Just went scuba diving for the first time in about a year!!! So awesome. I saw a sea turtle, an eel, this other really cool enormous fish, and a bunch of other things. Unfortunately, I left my gopro on the boat because I was concerned that it wouldn’t be as waterproof as it said and since I haven’t been diving in a long time I thought I was gonna lose it or something. Big mistake. Oh well, it makes me want to go again in the morning if I can fit it in. I dove with a bunch of Czech dudes who were pretty cool, but since I haven’t been in a while I guess I was breathing really fast and I ran my tank down to 50 ftlbs or really quick so we all had to go up. The other guys were only down to 120 so I sat there feeling like a air-hogging wuss. I think they were talking shit in Czech all the way back to the diving center. Oh well, so fun. Now I’m at my place waiting to get an in-house massage. The life here is definitely a little luxe with kind of a master/servant atmosphere which I find extremely awkward and unbearable.
Post in-house massage – I went to a fire show which was a show on the beach in which these performers twirled these chains with fire balls at the end of them. When I first arrived I sat at a table by myself and the waitress approached me to get me something to drink. I ordered their strongest beer, something along the lines of “Red Deer.” Don’t really remember. I started drinking my beer as the performers twirled their balls. It didn’t take very long to realize it was a little more than a fire show. I knew before going to White Beach that it had a strong LGBT community and I started to realize there were a lot of women that looked a little strong and square at the shoulders. Anyways, the firedancing ended within a few minutes and the performance changed from facing the beach to facing the bar building(all the tables and chairs were on the beach). It then proceeded to get a lot more risque with each performer performing their performance. Most of the performances were absolutely hilarious. Their formula seemed to be to find some pop song, lip sync it with sexually infused nonverbal intonations. I laughed, sipped some beer, laughed more, ordered another beer, noticed there were tons of children around which seemed like it wouldn’t fly anywhere else, sipped beer, and laughed. After a few performances it started raining and people kind of freaked out. My table was covered by a huge umbrella so I invited people to sit at my table and became very popular. There were 5 guys and they all worked together and were all from somewhere else in the Philippines. The one I mostly talked to was “Abe.” There was another guy that made snide remarks in Filipino about how I pronounced cheers in Filipino which was something along the lines of, “Tye Guy.” I ordered a bucket of beers for them because they were students so I knew they were poor. Eventually the music all shut off, my friends left and I was left sitting there sipping my beer and feeling tipsy.
I decided not to finish the last half of my Red Deer and walked around the beach to sober up some. I then realized I had no idea where I parked my scooter so I spent my sobering-up time searching for my scooter. I eventually found it and instantly was thrown into another weird situation. To this moment I still don’t really know what happened. I saw this big dude walking with this Filipina lady. Suddenly I heard some loud noises and I think she was crying or saying something and in my mind it seemed like a domestic abuse situation. I puffed my chest out and ran over and starting yelling some English words that they could hardly understand. The Filipina was walking away from the dude so I walked with her. Then I saw these two other ladies and yelled for them to help. They sprinted over and grabbed the lady and ran her to these steps yelling a lot and started pouring water in her eyes. There was a kid watching too. Then the dude comes over and is just standing next to them and they’re all kind of yelling at each other but it seemed to have hit an equilibrium so I dipped.
I jumped on my purple scooter, started her up and began my 20 minute or so ride home. It was a pretty boring ride until this ghetto-packed scooter came up next to mine and they were yelling something at me. They were three kids so I gave them a little wave as they passed. They then proceeded to slow down a little and I knew what was up. I whipped past them and we straight up drag raced on scooters making my 20 minute ride in about 10. Not totally sure how fast we rode but it was definitely the highlight of my night. When I got to my place I screeched to a halt and pulled into my little garage. They turned around and came back to check on me and make sure I didn’t crash. They said something to me about me being white and I said something to them about the importance of wearing a helmet next time, we shook hands, and I fell asleep the second my head hit my pillow.