Manila

So, I had to go to Manila last month to check out this software package. I was up at 5am, and then flew to Sydney for an alleged 11am flight. Got delayed three hours while they fixed something on the plane, so we walked around Mascott airport looking for any evidence to support the massive signs advertising the fact that a $500m upgrade is in place. There was none other than a few exposed ceiling spaces and the giant signs. Maybe the signs cost that much. Anyway, if there's one delay I don't mind, it's when they delay a flight to fix the plane. Nobody wants to be at 39,000 feet above the Indian Ocean when the plane falls apart because they didn't give the glue enough time to dry.

Eventually we got on the plane and I took my allocated seat next to the other guy from the same office as me, Steve. My sweet talkin' of the Qantas check-in chick obviously paid dividends in for form of the massive allocation of legroom in our emergency row - BONUS! Sat through the obligatory special safety chat that comes with the territory. This consisted of memorising "SFO! Smoke, Fire, Obstruction! Check, Chuck, Check! Check (for SFO), Chuck (the door), Check (that the safety slide has fully inflated)".

"Yep, got it!" I advised the overtly homosexual cabin crew guy as he clapped his hands in front of his face excitedly and then scurried away to serve my CEO and the vendor rep who were already necking wine a couple of seats further up as we backed out to the runway.

Fast forward five hours later and I was the same number of of VBs down. Our mincing cabin lackey was trained by that stage and arrived perkily with a fresh can and a plastic cup before each "DONG!" of the call button had finished echoing around the cabin. My executive collegues up the cabin were also ticking along nicely, filling the jet with uproars of laughter at the end of each volumous politically incorrect joke. My CEO stumbled back to see how we were doing. I nimbly alt-tabbed from the episode of LOST I was watching to the functional requirements specification spreadsheet I'd opened and minimised in preperation earlier. "Remember guysss" he slurred loudly, spittle fizzing from his mouth throughout the lingering 's', "let's have some fun on this one as well, eh!". As the warm, halitosis-tinged aroma of merlot wafted over my face, his meaty hand thudded into my shoulder and with a brisk loud "HAH!" he was off again, teetering back up the aisle to his seat. I rescued my tinny of VB from its place of hasty concealment, re-fired LOST and on we cruised.

Three hours later, we landed in Manila. It was pitch dark and there were a lot of Asians around. I pointed to a nearby group and nodded to my buddy - "Filipinos". He nodded in sombre agreement. We guessed Manila and hence we, were somewhere in Asia. We proceeded to customs and realised we'd completely stuffed our declarations. Hastily we filled them out in illegible scrawls as the line slowly snaked forward. I whipped out my passport. Less that two days prior, I had a different passport. My old passport. I loved that old passport, wrinkled and battered and full of stamps that bore happy remembrence of past international travel, including evidence of my famed "8 hours in Auckland". The old passport still had 5 good months left on it, but by some retarded rule, that's really a fake expiry date. The effective expiry date is six months before the fake expiry date. Apparently it's to cover you in case you have to stay overseas longer. We were going for 36 hours so my old one would have been perfect. As if was, at the last minute I had had to front the immigrations bureau in Adelaide the day before we left to get a fast-track passport! This was the same as the normal passport that usually takes a couple of weeks. A priority one usually takes two days. We got ours in two hours, sweet! Clutching said passport, we passed through customs and an officer felt my balls. Apparently frisking is a national sport in the Philipines.

It was 10pm local time. We stumbled around dragging travel bags to and fro, looking for the limo. A Tarago thing rocked up which would have to do. We piled in and headed to the hotel. Manila is typical of Asian countries where road rules are more suggestions than rules. Most situations can be navigated by honking the horn and flashing the high beams or rubbing bumpers with other vehicles like some bizzare metallic mating ritual. A few hardcore motorists had their hazzard lights on as they drove as well. Who knows what that meant. Maybe it meant they wanted their bumpers rubbed, or maybe they wanted to turn but couldn't decide whether to go left or right. We just flashed our high beams and eventually got to the hotel after passing through the security blockade where they look under the car with mirrors on sticks. I guess they were looking for a group of tired Western terrorists looking to blow themselves up, having packed the Tarago with explosives ingeniously concealed underneath, rather than in the large pile of luggage in the back.

It was about 35 degrees and there were lots of chicks with miniskits on milling around. I thought about asking to borrow a mirror on a stick, but thought better of it. The guards on the hotel door poked through our luggage with giant novelty chopsticks looking for more C4 and we were in. Up to the rooms to dump our gear, and into bed for a well-earned sleep. HAH, wrong! It was work time! A chomped down a mini-barrel of Pringles and headed back down to the lobby with my trusty lappy bag to meet my three travelling companions. We were off to the office to check out the call centre. The call centre services the US, so it really only got cranking around 2am.

