A Seedy Side of The Philippines

My mom's baby brother lives part time in Miami and part time in Angeles City. Not Los Angeles, but Angeles City, legendary city for all the wrong reasons in the Philippines, located a few hours north of Manila. Google 'Angeles City.' I dare you. His wife, my aunt, grew up in the Philippines and still has a lot of family there. Some highlights from my recent visit to Angeles City include:

Hanging out with my aunt's family, who were extremely warm and welcoming

 Spending time with my uncle

 Relaxing AND frolicking around the city

Angeles City is the home to Clark Air Base, Mount Pinatubo, and was also the last stop of the WWII Bataan death march that left around 5,000 Filipinos and 500 Americans dead. An interesting place to say the least. Being the history nerd I am, I was super excited for my uncle to take me on a tour of the remnants of Clark Air Base.

Old chopper left behind at Clark Air Base is now a playgound

Visiting Clark Veterans Memorial

Scenes at the Baatan Memorial for the death march

When I visited recently, I couldn't help but feel that I was back in Latin America. The layered electric lines, children running around barefoot, music coming at you from all angles. The Philippines in general are just so much more raw than Hong Kong, which is sterile in comparison. 

The downtown district in Angeles City

Some fun events we stumbled upon around town-

Public aerobics classes, dog competition, MMA fights in the street

The local food is SO GOOD

Pork Adobo all day every day please

My aunt is a local so I got to stay on her family's property and hang out at their sari-sari, or convenience store. We lounged around their kubo, drank a shit ton of Red Horse, checked out the local mall, toured some WWII sites, and rode around on my uncle's scooter. My uncle hired indigenous people to build a bahay kubo, or nipa stilt hut, in the traditional way using all locally sourced building materials. It's quite beautiful, and he is also building an apartment complex next door with 6 single apartments that he plans on renting out.

The family dog at their sari-sari

My uncle at the construction site of his apartment building

The inside of their bahay kubo-

a little piece of paradise smack in the middle of the city

I thought very carefully about how to approach addressing Angeles City's unique situation. It has a reputation in Asia, even when compared to Bangkok, for being a grimy den of sex work. Prostitution is completely out in the open there. It's hard for me to wrap my head around it.

It was really difficult for my uncle and I to find a bar without bikini clad teenagers where we could grab a beer and catch up. The strangest part of it was how open the whole thing was. Everyone there was there for the same reason, customers and workers alike, and there were no hushed alleyways, no judgments, just acceptance of that way of life as a reality for that community.

Angeles City is a fascinating place by day, but the blatant exploitation of women is going to really make me think twice about visiting my family there in the future. The red light district seemed to center around Fields Avenue, so if you can avoid that one little strip, the rest of the city feels more normal, and does actually have some cool cultural sites to check out. It's an extremely cheap direct flight from Hong Kong, so it made the perfect weekend getaway for me, especially since I had a place to stay with family there.

This is my uncle's 'Angry Bee' scooter

Trying not to scream in the sidecar of the 'Angry Bee'