, which is OK because I had a tab there. So heck, now I’m just gonna have to bar-hop my way down the beach to all those tiny hotel bars that never close - usually the Korean places. Then I moved on to the Bamboo Lounge (one of a dozen places called Bamboo) because it’s 24′hrs and a last stop for the night owls.

I ordered the usual drinks and also some chicken wings and  onion rings - booze munchies. 30 minutes later, they come out to tell me they dont have this…30 minutes after I had ordered it. Crap. OK, so what can they do? They say they can take out a frozen chicken, chop and fry. Cool. This food comes out another 45 minutes later looking distinctly like it had been choppidy-chopped randomly whilst still frozen.

Next stop, Blue Mango where I drop some stuff in a locker and commence to swimming. A few hours later I’m in Red Pirates dripping all over the place and having a few handfuls of morning drinks. Back to Blue Mango to settle a tab and slide over to Cocolocos for some redbull vodkas. Back to Blue Mango for more drinks.

Thess was packing up for the low season and invited a few people over for a ‘few’ drinks. This might not have been the best idea of the day. Shes cool as hell and the best bartender you will ever find. Great friend. But still….inviting us never ends sublimely.

Now its off to Arwanas for drinking on the roof.  I have no idea why, but the kitchen downstairs decided to close at - - wait for it - - - 2:30 in the afternoon! It’s got an independent management and tends to close during the low points of the day rather than wait for the evening rush…. So we order some Smokes (yes, thats the name of the resto).

There was an Aussie, 2 Brits, 4 Americans (1 chick), 3 Filipinas, and for a few minutes…a few watch/jewelry vendors. Other people came and went for a little while, all of them we knew.  There was yelling from the balcony. There were drinking games like guessing ‘boxers, briefs or nothing’ for each of the group. Wrong guesses involved a shot of Tanduay - which is not meant to be done in shots. It needs something to mask th taste.

The Vendors, we got 2 of them to do shots. Their boss was with em’ and told them to go-ahead. They thought we were gonna buy some watches if they shot the booze - we bought no watches after they did the shots. As they walked down, it dawned on me what kind of headdress they had on and the patch on the vest: Muslim Vendors Association.  BWHAHAHAHAA!!!!!!  I like that, people not too tied up in ones religion to take time out for a small bit of rum. I saw them today down near Tourist Center. They were laughing and pointing at me saying “No watches today sir! Tanduay time!” ; they all laughed that internal kind of laugh you get from Mexican police when you demand your phone call. I’m sure it was sarcastic but hell, it was still funny.

Anyway, back to last night: I remember the food arriving in the daylight. I remember a dude and chick going swimming. I remember someone commenting “I promise, I wont shag ya in the shower - if I do then I’ll give ya all 10,000 pesos from me pocket”. I remember her running down the sidewalk, full tilt, to her room and him trotting off behind her leisurely. I remember making a comment to a Brit about how apparently his town in England didn’t have any dental plans. I remember leaving…and getting home to find the power out. I remember trying to fight a dog - yelling at full volume that I was gonna kill it if it barked one more time. The landlord came to calm me down and had the owners take the dog around the other side of the house (they didnt speak english it seems).

Thats all I remember of yesterday. There are some rather large blocks of time missing.

Someone woke me up about midnight…and thankfully the power was back on. I asked what time did we get back?”, She replied “around 7″.  I was blacked out before 7pm..that might be a new record for me. I slept from 7pm to midnight…then from 1am to 1:30pm………..wow.

Sugar ants can predict typhoons - the recent invasion completely disappeared the morning before the typhoon hit Boracay. They came back at the end of the last rain and are back in force.

There is a former NASA engineer working as night-shift manager at a 24-hour bar in D’Mall….uh huh

Drunkenly walking thru a typhoon is easier than reporters make it look…either that or they’re drunk themselves.

NEVER take that large ‘emergency’ frozen bottle of water out of the freezer for longer than is necessary, it might make a difference between a little trash and a lot of rotten food.

Drunk Canadians with an accent like a drunk east Texan redneck should not be allowed in bars less than a kilometer from me.

Andoks is capable of closing; who would have thought.

Andoks does not need refrigeration: you will feel just as miserable the next morning regardless of refrigerator or not.

Solitaire by candle light sucks. It truly sucks. You cannot imagine how bad it wholly sucks.

Casual sex becomes “do you have a generator?”

Tokay geckos dont care if you just cleaned the house from top-to-bottom, they will crap huge nuggets whenever they please.

The ability to offer a clean-water shower can be traded for earthly sins.

Cocomangas never stops partying…ever.

The Baboy store will sell you tanduay in the middle of a typhoon…but only if he has a bottle left for himself.

Do not order any dishes with meat from a place that only uses generators at night time.

I can withstand being hit in the head, neck, and shoulders by flying coconuts. This is not bragging, but its still pretty damn interesting. Ok, yea its bragging.

The center of D’Mall is impervious to typhoon winds…possibly connected to the Bermuda Triangle

I am not the only person on this island that apologizes after pissing off people the night before.

