Romance still alive in Angeles City
The Cheap Baron pays a visit.
There are four things to do in Angeles City. Three of them are eating, drinking and sleeping.
Like Bangkok and Pattaya, the Philippines’ main entertainment playground is a place that you love or hate as soon as you see it. There are no shades of grey. Most of Angeles’ foreign visitors are regulars who enjoy the city’s slightly edgy Third World feel and its 24-hour commitment to hedonism. Those who dislike it do so with a level of hatred that Glasgow Rangers fans reserve for the Pope.
After making two fairly lengthy visits four years apart (the second one recently), I am definitely a fan of Angeles and can think of worse places to spend my dotage when I have accumulated enough money to tell my employers to stick their job where the sun don’t shine.
Angeles would never win any beauty contests. It is a ramshackle town with none of the glitzy shopping malls and high-speed transport options you find in Bangkok. As poverty and crime go hand in hand, security can be an issue, but there are enough gun-toting security guards around to ensure that visitors who behave sensibly will not get into any trouble.
Where Angeles scores heavily over Bangkok, particularly for naughty boys, is in value for money and the attitudes of the service providers at the 100 or so bars dotted around the main entertainment areas of Fields Avenue and Perimeter Road. While Bangkok’s mercenary chrome pole shufflers increasingly treat customers as easy marks, many of their Filipina counterparts regard customers as potential husbands and a route to a better life.
This difference was brought home to me as I enjoyed a beer at a daytime gogo bar on the first day of my recent trip. A very presentable waitress came over and jokingly said ‘Are you waiting for me?’ before giving a sales pitch about how she would make a great wife for me. As I am still paying for my previous wife, I politely declined her offer but was impressed all the same.
Even being able to have a proper conversation with a bargirl was a joy. Most Filipinas speak excellent English, so your discourse can go way beyond the mundane ‘Where you from?’ level found in Thailand’s bars.
Unlike in Bangkok, you don’t need the negotiating skills of the United Nations secretary-general when you find a girl you would like to take home. Standard barfines are 1,300 pesos (920 baht) to 1,500 pesos. Long time is the norm and the barfine includes the girl’s fee. A tip will not be demanded, though obviously one is always appreciated. Short-time services are available in Santos Street, better known by the unambiguous name of Blow Row, for 700 pesos.
While beauty is very much in the eyes of the beholder, most would agree that the average level of female attractiveness is higher in Thailand than in the Philippines. But the Pinays come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and racial types owing to the nation’s history. The legacy of Spanish rule remains in the form of some cute Hispanic-looking girls. There is bound to be someone you like – and, if you are like me, you will take pleasure in just listening to them speak in that lovely Hispanic accent.
As for the bars, they range from sleazy dive bars to upmarket show bars such as Crystal Palace, Club Atlantis, Club Asia, Genesis, Dollhouse and Agasya. The trend is obviously to have bigger and better bars, with the group that owns Crystal Palace even raiding Thailand to find good dancers. Some Thai Penthouse girls were dancing and being photographed with customers when I visited Crystal Palace.
As one who prefers less ostentatious bars, I had a good time in La Pasha, Rhapsody, Gecko’s, Lollipop, Angelwitch, Eager Beavers and the Dirty Duck. The girls were generally friendly without being too pushy for drinks. Alcohol prices in gogo bars are about half the price of those in Thailand, with a standard drink at 100 pesos (70 baht). Some daytime gogo bars, such as the excellent Honey Ko’s on Perimeter Road, even sell beer for a bargain 40 pesos.
If you are one of the few remaining people in the world who enjoy country and western music, Midnight Rodeo is worth a visit. An excellent band was playing when I popped in, with further entertainment provided by an middloe aged English gentleman telling an annoyingly drunk Malaysian customer to go forth and multiply.
Each bar generally has a ‘cherry girl’ or two. These are virgins identified by the red letter ‘V’ on the licences all bargirls wear around their necks to assure customers that they are working legally. Locals assured me that cherry girls are indeed unsullied, though they are generally available for services not involving full sex. Defloration can sometimes be arranged for about 30,000 pesos, it appears.
Although the book entitled ‘Classic Filipino Cuisine’ is an extremely slim volume, there are places in Angeles where the hungry foreigner can be well fed and watered. These include Swiss Chalet (hearty Swiss-German classics and a decent wine list), Azzuro (nice Italian restaurant above Club Lancelot) and Tequila Reef (huge portions of Tex-Mex grub). The central institution of Kokomos, while having no culinary pretensions, does an excellent job in serving up fast food for revellers 24 hours a day.
As for hotels, I can personally recommend the ideally situated Central Park (www.centralpark-ac-com), which has friendly, professional staff and clean, secure rooms for $32 a night, and the Phoenix Hotel (www.www.phoenixhotel.com.ph), which is in a quieter location on Perimeter Road and has good rooms for $25, plus a decent restaurant with excellent imported Australian meat.
Although Angeles has more ATMs these days, it is advisable to stock up before your trip on US dollars, which can be exchanged for pesos at a decent rate at the many money changers on Fields Avenue.
Cebu Pacific now operates flights between Bangkok and Clark (Angeles) on Tuesdays and Saturdays. While Cebu Pacific can probably stake a claim to being the world’s most unreliable airline (customers are never told about cancelled or rescheduled services, while refunds are promised but never made), it did manage to get me there and back for a very impressive promotional fare of 3,400 baht. The less adventurous may prefer to fly to Manila with Philippine Airlines (www.philippineairlines.com) and take a taxi to Angeles.
However you get there, Angeles City is definitely worth a visit – even if you never want to go back.
To the Archive
