Angels my ass - Angeles, Philipines

If you ever happen to land at Angeles, Pampanga province, Luzon island, Philipines, don't let the name mislead you. You might think you've arrived to some garden in Paradise, but it actually is a rat hole full of prostitutes. I got the first hints when, asking about the rooms fares, at every hotel I was asked back: 'one or three hours, Sir?'
Angels my ass...

After a lot of honey, a little mudslinging as well (with photos) - Burma

An inspiring panoramic view of the room

After pouring jars of honey on it, it's finally time to mudsling Burma a little as well. I do it both because I am an asshole and I can't help it and because I think that highlighting the pros of something and covering up its cons is not gonna help promoting it. Whatever that thing is.
As you have already noticed if you've read the previous posts this nice and charming country also has its flaws. First of all Burma is not a clean place. Trash is piled up anywhere, next to the roads, on the hills and the riverbanks: if a Burmese is left with an empty plastic bag in his hand he will throw it away, no matter where he is. However, after all the years spent traveling in Asia, I am quite used to it. You might say I'm a bit nuts but a little rubbish, decaying and colorful confusion rather than depress me often tend to put me in a good mood. The taxi drivers racket at the bus or train stations and the airports though is definitely annoying. Especially when you find out that, after having negotiated the price like a money lender to be ripped off anyway, a few hundred meters away there are a lot of honest guys who are obviously not allowed to ambush the travelers who have just arrived. Solution: look for those honest ones and negotiate a price, with firmness, alright, but a little comprehension as well. The chances to get food poisoning are also high, due the the bad hygienic conditions: you need to be careful but not paranoid, otherwise you will miss lots of the fun the country has to offer. In the worst case scenario you will be pissing a little shit-velouté out of your ass. After a while there won't be anything else to piss and everything will shortly get back to the good old solid state.
For the time being though, the worst aspect of the country for those who visit it is the accommodation scene.

What a country can tell you in just a few hours - Rangoon (Yangon), Burma

Photo by my friend IZ

If you haven't planned your trip too thoroughly, you are relaxed, you have a tendency to see the funny side of things and you are in good company, what happens in the first few hours can tell you a lot about the place where you've just arrived. Let's see...I NEVER plan too much, actually sometimes I don't plan anything at all, I'm always relaxed, I notice the funny side of things also when I shouldn't and I am traveling with my friend IZ, excellent company I dare say. And in fact Rangoon (or Yangon), and Burma in general for that matter, tell me a lot in just few hours. And they do it straight away, on the very first evening.
We left our bags at the hotel that we booked online before boarding our flight in Bangkok (it was IZ's idea, as a traveler he is less messy than me). We're not happy with it: it's very expensive, old and pretentious, it's good for a night but we have to find another one for tomorrow right away. We have a name without address and a vague landmark. Information that the taxi driver gave us on the way from the airport to our hotel. We start our quest in the web of unlighted Rangoon roads.

Se lo han cargado - Phuket, Thailand

Lorenzo's gaze scans the profile of Patong: he's absolutely right, this beach is great. Especially now, when the sun is plunging into the distant waves and a golden dust has settled on the leaves that swell the hills at the end of the bay. Everything else reflects the same shiny hue: the clouds, the Arab and Indian tourists that awkwardly hang from the para-sails, and the jet-skis that break through the foam of the crests like a horde of fat insect-like robots.

Somewhere near the northern end of the beach though, one can spot, beyond the typical tangle of electric wires, a whitish patch among the green of the plants. It's one of the new development projects that are claiming the land between Kamala and Patong.

The next morning we decide to rent a scooter and we tackle the slopes of the snaky road that runs along the western rim of the island. After a stop and a swim in Nai Han, we hop on the bike and we cut eastward, until we reach the centre of Phuket town. We will spend the rest of the afternoon sipping mango shakes in the colonial district and pampering ourselves with an oil massage.

Inspired by the memory of yesterday's sunset, on our way back we stop at Kamala beach. The village is not very different from the other ones that we have seen today. Kamala beach welcomes its visitors with a few hotels and cheaper guest houses. Besides a bunch of restaurants there's a line of bars with girls in miniskirts yelling at those who pass by.

The cheerfully silly and relaxed atmosphere fades when the scooter heads southward, through the the narrow road that runs along the shore. The beam of light is swallowed up by the tropical vegetation and the darkness ahead, while the music and the noises are overcome by the vigorous sounds of the jungle and the sea. The environment takes up a ghost-like air and at the edge of the streets some strange figures appear. The thin white veil that wraps them up is neither a shroud nor ectoplasm matter, but just a thin layer of mortar powder. Dozens of men, women and children, busy themselves up and down the paths, pushing wheelbarrows or carrying buckets and tools.

We come across the first of a sequence of resorts: they cover the hillside like fans of cement, for hundreds meters from Kamala down south. Presented with such an astonishing scene, Lorenzo is reminded of a Sardinian gulf, as it appears to the visitors approaching on a boat.

Though the style of the buildings is not always bad, they're eating up the coast with merciless greed. Our scooter runs besides the file of workers, with buckets hanging from poles balanced on their shoulders, while a list of grotesque names unfolds in front of us: something like “The Plantation”, “Green Oasis” or “Blue Lagoon”.

A few months ago I was talking with Javier, a Spanish friend of mine, about Yangshuo, a nice little town in the south of China, that has also changed shape in the last few years. A sentence that Javier used to describe that ruination keeps buzzing in my head while I'm watching these scene:
“Oye, se lo han cargado bastante el sitio ese!”
You cannot translate a sentence like this, it would be like designing a cheap compact car and then stick a “Ferrari” logo on the radiator in front. It's a modern and wicked form of linguistic blasphemy.

I won't commit that sin myself, but I'm sure that the meaning is pretty clear.