We arrived at the office and got another frisking. As we entered the lift, I felt my left ball high-five my right ball. They hadn't seen this much action in years.

A couple of hours later, I snapped the lappy shut and we were done. We'd seen the software in action and got the vibe o' the call centre. The call centre guys demonstrated the accents they mimic when calling internationally, then showed us their "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" DVD they were using to perfect Australian accents. We'd nodded respectfully, and I wondered when I'd get my next call from someone sounding like an Asian drag queen. Their accents were actually pretty good. After we'd bidden goodbye to the night shift, the CEO of the company we were visiting clapped his hands together and said "Gentlemen! Who wants a hamgurger!?". Yay, a burger! I'd been awake for 24 hours, 8 of them cramped in a jet drinking VB and eating tiny trays of reheated crap, so I was ready for some real pseudo-food.

We piled back into the Tarago and headed off, straight past a McDonalds. I banished any "WTF?" thoughts, and thought we must be heading somewhere local for a genuine Philipino copy of an American tradition. Ace. To my confusion, we arrived minutes later in some dingy little street full o' neon. Hmm! Maybe hamburgers are outlawed in this country, and we were going for a Black Market Burger. Our host gestured to a dark building and we proceeded inside, where we sat down at a giant rectangular counter inside of which was a seething mass of tight young binkini-clad flesh. Apparently "hamburger" is Philipino CEO code for "bar full of semi-nude teenage girls". Well, if it had to be code for anything, that's probably not a bad choice.

I parked my arse at the bar next to Steve. "Well, this is great" he said. "They're all about the same age as my daughter". I slapped his back in commiseration, my thoughts drifting to my own young family half a world away back in Australia. How would my little girl, Ensign_Bayls be coping without her dad? Would she be sleeping in her little cot, tiny baby-arse pointed upwards in some impossibly uncomfortable sleeping pose, hugging her stuffed doggie? Would her mum be pining without her husband, her soul mate, staring dolefully into the night and clutching a framed wedding photo tightly to her heart, counting the minutes until the conclusion of this business trip would see our union renew... CONNECT FOUR! That's right, a pair of nubile, scantily clad Filipipo teenagers had plonked a Connect Four game on the bar in front of me and were separating the disks into blue and pink. I shot a "WTF?" look at Steve, but he was busy watching a group of six set up a Jenga tower of blocks in front of him. A chubby mamasan plonked some San Miguel Light beers in front of us and waddled away. Light beer has always been sex with a condom to me. Almost like the real thing, but why wouldya!? Regardless, I heartily necked the bottle and it was surprisingly good. With a sly sideways burp into the the hair of the girl caressing Steve's shoulders, it was game on!

Out of practice, I lost the first game. My nubile conquerers squealed with delight and mamasan arrived with two shots of tequila and thrust a piece of paper under my nose. She illuminated it with a little torch and motioned for me to sign it. I scribbled the best forgery of my CEO's signature that I could muster under those conditions, and off she went. Steve was still pulling blocks from his tower but appeared to be having a good time, two bikini-clad vixens sensuously massaging his shoulders now. I looked around. My CEO had a hand on each of two young arses so he was travelling nicely, and the rest of the entourage seemed to be faring pretty well also. Connect Four carried on, and gradually my childhood skillz returned. I worked out that of my two key attention providers, one was an old hand and one was a n00b. The n00b tended to make outrageous bets like "You win, we go naked!" and the old hand would rebuke her, half playfully, half concerned. Inevitably I could beat the n00b, which led to much coaching in some foreign dialect from the gathering crowd of Who Wants to be an Asian Poledancer? Each win brought another beer and some display of nudity and each loss brought Tequila and a receipt. Whatever I was signing was costing 700. 700 what, I had no idea. Presently, Steve's block tower crumbled into a heap and he raised his fist in victory. Whatever his prize was, I didn't see, as a hand cupped my balls and a breathy mouth met my ear. "What hotel you stay?" came the grammatically inept entreaty. I rattled off the name and pondered the testicular conversation that was happening in my pants now.