The staff of Red Pirates are a dedicated bunch that let nothing stop the booze from flowing; even if that includes one of them standing on the thatch/nippa roof in sandblasting wind and rain to repair a few minor leaks.

Bags of trash are capable of levitating 200 meters and into other peoples houses.

It is possible to out-party people who have lived a party life for the last 5 years.

My neighbors do not need a 2-man-lift generator for basic sanitation, lights, fan, hotwater, cooking….no, they need it for a karaoke machine.

Having a spare and fully charged battery for the cell phone only matters when….when…. hell, it didnt matter. The service was out.

Sand can, and will, inform you of new body cracks it has found.

Rubbing alcohol is not a good way to clean the tabletop whilst using candles.

UPDATE: whoops, not everyone had power restored like I had said earlier. I went down to Red Pirates and sure enough, they were still without. Several bars/resorts along the southern end of White Beach didnt have power still…guess I was lucky. As far as I can tell now, everyone seems to have it restored. Honestly, I have no idea why I have it or even internet considering all the cables are under the remaining fallen palm tree.

I was going to post this on Yahoo Answers but screw em…its mine!

Heres the scoop:

Cell phone: Globe came on this morning, Smart has been stable for the past day. “Sun” is still showing up in the networks although no-one knows what that is…possibly some private venture someone let out of the bag during the emergency.

Land lines: the land-line phones are PLDC and never went down as far as I can tell. I have heard them ringing in houses even when the power was off and no generators connected…dont ask me, I profess ignorance on how that happened.

Electricity: Went down sometime early friday am, came back yesterday (Tuesday) about 5pm. Many resorts have generators but it was obvious that fuel was getting in short supply after a few days so usage was rationed to foodservice areas and rooms at night.  Sometimes. A great many places have no form of generators like Red Pirates bar, but that did not stop it from being full of patrons until early in the morning. I do not have generator access either, it sucked.—UPDATE—Seems like several places did not have electricity. I just assumed I would be one of the last ones to get it restored. I noticed Red Pirated was still out lastnight and gave Joey and Jen a good ribbing about it…Sorry guys!

Beaches: water came high on all beaches. Tambaasan is where the boats went to drydock but the water came all the way to the palm line and smashed a lot to bits. one person died the first day by trying to line a boat when he was smashed between it and another. I can get some pictures of this and post them. All the resorts have done an excellent job of cleaning up their respective areas. Even the kids scrounging for recyclable stuff to sell have made a windfall of this.

My Balcony: I have been thinking of chopping down a few recently overgrown banana and coconut palms that grew to obstructing my view of the sea.  Now I don’t have to, the exact ones blew down!  I have my view back!

Fuel: was in low supply. Rationing was enacted voluntarily because people were afraid they couldnt get it. The only formal gas station, Shell, refused to sell to people with jugs knowing that it was resorts getting the fuel and not for motor transport.–UPDATE—several people told me this was not accurate. Others told me this happened to them personally. I can only assume it was hit-n-miss for different people.

Water - household: BWSS ( or whatever its called now) was out for several days. There are conspiracy stories going around about how they selectivly shut off water to all but the highest bidders…this will prove devistation if true. Right now, its just a rumor because certain high-end places DID keep water while residential areas were without (smaller resorts as well). The Tubi water system was only out for a day and then only to certain areas. It was really low pressure for a few days so we all filled every spare bucket and container we had. This is all speculation and I’m sure everyone will deny it happened either way.

Food: never an issue except for those clueless people like myself that had only an electric burner…not a gas tank burner. Cooking is kinda hard. But food was never in short supply and yes, the stores were always open. They did keep the doors closed but hey, its a friggin typhoon! Just knock!.

Booze: Never a shortage of that on Boracay.

Flooding: a few nights everything was flooded. D’Mall wetmarket was about 10 inches deep. Back alleys were much worse. Main road between Station 1 and 2 were so deep that motor bikes couldnt get thru at one point… the water was halfway between the wheel axle and the upper section of tire!  Some areas, you simply couldnt see the road, sidewalks, dirt, nothing…just where the water met the buildings.

Clubs: one night, everything along the beachside closed. I found out why - sandblasting wind and crap falling off palms left and right. It was physically impossible for me to see where I was walking. I HAD to put my hand infront of my eyes to keep the horizontal onslaught from hurting. Over and over, I would run into other drunks just as stupid as myself to be walking along White Beach in the middle of a typhoon just as the inner wall was near us at night.

Cocomangas - you guys are troopers! Never once did they stop partying and on top of that, made some SPECTACULAR pizza! John, Scott, Chico, Sean, and staff…..you guys know how to keep it alive!

I should get paid for the amount of irresponsibility that exudes from my very essence.

I was taking an easy day, so I thought. Nothing in the house that I cared to eat but I hadn’t been to the ATM in a while and 40 pesos wasnt getting me anything near here. Buuuutttt, there is CocoLocos, a bar that also has a full menu and does take-out orders! They also let me run a tab there…..we have a winner! Times like these, I fall in love with Boracay.

