Action is VERY Minimal in Palawan (It is a Bring Your Own Place)
no difficulkty finding one to go witrh you, but Palawan is the frontier and even PP is a mere town, not a city.
Catbalogan City Western Samar
From Tacloban in Leyte where the airplane lands, it is about a two and a half hour road trip north in an air-conditioned van leaving from either the Tacloban office of Grand Tours or there is now a new van depot about 10 minutes out of town. There you can catch all the van companies who travel all over Samar and Leyte. The trip to Catbalogan varies from company to company but ranges from 100 pesos to 150 pesos per person each way. Vans leave bout every 30 minutes in day time hours so there is no need to book.
Once in Catbalogan, I stayed at the Rolet Hotel which is reputably the best hotel in town and is centrally located and girl friendly. The rack rate was 950 pesos per night for a double room so I didn’t negotiate. The hotel has air-con rooms and is clean and well maintained but the rooms have no windows so it feels a little bit like a jail cell lol. Girl friendly for sure in fact the receptionist was VERY interested in visiting me in my room but as she was in her early thirties and had a Mommy tummy, I was not interested.
Catbalogan is a small city on the sea. It is typical of many small cities in the Philippines. The only difference is that the girls working in shops and walking on the street and riding in trikes are VERY forward in speaking with you and asking if you have a girl friend and if you are interested to get to know them with the view of being their boy friend. Everywhere I went I was constantly hit on by non-pros. It was quiet a blast. A new (small) shopping mall was opened the day I arrived. The city was buzzing with people coming from the provinces to check it out. It was a crap mall to our standards.
There are two bars I found while I was there. They are NOT like Angeles City bars LOL. They are normal bars where the locals go to drink and have fun on weekends but due to the popularity of me being a foreigner, it is too easy to pick up. The name of the biggest bar is “Eclipse” and the other one was undergoing renovations and was going to re-open in November 2006. It was formally know and “”Mads” but was changing it’s name to “Sooners” the Manager told me. They both have bands playing on weekends and the places are packed. Easy pickings but don’t be too loud and aggressive as the local boys take offence to this behaviour in this small town and they will likely have something to say about it. Just be low key and chat to girls who give you the eye. It’s that easy.
The girls here don’t ask for money. They go with you to try and convince you to be their boy friend and eventually support them financially. Yes even here the girls have agendas lol.
It is dead easy to pick up in this town any time of the day or night just by walking around. In the days I was there I saw only one foreigner on the street other than myself.
I was told by a few trike drivers that they can arrange pros to your room if you want them for between 500 and 1,000 pesos but I am guessing that the girls would most likely be a friend or a relative of the driver.
Trike rides here are the cheapest I have ever seen at 3 pesos per person and 95% of the trikes have no engines just bicycles strapped to a sidecar lol. Amazingly they use these trikes for transporting anything not only people. I saw several large black pigs transported alive on a pedal trike lol. I wonder if the pig had the right change when it arrived at its destination J.
Everything is noticeably cheap. The cost of living here is amazingly low. Restaurants, transport, cloths, food (fresh fish in the markets is as low as 50 pesos a kilo) everything is just so cheap compared to Manila or Angeles City, I would say 50% to 80% less. You could live like a king here on USD$200 per week including rent and electricity.
I walked around the first day and was propositioned by several shop assistance. I chose a 19-year-old girl who said she was originally from Manila. We met after work, had a bite to eat close by, and then went to my room. Easy as that most times unless they are virgins. Then they will want you to marry them so be aware, as their Families will hunt you down if you take her cherry and dump her and stay in town. I picked up other girls most anywhere. They will all be smiling and giggling as you walk past. Just smile back and ask them their name and you are in. It is that easy there.
Advice.
As I mentioned in my Leyte report, this is not the place to be a playboy for a long time. You will get brothers and Family members of girls you banged knocking on your door if you hang around for a while. If you pass through for a few days or a week you should be fine. Any longer, get yourself a girlfriend, threat her well and enjoy.
I also took a scary motorised canoe ride in open ocean to Daram Island, a very remote part of Samar. That report will come later.
Pics to follow.