More of the same was the order of the night, with various salacious offers put on the beer-stained bar, but my resolve held fast. My years of overexposure to the full catalogue of bizzare and inprobable Internet pr0n had rendered me with an immunity to this kind of solicitation. Even when my two protagonists' tongues snaked into each others' open mouths inches from my face, I was busy abstractly wondering about the sheer improbability of a decent future for anyone whose young life had culminated in a career of feigning interest in pervert Western tourists while playing kids' games. My quota of flesh satisfied, I purposely lost the remaining games, my beer-addled brain retaining enough cognisance to assume some concilitory payout these girls would get from mamasan for making me buy them drinks, if not by me r00ting them. At whatever time it was, we pulled stumps. I blocked the last deperate promises of hawt threesomes back to the bowler, and we emerged into the warm night. The bar tab was $1200US. I still didn't know how much 700 was. As we approached the limo/Tarago, our driver stared wide-eyed through his haze of cigarette smoke, struggling to comprehend the fact that we'd emerged sans-girls. "No girls?" he sputtered in disbelief. I nodded somberly, "Afraid not my friend". I heard a grumble of discontent from my pants.

The ride back to the hotel was a subdued affair, partly because we'd been awake for a day and a half, and partly because our universally married entourage was no doubt playing out various foregone mental scenarios involving taut teenage ass. We arrived back to the hotel and hit the bar. After one more San Miguel Light, I was stuffed and stumbled to the elevator. I stepped inside and rode to my floor, leaving a gassy fart as a calling card to the next occupant. In my room I looked at myself in the mirror, dishevelled and messy, my shirt a crumpled canvas painted with the sweet smelling aroma of underage teenage poledancer body lotion. I made a mental note to spare my wife the launder of this article and dispose of it pose haste, preferably by fire. My nerdish insticts flickered, and I firing up the laptop to "check out the forums". I made a quick post and checked IRC. It was typically dead. I made a fake !admin call in #ign to make the admins feel useful and then hit the sack exhausted.

The next day I awoke with a hangover not commensurate with the light beer we'd been quaffing. My mouth felt like someone had poured sand in it and my head hurt like a truck had reversed over it. I sniffed last night's shirt, seeking affirmation that it had all really happened, and then cast it aside heading for the fridge and its precious hair o' the dog. I grabbed the nearest beer and to a throbbing protest from my dehydrated brain, popped the top. It was then that my blurred, bloodshot eyes saw it. San Miguel Light wasn't light beer at all. It was 5%, and "Light on calories!". That explained a lot. How ever many 700's made how ever much was my share of $1200 was probably too much. I suckled the bottle gingerly. As daggers of sunlight pierced my eyeballs through the ineffectual curtains I checked IRC. No response to my !admin call about midget lepers on Vespas infecting server #07. Typical.

I texted Steve. He called and groaned that he was awake so we headed downstairs for the buffet breakfast. The dining area was huge. I got lost twice looking for bacon but managed to find my way back. My guts, blue-balled the night before with promises of a hamburger, were ready with open arms for the mountains of food I shovelled in. By the time we'd finished, the executive team had arrived looking much the worse for wear. With bloodshot eyes and hoarse, gravelly voices, they explained how they'd soldiered on at the hotel bar after we left, and how in the small hours of the morning one of them had missed a room page when two teen hookers had arrived looking to close the deal. Steve and I headed back to the rooms to pack.

My guts had sent a signal to my bowels about the post breakfast buffet payload they could expect soon, and so the order was made to clear the back dock. I sat on the porcelain and did the bidding of my intestines; the result an impressive example of the great aussie grog-bog. Unfortunately as I pulled the lever and bid adieu, it became apparent that something was amiss. The toilet was one of those magical US types that fill with water and then drain away when you flush, except mine apparently only knew act I. It filled and then just sat there. Reckoning it must be a gravity thing, I flushed again, confident that the extra volume of water would convince the incumbent to make good its evacuation. With horror, I saw that no such convenient outcome was imminent, as water crested the lip of the bowl and started cascading onto the floor. Snatching an array of towels and bathrobes, I constructed a hasty system of levees and dykes to contain the surge.

Thankfully the fecal armada I'd birthed in the bowl merely bumped the inside of the seat with the tide instead of breaking free and sailing scross the floor. Still, it wasn't good. A saturated floor populated by a few tiny stray nuggets, and a full bowl looking for all the world like some dire incarnation of an amusement park bumperboat pond, a few underpowered chocolate boats aimlessly drifting and nudging each other on its surface. The bathroom was curiously devoid of a dunnybrush, but I had to find a way to clear this mess before the fleet broke up. I briefly considered thrusting my arm into the e-coli soup, but banished it immediately, looking for some inanimate tool to assist. Nothing came to mind so in MacGuyver-style desperation, I removed a wooden coathanger from the wardrobe and broke it up. The long horizontal pole should do the trick, I reasoned.