So thats how it started but first, a stop in Red Pirates. Two hours later I’m in Blue Mango drinking with friends. Then finally to CocoLoco’s and order some food…with drinks while waiting of course. Then its back to Mango and I put the food in the cooler while drinking some more. Then its of to Juice bar with a bunch of friends. Meet a lot more friends while there. Bar closes, and we manage to go into a different closed bar…it helps when you have the keys to these things. Even more friends. The gods are smiling on me this night. Sometime around 8am, I make it back to Blue Mango to pick up my dinner.

All I meant to do was walk down and pick up some take-out and come right back home.

I think it started out poorly since I didn’t even leave the house until about midnight, after half a bottle of Tanduay rum. I recall Red Pirates closing down and moving in a northern direction. I ended up everywhere and nowhere. There was Isla Bayla, Bamboo, Juice Bar, some other place I don’t really remember much about except everyone there seemed preoccupied with acting like aristocrats but still managed to use the body language of trailer trash. I got the distinct impression that they were all uneducated people in nice clothes. So I staggered onward. Boracay party places needed my presence.

Once I headed to Station 2, one point was reinforced last night: being nice to people has its benefits. I got free drinks everywhere I went except for Summer Place, (not only will this NEVER happen, but they’re some of the most expensive around). Bartenders and managers that recognized me were like, forget it and give me some dap! (dapped)_ I only mention this because there were a few people I know that were snotty towards the staff at a few places and have since had their bills padded by other peoples drinks and almost always full-tourist price. Normally, my drinks are discounted to a more local rate, which is pretty cool.

There was Summer Place, Hey Jude, Sumer Place again, Isla Bayla again, and I forget where else I was at but I do remember closing down Summer Place and my body chemistry was fairly toxic by then. Is it bad that I’m straight but still know most of the ladyboys working the crowd? I found out one thing though: the professional transvestite entertainers that work at the Amazing Show, well, they don’t mix with regular ladyboys and seem to look down on them…well, I shouldn’t say ’seem’ because thats exactly what one of them told me. They’re still cool as hell, but I guess I never realized there was a classist mentality in that group.

I ran into a party girl I remembered from my early days here. She seemed coked out of her head and couldn’t stop talking for more than a few seconds. I assume thats what it was, but I didn’t ask.

I found out that Andoks had bottles of Red Bull. Whoops. They should have kept that secret from me.

I even stopped into a few places at daybreak to hang with some of the working girls that didn’t get any business…kinda like all the drunks going to IHOP in the states, only this was with prostitutes at bar-lounges that don’t close, so yea, more drinking.

I didn’t get back to the house until around 7:30 this morning and tried staying awake but that was a lost cause. I started freezing for some reason and killed the aircon around 0830. Very fitful sleep, stomach was having a twinge. My phone started blowing up with calls and text messages from a girl out here and finally I texted her back to leave me alone to sleep and turned the ringer off. She wanted to come over at noon.

Finally I woke up around 20:00 tonight and found a lot of texts and missed calls on my phone. Damnit! My good friend was having her 21st birthday party down on the beach and I missed it. Other people even texted me to say how good the BBQ and beer was and to get my ass down there. Honestly, even if I had been awake early enough, I don’t think I would have made it…it’s now 1:00 am the next morning and I’m still feeling like crap.

Damn–there went a power surge and drop…airconditioner is making funny noises now. See? just how the hell are we having a brown-out at 1:00 in the morning? It’s not even hot out tonight. What the hell?!?! I went to unplug some appliances and come back to find a cockroach on my floor - I friggin hate those things and we rarely ever see them here. I keep the house nice and poisoned.

Anyway, I’m still feeling ill and am sipping on a salty chicken-ramen soup while at the computer. Thats my big Saturday night. What the hell was I thinking! I could have partied like a rock-star tonight with my closest best friends but noooo…I had to go out last night by myself and just meet friends along the way.

99.5 degree Fahrenheit. Yuppers, I’m a little toasty.

I went out and managed blackout drive pretty quickly. I do remember being a bit drunk and coming back to the house. I remember Chad coming up behind me saying 6 girls were going to drink the ‘Fuck You Archie’ so he was getting the video camera.

Then I remember being at Summer Place pretty late chillin with a friend. I remember getting a motorcycle home.

I woke up hungover and really shaky as they told me about a friend that got the bends pretty bad on a morning dive. I tried sleeping again and didnt do a good job of it. I got up around 15:00 and noticed that I had lost a pillow and somehow, gained a mystery bag of Andoks fried chicken. There was a plastic bowl with about 5 eaten pieces in it and another bag with 6 more pieces hanging on the back of the chair. I dont remember any of it.

Now…what people told me is that apparently I went back down to the Red Pirates and hung out with them drinking some more on the beach(?). They say there was fire dancing and video(?). There were girls drinking FU Archies(?). I was telling people that I was waiting for someone(?). Gaz was wearing short-shorts and his nads were hanging out(?).

I remember none of it. I do remember thinking that I should have some Andoks but I dont remember going there or back or even eating it. I dont remember getting home or why my shirt and boxers were on the bathroom floor soaking wet. I also dont know why there was sand all over them or how I even got sand up to the house.

And I have more coursework to do tonight. Jeeze.