Part IV - Pertaining to that Auspicious time when Fireworks makes claims upon the Senses. Also, how some Preach, others Steal, and generally all finds Comfort in Smoking.
Later residents come, older ones leave, the circle of life so eloquently espoused by Elton John finds an example in the departure and arrival in travel, and while some legends leave, others fill their space. A glamorous South African couple, honeymooning at the resort (hosteling for a month, or fine hoteling for a week. Fortunately the bride chose well) before emigrating to Australia. A beautiful Swedish girl, Addile, rather bemused by the drunken force of Britishry on show at the resort.
"Sweden! Wow!" I over enthusiastly crow whilst very drunk, "whats your favourite Ingmar Bergman film?" She didnt watch much of his films. Not cool. Its like a Briton not knowing Lean, a Russian - Tarkovsky, a Japanese - Mizoguchi. You know.
Inevitably there comes the annoying, the passionate and the rascist. The Finnish guy that could not stop going on about the Bible (of which I have no objection), the Chinese-American economist who constantly told of the decline of the western economies and the irrestistable rise of China and the east (of which I have no objection) and the German pilot who went off on a rant about women not deserving equal rights and how the blacks cause a lot of problems and should be limited in Germany (rather questionable sentiments).
On the 31st, the prepartaion was palpable. People slept in till late, reserving strength to welcome in the new year with diminished senses and shameful acts. The beach bums although appearing to be nonplussed by the celebrations secretly harbored antagonistic leanings to leave earlier, shower that scuzzy sea and sand feeling off tanned bodies, and smack on those liquids of aromatic sexiness. And with the bright day morphing muted into a night full of expectation, the new year loomed.
And what do we find on the night of New Years? What new threads of celebration can be weaved into an already densely knotted tradition? Fireworks that compete for diluted attention as you feebly try to focus on those around you? ("Who am I sharing this with?") The light from the bangs casting different colours upon already transformed, taught, tanned, travel worn faces, lit up now with fresh energies of joy, fuelled by Red Horse (Philippines own 6.9er) and an incomparable feeling that you are on a tiny, beautiful and tamed piece of exotic land, locked with a key only functional when the senses submit to the island's design. And that we did on New Years Night.
Later that night Alex, Chloe and I decided to make the trip to the other side of the island, to the eponymous Jungle Bar, a place famed for its wild nights and access to drugs, Alex expecting it to be as easy as finding them laid out on a table, buffet style.
"Here we have our opiates, here our hallucinogenics, acid, mushrooms. Here is a selection of Bogota's finest cocaine, and to your left, if you want to wind down after a selection of our rave pills, there is an array of western Canadas finest marijuana, the best in the world."
Didn't quite turn out like that. However what you lack in one area you make up in others. Finding out there was a preposterous charge for entrance, we snuck around the back of the club. It being a tent club residing at the back of the beach and where the jungle began, we weighed up our options. Being already heavily intoxicated we saw nothing else for it, and began taking turns ducking under the canopy, rolling along the sand to an inner boundary (a log), at which point we sprang up like agile cats smoothly hugging the log as we rolled over the top, then side stepping briskly past another tent wall, all the while tempering our excessive excitement at our ninja like skills, as we then had to nonchalently stroll towards the crowds as though we did not for a brief moment believe we were Jason Bourne.
I remember pool table sitting (relaxing), drink stealing (makes you feel aliiiiive), fear of deja-vu (weird), white shirts (idiots everywhere) and a growing confusion of where I was and how I would get back home.
Morning (early afternoon). Lapsed conversations vaguley remembered, staggered forth through raspy post-party larynxes, hampered further by excessive smoking. It was a holiday; so those that normally smoked chained smoked, the dabblers found themselves buying their own smokes when ordinarily they would take from the smokers. Even those that didn't smoke found themselves with a cigarette in their mouths, sucking new unpleasant sensations into their lungs that would forever be associated with Boracay. Surprise surprise you non smokers and your sense of restraint, now completly violated by flesh hungry, rope toting cowboys, flushed red with the joy of that sweet sweet nicotine. It was a good time to be a smoker.
Although when tonsillitis hits, as it has hit me now, with the unaccustomed wallop of an old lady's handbag on an armed robber, met with a shotgun blast to the face (don't mess with armed robbers), when it hits, smoking is the last thing one wants to think about. Marlboro cowboy, your lassoo wont work on me this week. Still, why I'm aggravating it by eating chewy sweets is again one of those questions that I don't want to answer. I can't. I won't.
No comments:
Post a Comment