blooming in baguio (or how i felt desirable again at double four)

"in the cold, cold baguio, it's not only flowers that bloom. even tired, old fairies do, especially in the dark," chinezza del vianco vda de aquino.

i want to move and live in baguio was all i could think of as i was dancing dangerously close with a young university student, gary, gorgeous, glorious with a body to die for, at baguio's purple bar. we were almost kissing, even if his girlfriend was also dancing with us at the crowded dance floor. aside from gary, i was also dancing with ryan, another university student in the city,  who looked exactly like his hollywood name sake, ryan reynolds.
it was a monday, school night, and the two-storey purple bar, baguio's latest, hottest bar at the moment, was packed with students and young professionals. this is where you will find the city's finest specimens, all young, all gorgeous, all drunk - boy, girl, gay. i luv!

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i arrived at around four in the afternoon in baguio cty after a seven hour, uncomfortable ride on a non-aircon bus from sagada.
the city famous for its chilly weather (especially at nights), pine trees and strawberries, was the last leg of my banaue-sagada adventure in my futile attempt to escape manille's summery weather. as i have mentioned before, both banaue and sagada turned out to be equally hot, especially in day time.
tired of the cramped bed and breakfast hotels that i have stayed in banaue and sagada, i opted for a little luxury in baguio. so i stayed in a single room at bloomfield hotel (conveniently located right across sm) with its own toilette and bath, wifi, hot water, aircon, a flat screen teevee (unused throughout my brief stay), elevator and then some.
for two thousand four hundred pesoses a night, the hotel room was a bit pricey. but what the heck, it's only for a night. and who knows when i will be back to the city again?

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after taking a refreshing hot shower, putting on freshly ironed clothes (i asked the front desk to please have someone iron them for me asap. they did), i went to the baguio cathedral (a few minutes away from the hotel by foot) to say my thanks to heavens for the safe, eventful journey i had so far. and to please bless me more. hahaha.

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after expressing my gratitude to heavens, i went to sm (a mere ten minute walk from the church) for dinner. everybody knows how sm looks like, but in baguio there is an extra feature - the wide terrace at every floor that offers a view of the city's gorgeous landscape especially at night when houses and buildings sparkle like farflies in the dark.

after a simple dinner at max's restaurant of fried chicken, pancit canton and iced tea, i hang out at starbucks, where the city's fabulous young beckie lou blancos (gay men for the uninitiated, unfamiliar with the latest gay lingo) spend their time gossiping, flirting.
i befriended one of them, a gorgeous one with smooth chocolate brown skin whose handsome face reminded me of piolo pascual. i asked him about the city's night life and where the gorgeous creatures like him hang out. with a shy smile, the seventeen  year old told me about purple and urban.
purple is a disco bar, while urban has a live band. but he said that it was monday night, so these places could be empty. i told him it was my last night in baguio, so i was willing to take my chances. he simply nodded and joined his friends in another table. they were a bunch of cute, straight acting fairies. you won't know that they are one of us unless your garydar is working well, uninterrupted by the busy signal.

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purple is unpretentious. it looks like any other bar in manille. it is housed in an old building. there's a fifty pesos entrance fee with one free drink.
inside, there were only about eight people that occupied two tables. it was already nine in the evening. i felt a bit pessimistic. i had been warned, i thought.

i sat at the empty bar, ordered san miguel beer, and met the bar tender, ronnie - cute, only twenty one but already married with a baby on the way. for someone young, he already had too much experience. talking to him, i felt like he was the one who was forty four and i was twenty one.

after a few more beers, tequillas and blowjobs (the cocktail, dahlin, don't be carried away too soon), the crowd started coming in. fabulous gays in their friday night's best, handsome young men and luvly young women, all speaking in conyo english and carrying high tech mobile phones. it felt as though i was just hanging out in greenbelt and not in baguio.

around midnight, the dancing began. i was tipsy by this time and had lost all my inhibitions.  that's when the fun began. i found myself dancing with different people - men, women, gays. kissing some of them (i kissed a girl too and i liked it. apologies to katy perry) and flirting with  young guys, even those with their girlfriends in tow. to my surprise, the girlfriends were just as nice, allowing me to hug and kiss their boyfriends. baguio is overflowing with luv. luv. luv, baby. as we all sweat to the beat, i found myself wishing i live there.
"this could be where my tired, restless soul could finally find peace," i whispered to whomever was listening.

