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Almost Leaving Manila and the Bad Haircut Place

I had planned on leaving for Hong Kong on Thursday. Fate had decided otherwise.

My time in the Philippines was rapidly coming to a close. Meeting Carmelita had anchored me here in the Philippines for almost a year. I did some travelling with Carmelita, but that didn't work out well. Carmelita's idea of enjoyable travel is diffrent than mine. She likes beaches, luxury and safety. I like to go where it is weird and wild. What Carmelita likes, bores me. What I like terrifies Carmelita. So traveling together was too much stress, so I gave up on it.

I was getting bored in the Philippines. carmelita was jealous and didn't want me to go anywhere without her. I didn't want to saty in the Philippines and I didn't want to travel with her. So we agreed that she would go to Germany to visit friends and work for a few months and I would finish my trip around the world.

So we spent the last two weeks getting read for our respective adventures. I packed my stuf to ship home to the US and worked on overhauling Travelog.net; Carmelita spent her time shopping for a new wardrobe suitable for the German climate.

And shop Carmelita did. "I need new clothes and it is much cheaper here than in Germany!" was her battle cry.

"You only have 20 kilos for luggage" was my response. Carmelita just smiled and headed for the ATM.

On Tuesday I took Carmelita to the airport. I was to leave on Thursday. I helped Carmelita lug her huge new rolling suitcase and her backpack to the airport. I was barred from entering; only ticket holder are allowed entry and Manila's NAIA airport.

"I'll wait here until you check your luggage." I told her.

"You can go. I'll be OK."

"I'll wait. Just in case."

Carmelita disappeared in the terminal. Five minutes later she reappeared.

"John, my luggage is overweight!" No shit. I had been telling that to her for days.

"How much do they want."

"Four hundred and fifty three dollars U. S." she paused "How much is that is Pesos?" Carmelita is NOT a math whiz.

"Almost twenty thousand pesos. Almost as much as your plane ticket. I told you to pack lighter."

"What do I do?" Carmelita had very limited funds. Very, very limited. I had loaned her some money already for the plane ticket and I was not going to cover her luggage excess.

"Give me your backpack. Take out what you need."

"Why?"

"I am shipping it airmail. It will take a few days, but it will be a lot cheaper."

And it was. I weeded out some obvious excess (a dozen pieces of Batik we bought in Bali at $1.50 each; cost to ship, $3.00 each, a $0.75 bottle of skin toner; cost to ship, $5.00).

Before I headed to the airport I took the boxes to DHL. This should be easy: just drop them off and away I go.

"Please empty the contents sir, we must inspect to insure we are not shipping prohibited goods and we must do a complete inventory."

What followed was two excruciating hours of bureaucratic nonsense. I had to remove a tiny vial of acetone from Carmelita's manicure kit. Also all the aspirin, and cold tablets. The man brought out the book to show me that US Customs forbids any import of non-prescription medicine without formsXRB743-7JS filled out and approved. He then proceeded to make a list of every item. In painstaking detail. I called and re-scheduled my flight. It was going to be one of those days.

The same thing happened to my boxes going by sea. "Do you have you ED papers in order?" I didn't know what ED papers were... I knew I was going to have a problem. Luckily I had prepared a detailed packing list for my ten bozes of persoanl effects and it only tool two days for them to process the papaerwork.

I took the boxes to the warehouse at the pier in a Taxi.

"Do you know where Radial Street is? Port area 10?"

"Yes sir." The taxi driver replied.

Well, he didn't. We spent the next hour and a half driving through the industrial wasteland along north Manila Bay, stopping every 50 meters to ask directions--directions that inevitably that contradicted the last set of directions. Finally, we found the place by accident. The taxi driver turned into a parking lot to ask a security guard directions. As luck would have it, it was the parking lot for the shipping company warehouse. We were already there.

Two hours and ten copies of export documents later, I was free of my accumulated posessions. I was down to backpack and camera / computer cases; my traveling gear. I felt like dancing. I felt light and free.

The Bad Haircut Place.

Why write about a bad haircut? Aren't people reading this for a taste of the exotic? If you can get a bad haircut down the street at Lou's Barber Shop--why read about a bad haircut here?!

Well, it's not about the bad haircut--its about the place I got it.

I was getting bit shaggy. I decided to take off a little hair off, to stay cool in the tropical heat. I popped into the hair salon next to my hotel.

I hadn't really payed attention to the place before. Just kind of walked by it and cataloged it as a place that might be useful. OK, I did notice there were some pretty girls working there. But I'll stick to my story that I went there because it was close to my hotel.

I walked in the door. There were four barber chairs and ten girls. Ten pretty girls. And four barber chairs. Everybody stopped and looked at me.

"Yes sir." May I help you?"

"I'd like a haircut please?"

"Only a haircut?"

"Um, yeah. Only a haircut." She looked at the girl sitting next to her and shrugged her shoulders. A less attractive woman from the back of the room slowly walked over and pointed to a chair. "Sit here."

I had a funny feeling. Something wasn't right. I debated making a hasty dash for the door. But all eyes were on me and I was curious--so I decided to stay. I figured the worst thing that could happen was a bad haircut--and time would mend that. Curiousity, however, never goes away.

Halfway on to my haircut I asked the girl "Why are there so many girls here and only four chairs? They can't all be cutting hair." She smiled and kept cutting my hair. I pulled my head away from her scissors and asked again.

"Some times people get manicures. Or facials." Long pause. "Sometimes massage too." Another long pause. "You want massage?"

"No just a haircut."

That would explain all the pretty girls--and the bad haircut. When I got up to leave I looked around. There was only one pair of scissors, one comb and one spray bottle in the whole place. There was no hair on the floor. There was a staircase in the back where the girls kept disappearing and reappearing.

I just looked in the mirror. The good news is the haircut will grow out. But I can say this: it's the best haircut I ever got in a whorehouse.

Almost Leaving Manila April 24, 1998

Good Friday Crucifixions, San Fernando Pampanga April 10, 1998

Return To Coron, Palawan, Philippines March-April 1998

Old Travelog Dispatches from the Philippines (1997)

Dispatch #4; The Early Days in Coron

Dispatch #3; The Boat Trip To Coron, Palalwan

Dispatch #2, Northern Luzon and Manila Yet Again.

Dispatch #1, Arrival In the Philippines and Third World Culture Shock