Southeast Asian Games (Part I)
The Philippines hosted the SEA Games in late Nov/early Dec 2019 with events in both Manila and Angeles City. I was there for a different type of game. This review of La Bamba is a composite review from early November through the first days of December. Southeast Asian Games (Part II) is a separate review of the Lollipop bar.
La Bamba is a bar/club on Walking Street which is the heart of the Angeles City Entertainment District that actually covers a few square miles along Don Jucio (perimeter) Road. Walking Street itself is Fields Ave but at about 5 PM everyday they do a sweep to get all the trikes and delivery trucks off the street and turn it into pedestrian only which is where the name Walking Street comes from. It is a street almost entirely made up of bars/clubs, large and small, dives and high end show clubs virtually all of which feature women for hire day and night, especially night but you can always find something open 24/7.
Right up front I should say that La Bamba is one of my regular clubs. I’ve been going there for years and will normally make a stop at least four or five times per week so if this sounds like a club ad, well guess what. I don’t make a habit of going back to clubs that I don’t like so this will be a generally positive review.
The club is easy to find, located near the intersection of Walking Street and Santos. Start at Kokomos (a landmark restaurant/hotel/club), look across Santos and see Rhapsody (La Bamba’s sister club) on the corner and La Bamba is right next door. They open at 5 PM and there will be door girls sitting outside. Take care when stepping inside as you have to step down immediately from the sidewalk at the door’s threshold. Go through a heavy curtain which creates a small vestibule to keep the club interior from prying eyes on the street.
Inside you’ll find a good sized room, not too big and not too small but just right. It is well lit with a lot of orange LED lights and decorated with fluorescent painted mementos of past patrons’ names on the large mirrors. It has a cheerful ambiance. There is a bar extending the entire length of the wall on the left, comfortable bench seating along the front and right walls, a door to the dancers dressing area on the far wall and the CR is in the far left hand corner. The stage is in the middle of the room and is long, narrow, raised about two feet or so off the floor, and surrounded by a bar rail with bar stools all around. It’s wide enough for two girls to dance back to back and there are usually 8 to 10 dancers on stage at a time. There are no short-time rooms in the club.
Regarding cost and currency, all quotes will be in Philippine Pesos (₱). The exchange rate has been just above ₱50 to $1USD for a few years now. I always just use ₱50 to $1 in my head for ease during drinking thus ₱1000 notes = $20 USD, ₱500 = $10, ₱100 = $2, ₱50 = $1. Philippine notes are all slightly different sizes depending on denomination and are also different colors. The important thing to pay attention to when drinking in low light or black light environments is that while ₱1000 notes are a blue and ₱100 notes are purple they can look very similar at least to me. I admit that I’ve mixed them up on occasion. That’s $20 vs. $2 so be aware and be careful. Pro Tip: don’t exchange currency at your hotel, the rate you’ll get sucks. There are many exchange kiosks around the bars and most pay very close to the official exchange rate. The best one IME is located on Walking Street near the Walk-About Hotel. The kiosk itself is a small dark green block house and kind of obscure but they consistently give up to ₱1 more than most. It adds up if you are going to be there for a while.
Costs: There is no cover charge. La Bamba runs a Happy Hour from 5 – 7 PM and a bottle of local beer (San Mig Lite) costs ₱75. Regular price for the same bottle after Happy Hour is ₱110. A regular lady’s drink costs ₱300. I believe they have an option for a ₱150 lady’s drink but come on, don’t be a cheap assed bastard. I‘ve never seen anyone do that and the girl gets a cut of each drink so be a nice guy and spend a little. Most girls opt for a San Miguel Apple Beer. This is a flavored low-alcohol beer which is a good thing. A drunk Filipina is not anything you EVER want to deal with (trust me on this) especially if your inexperienced. Seriously, stick to the pony rides and leave the bronco busting to those with more experience and less brains. Finally a Bar Fine here is ₱3000.
