Travel, Rod Fleming's World

11/08/2024

Philippines 2015-2016; a land of surprises

Originally posted 2017-07-27 20:56:35.

I am not ashamed to say that I love the Philippines. Nowhere else that I have ever visited manages to capture so much of humanity’s amazing variety. It’s an incredible place and I am so lucky to have found it. This is a selection of pictures from that trip. I’ll let them speak for themselves.

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11/08/2024

West Coast Road trip with Charis

Originally posted 2017-07-23 15:55:47.

This was a crazy trip in which the weather did all but defeat us. But we still had fun.

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2010 West Coast with Charis

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11/08/2024

2016-01-04: Arayat National Park, Pampanga

Originally posted 2017-07-22 16:22:39.

A day trip to Arayat in Pampanga with Azumi and Chin. The full story is here.

11/08/2024

A Christening in the Philippines

Originally posted 2018-01-11 10:10:07.

Christmas 2017, Angeles City, Philippines. My girlfriend Sam and I were invited to a Christening and duly trooped along.

This is a gallery of more pictures from the day.

10/05/2024

Ladyboys in Pattaya: A guide to Thailand’s Funtown

Originally posted 2017-08-28 21:04:30.

So you’re planning to meet some ladyboys in Pattaya? Read this.

Pattaya is home to some of the yummiest trannies in southeast Asia. Its reputation as a ladyboy-friendly tourist resort brings huge numbers of young transsexuals to the city, as well as legions of men anxious to taste this most prized and precious of tropical fruit: the ladyboys in Pattaya.

The whole of south-east Asia is remarkable for its highly visible populations of transsexual women, known locally as ladyboys. These are not at all the same as you may be used to, if you are a Westerner. They’re not like Bruce ‘Caitlyn’ Jenner, Dave ‘Debsmate’ Hayton or — one hesitates — The Thing. (See my discussions on Ray Blanchard for more details.) So let’s discuss those toothsome delights, ladyboys in Pattaya.

Ladyboys in Pattaya

Ladyboys in Pattaya and across Asia are not like that at all. They are beautiful and very sexy, extremely feminine in their appearance and manners. From their early teens or even before, they use female hormones, often birth control pills which are freely available without prescription. These can turn them into staggeringly beautiful women. And the fact is that men are powerfully attracted to them.

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10/05/2024

In France, Everything Shuts On Monday

Originally posted 2013-05-24 17:53:48.

Everything Is Shut On Monday.

Not for the French the quaint Anglo-Saxon habit of neighbouring towns staggering their half-days—or even taking half-days in the first place.

On Monday, the whole of France is as dead as that chap they poisoned on St Helena. You know the one. In fact, I think he was responsible for it. And of course, the reason is quite fair; all the shops are open on Saturday so that the people who don’t work in shops can do their shopping, and why should the commercants and their staff not enjoy a proper two-day weekend?

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10/05/2024

Travels With A Ladyboy 2: Culture Shock

Originally posted 2013-05-21 22:35:39.

My plan had originally been to make my trip to Asia after Christmas, but Crissy had told me that she was unlikely to be available then. I was in contact with a number of girls, but only she had that spark, and I knew I wanted to meet her. She was lively and enthusiastic, but had an edge about her and a depth too, that I liked. She had a way of just knowing what I was thinking, even before I said it, that always bodes well for a new relationship.

So I rearranged my schedule. In fact, November is the best time to go to southeast Asia in any case. The typhoon season should have come to an end, and the temperatures are relatively low, with lots of sunshine. In addition, flight prices are twenty per cent or so cheaper then, than in March or April. I readily persuaded myself that making the trip sooner was justified on a whole raft of counts; other, of course, than my interest in getting to know Crissy a whole lot better…

10/05/2024

Travels With a Ladyboy: 1. NAIA

Originally posted 2013-04-28 18:07:20.

‘It’s as if a couple of jumbo-jets of Western culture crashed into a container-ship of Asia and the wreckage is still settling.’ These words jump out at me as I read over my notes. And it’s true; the Philippines is a cultural conundrum, a Rubik’s Cube of interlaced and interlocked themes, memes, images and sensations.

It’s not like India, where the veneer of Westernism added by a couple of hundred years of British domination is so thin it seems as flimsy as a bride’s veil, yet definitely attached, as if the bride herself is shy about lifting it, nor Thailand, where Western cultural influences seem grafted on, bizarrely co-exiting with something older and fundamentally opposed. Instead, the Philippines is a genuine melting-pot, a sculptor’s crucible where metallic elements are alloyed to make something completely new. The roots of European culture here go deep, deep into the fertile soil of Asia, and the resulting foliage is strange, at once familiar yet surprising.

10/05/2024

Better Than Sex: Travel and Ladyboys

Originally posted 2017-09-26 21:51:09.

Only a woman would say anything was better than sex. Well, anyway, there is no risk of a ladyboy claiming such a thing, at least not when she is young, beautiful and has a body full of testosterone, oestrogen and progesterone, the particular cocktail of this hormone soup dependent on the individual.

Whatever, it does nothing to diminish the sex drive, which is, basically, turbo-charged. A ladyboy (homosexual transsexual variant, aka a batang bakla) is essentially as randy as a teenage boy should be, thinks of cock all the time and dreams every night of being ravaged by hordes of lusty Lotharios. I am not kidding.

That this passionate desire to be fucked blue is shared by Filipina women really does make the place special; the sexual juice is oozing out of the walls.

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10/05/2024

Manila: Skinny Cats, Transports of Delight and Beautiful Women

Originally posted 2013-04-12 18:30:37.

Manila is huge. Apart from Manila itself, the conurbation of Metro Manila includes other cities that would themselves be enormous by any other measure: Makati, Pasig, Quezon, Cavite, and others. So transport is a major part of Manila life. But this is Asia, and unlike Europe, there is no organised public transport. There are no service buses, no trams or metro systems oganised by local government. Everything is run privately, and the sheer amount of private transport provision is staggering.

Given that I have not yet see anyone carrying a passenger on his shoulders, and horse-and-cart solutions are reserved for the tourist area of Intramuros, the old part of Manila, the most basic, though not always the cheapest, means of transport is the gloriously named ‘pedicab’. This is a bicycle with a side-car.

The main problem with this solution, leaving aside the thorny moral issue of whether it can be right for a 14-stone Scotsman and an admittedly much lighter Filipina to be push-biked around by a sweating 9-stone Pinoy, is the complete lack of suspension on these contraptions. Since the roads in Manila resemble the Somme after a barrage, this means a bone-jarring ride that risks lumbar impaction.