I jammed the stick into the bowl, jabbing, poking and twisting, all to no avail. All I was doing was creating undue turbulance on the surface, to which the bronze navy responded by breaking into pieces as it rocked on the choppy tide. A saw a lone peanut break free, a tiny lifeboat seeking freedom from a large tan dreadnaught and several cruiser-sized articles started listing ominously. The fleet was losing structural integrity fast - I knew things were serious. I wasn't going to be able to undo whatever beer-fuelled u-blocker was causing havoc with the meagre tools I had, so I rinsed off my makeshift stick and stashed it with the remainder of its splintered companions on top of the wardrobe amongst some dodgy looking aircon piping. "Noone will ever know" I mused, choking on the fruity aroma eminating from the mire.

Presently checkout time arrived. I towed my baggage to reception, and checked out. As the other guys signed receipts and fell back, I mentioned casually that there was a problem with my shitter. "A problem?" came the inquisitive response. "It's blocked" I explained. I was rewarded with a nod and an understanding "Of course, sir". That was it then, we could escape. But no, we didn't fly out until 8pm that night so we had to leave the bags there, collecting them only after the full extent of my bathroom destroying escapades had become known to whatever crack team of enviro-suited hazmat technicians were brave enough to take on the task of mopping it all up. I suspected that dynamite would have to be used, but then tried not to think about it any more.

The rest of the day was a combination of drinking more full strength beer masquerading as light, and ineffectual brainstorming about what we should do to kill the time. We settled on a massage at a health spa which involved a pre-event communal shower in which I saw enough of my colleages' dicks to last me two lifetimes and culminated in the most painful massage I've ever experienced. As I lay semi-naked on the bed, some tiny lithe girl entered and asked me "you like hard massage?". I said I did. The marathon pobing at my balls the night before had been gentle enough, and this girl looked about 15. I'd had remedial massages before so how bad could it be?

The answer is "bad". When she wasn't sliding up my greased back digging her knees into my overworked kidneys, she was attacking my tortured shoulders with what felt like fists full of blunt screwdrivers. She dug, slapped, probed and punched me into submission, offering the occasional spirited "You IMMUNE to massage!" or "You feel no PAIN!" with what sounded like genuine admiration. I managed a weak "Heh! Yep!" through clenched teeth as tears welled in my eyes. Blinking them back I peered through the semi-darkness at Steve, who was getting his own massage about 4 feet away. His girl was languidly stroking his oiled back with slow tenderness. A little rivulet of dribble snaked from his mouth - was he asleep? Bastard! When it was over I walked gingerly to the shower and stood motionless under the steaming cascade for what seemed like eternity. As I painfully dried myself, Steve and his cawk emerged from his shower stall. I was too paralysed to even shield my eyes.

After that, we had a beer and caught a taxi to the office again. The taxi driver drove us round and round, clearly lost. We called the office and gave him the mobile so a native could give him directions. This had a negligible effect and we still drove around lost, the only saving grace being that the potholed tracks masquerading as roads combined in perfect unison with his shitty all-or-nothing manipulation of the accellerator to jolt my back into some semblence of its former pre-massage mobility. Eventually he dropped us off, about 1km from where we should have been. The taxi cost 200. We finally found the office and got frisked again. We caught the lift to the 14th floor in time to conference-call a guy in Jakarta we needed to get some details from. The hookup was a shocker. I'd seen the spaghetti-like cabling between power poles during our two hour taxi ride to nowhere so I wasn't surprised. Time was up so we left for the airport.

Here, I got my final two ball-attentive friskings and then we were on the plane. Our gay hostie remembered us and beamed with pride when I recited the safety demo back to him flawlessly. He then berated the pair behind us who couldn't understand because they were from some non-English speaking background. He threatened to move them if they didn't take it seriously and I looked at their seats and their generous allocation of legroom with envious eyes. Unfortunately they worked out how to check for fire and throw a door so they got the seats - I got a beer. The trip back was like the trip over except in reverse. It's all really the same when you're confined to a little metal cylnder hurtling along at 900km/h 10km up. As usual I ran through the mental catalogue of "Aircrash Investigations" episodes I'd seen and mused about which one a crash right now would be like, how long it would take me to fall to earth and what kind of actor they'd get to play me. Probably Richard Burton if he was still alive.

After eight hours we were in Sydney. Three pointless hours later we were ferried in the pissing rain to our domestic flight and back to Adelaide where we arrived at 11am. I'd been awake since 7am the day before, and I chuckled wryly about my joust with the foreign toilet safe in the knowledge that Interpol probably now couldn't track me down for crimes against humanity. I checked that the Adelaide boys hadn't blown anything up in the office and headed home to see my girls. They weren't home, so I ventured outside and dragged out the brazier. Cracking a beer, I ignited my kerosine-drenched shirt and reflected on the past two days before the retard dog over the back fence detected that someone was enjoying the peace and started yapping. I then dumped in a real toilet - it was good to be back!