A word about Bar Fines in general. The term “Bar Fine” refers to the money you pay to the establishment for a girl to be able to leave work until her show time the next day. Technically that’s all it is because prostitution is illegal in the Philippines. The reality is a bit different and I’ll speak to how it works in Angeles City which is somewhat different than other places in the PI. Each club sets their own price which runs from about ₱1600 to ₱3500 and they each set their own split with the girl running from as low as 30% to a much rarer and more generous 65% of the Bar Fine going to the girl (40% seems to be about average). Yes it’s about sex and generally most girls will and expect to stay the night but this is something you should talk about before-hand. Some have children waiting at home or just want to do a short-time for a few hours or whatever etc. Every girl working in these clubs be they dancers, cocktail waitresses, bartenders, CROs, door girls, massage girls, pool rack girls etc, all must be licensed and get a (limited) weekly STD test and are available to be Bar Fined if they so choose (**unfortunately some aren’t given a choice to say no – just being honest here). There are many reasons why not all of them will choose to go Bar Fine. Some are menstruating, or have a steady Boy Friend, or a steady Bar Fine (someone paid the club a lot of money for exclusive access to the girl), or are actual Cherry Girls (real life virgins), or they just don’t like you. Let it go, there are 10,000 licensed girls in the city. Go find another. The same applies to your perverted desires. For instance most girls don’t do anal and some don’t give BJs. If that or something else is what you want, make sure to be clear before paying to take a girl home. There is almost always someone somewhere who will do what you want for a price. Don’t try to make a reluctant girl do what she is unwilling to do. Things can go VERY, VERY wrong VERY, VERY fast. And don’t be some cheap assed bastard. Tip the girl in the morning!!!
The dancers at La Bamba are what I’d call mid-tier. They can’t necessarily compete with some of the show clubs as far as beauty but they are all under 30, natural and mostly fall into that really “cute” category. A normal full shift is about 16 -20 dancers broken into two groups with one group on stage for 20 -30 minutes and then they rotate out with the other group. They wear uniformed bikini or cut off T-shirt costumes depending on the day of the week (no nudity). Stage work is the standard Asian shuffle while on display for customers. If you’re interested call the girl down, buy her a drink and socialize. There is no sex in the club but on occasion I have done a lot of very physical socializing without being thrown out. In addition to the dancers there are usually 5 - 8 cocktail waitresses and 5 female bartenders working. Depending on their work load and interest in you it may be possible to socialize with them also.
So my experience over the month was pretty cut and dried. While in the past I’ve taken the occasional girl out of here, the club has become more of that comfortable neighborhood bar for me (and many other people as well). It’s a welcoming place with good classic rock music and I often started my evenings of pre-mongor drinking here. I avoided taking any of the girls home in a “don’t shit where you eat” attempt to avoid drama which I have way too much of in Angeles already. That said I have my favorite girls with whom I spent a good amount of time partying and will bar fine each of them on my return trip (Ojalá). I usually stayed about two hours before moving on but sometimes came back later in the evening or a couple of times I never left until near closing time. It’s a good place for me to hang out while I hide from some of that Filipina drama waiting outside the door.
Once or twice a month they run a special event like “Manic Monday” where they bring in dancers from 4 – 5 other clubs for a contest. They do raffles and have special drink prices. I went to two of these which were an opportunity to party on the cheap. Not only are the prices lower but only a few of the La Bamba dancers are in the competition while the rest are on the floor or in my case were sitting in my lap. Sadly in late November an illness kept a lot of dancers sidelined not only here but across the city. I say sadly because the club was forced to cancel their twenty-fifth anniversary celebration due to a lack of dancers.
In summary, I like La Bamba but it is only one of about 100 clubs in the city. You can find whatever you like from country western themes to High Society type dance clubs. La Bamba has a sort of Mexican Cantina theme and has been here for 25 years which in this town says a hell of a lot considering how fast many places come and go. For myself I shall continue to keep coming back for as long as I am able (Ojalá).