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more people came in as more beers and cocktails were consumed. i found myself in the also crowded second floor surrounded by more twinks and their girlfriends. that's where i met gary, who wanted to go home with me after he took home his girlfriend. then there was ryan, studying hotel and restaurant management, with his three other good looking classmates also asking me to join them in their table.
the last time i felt so alluring, so desirable (lower those eyebrows please) was nearly ten years ago at one of shanghai's hottest bars. there, a young british guy told me while we were both in the comfort room: "man you are beautiful." this was when my waist line was only thirty two inches and i was wearing tight fitting jeans and white calvin klein shirt that clung to my body. when my hair was still full and all black. when my stomach was still flat from running around ayala triangle and roxas boulevard on weekends. when my face looked fresh, with very few tired lines.

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back at the bar, ronnie, the bartender, gave me his mobile number. he asked me to wait for him until seven in the morning, when his shift has ended. i told him that that would be too late (or too early). i was already sloshed and sleepy. this was, i think, around four in the morning.

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the next day, i woke up lazily, but surprisingly minus the headache. but i was clearly hung over, i could smell beer and tequilla on my breath. it was already twenty past eleven. i missed the complimentary breakfast from the hotel. since the check out was at one, i quickly took a shower, put all my things in my small bag and checked out. i left my bag at the lobby and wandered around the city, looking for a place to eat and while the time until the ten pm bus that will take me back to manille.
after eating tocino, eggs and fried rice at chowking, i roamed around burnham park, where i met the psychic madam joanne - gay, old and with all his front teeth missing. he was wearing a loose blouson, shorts and flip flops. definitely not the look you would expect from a psychic.
when i asked madam how much was the fee to have my fortune read, she asked back if i wanted regular or special (parang massage lang ang peg). how much for each, i asked again. one hundred pesos for regular, two hundred for special. what's the difference? smaller card for regular, bigger card and longer session for special. i asked again if she could please lower the fee on the special reading from two hundred pesos to one hundred fifty. after a few seconds, madam agreed.

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so the reading went on. she told me about the usual stuff - job prospects, trips abroad, among others. then i asked her about my luv life. after i cut the cards into three, she opened them one by one and told me that that a single mother with one kid will fall in luv with me next year and will force me (pikot is the filipino term) to marry her.
that's ridiculous, i told madam, because i am gay.
unperturbed, madam told me: "that's what the cards say!" well who can argue with that, right?
then she also told me about a red dwarf (pulang duwende) who lives in my house. when i asked him which one (my parent's old house, my temporary flat in makati or in hong kong), all she could tell me was that the cards were not very specific.
oh well, so much for fortune reading.

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on a sad note, baguio has become more crowded and the traffic has gone to worse since i last visited six years ago, during christmas time at that time.
burnham park has become even dirtier, and the water around the man-made lagoon where you could rent a boat and float around for a few minutes was even more polluted. luckily, the water did not smell, unlike the murky pasig. madam joan told me that the local government will refurbish the park and improve the lagoon early next year. i hope so.
because i don't want baguio - where i had beautiful memories with friends and lovers in the past - to go to waste. we all luv the city, its chilly weather, lush pine trees and especially its beautiful, luving people.

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at the bus, on my way to manille, i could not help but recall the fun nyt that i had in purple bar. how for a few hours, i felt young, gorgeous and desirable again.
and that, ladies, pa-ladies, gentlemen, pa-minta, fairies, bitches and queens was worth every painful joints i had suffered from the seven hour trip from sagada.