And then, as I drifted back off to sleep, I felt my face being sprayed… nay, christened, with a hot, stinking torrent of some Norwegian asshole’s piss.
Intrigued? Horrified? A little turned on?
I can honestly say that participating in ‘water sports’ or taking a ‘golden shower’ is one of the few things not on my ever expanding bucket list, but I became an unwitting and entirely unwilling participant on one fateful night in Manila.
I went into that dorm room an idealistic travel blogger with a week in beautiful Boracay awaiting me.
I came out the next morning stinking of another man’s piss, and the thing I was most excited for was a long, hot shower and using every last drop of my body wash.
The Scene
It’s 10pm on a Monday night and our last night in Manila before jetting off to explore Boracay for a few days. The others have already retired for the evening and I am – as always – on my phone checking Facebook and generally wasting precious time that could be better spent on sleep.
I’m in a twin room, but so far the top bunk remains empty. I am hopeful of a night’s privacy and some good rest after having shared a room with my travel buddy for the last few days.
As I’m dozing off, however, the door opens and my roommate for the evening walks in. We make small talk: He’s from Norway and just arrived in the Philippines a few hours earlier. Do I mind leaving the light on because he’s going out to get a bottle of water?
I don’t mind one bit. I bid him adieu and, knowing I have a 6am start waiting for me, I roll over and go to sleep.
The Plot Thickens
I woke at around 2am to find the light still on and my roommate still absent. Remembering the night of drunken debauchery that greeted me when my mate and I touched down in Makati and discovered a section of the city that never sleeps, I correctly fathom that he’s headed out to indulge in the Manilla night life.
I get up, flick the light off, and go back to sleep.
Wake Up Call
It’s around 4am when I wake again, and this time it’s to find my roommate being helped into the room by the hostel’s security guard. The tiny guy is struggling under the weight of a very drunk and very uncooperative Norwegian, who is borderline unconscious.
Between the two of them, they manage to get the drunk idiot into bed. I’m a little miffed at the rude awakening, but I’ve been traveling long enough to know that I could have had it a lot worse.
At least he’s in bed and sleeping, I think to myself, He could be drunk and wanting a deep & meaningful. Count yourself lucky, CWB
And so I drift off to sleep once again.
THUMP!
I wake up with a start this time. The lights are out, but I know I heard something heavy hit the floor.
As if to confirm my suspicions, my Norwegian friend begins to moan in pain.
The idiot has fallen out of his bunk.
“You alright, mate?” I ask, helpfully.
“Yeah,” he grunts in reply. I hear him getting to his feet and dusting himself off.
I’ll be back off to slumberland soon enough.
It’s then as I drifted back off to sleep, I felt my face being sprayed… nay, christened, with a hot, stinking torrent of some Norwegian asshole’s piss.
Well, not my face (thank God), but my arm and upper torso. Plenty of the stinking liquid bounces up into my beard, however, and that’s a stain that all the perfumes of Arabia could not remove.
Outraged, I shove him away from me as he continues to redecorate the room in yellow.
“Get the fuck away from me, asshole!” I shout, ready to strangle the guy with his own pecker if need be.
“What?”
He manages to sound both offended and confused by my outrage.
“You pissed on me, you fucking dickhead!”
“No I didn’t,” he says, managing to keep a completely straight face despite the fact his flaccid cock is still in his hand and piss is still dribbling fitfully from it. It pools around his feet.
“You’re still doing it!” I point out.
Murder is on my mind, but I decide to go and fetch the security guard rather than land myself in a Filipino prison.
“He pissed on me,” I explain to the guard, indicating the pools of urine scattered about the room and the general reek of the place.
“Listen, friend,” the Norwegian explains to me, his penis still out, but no longer in his hand, “I’m not the kind of guy who goes around pissing on people”.
A reasonable thing to claim. If he’s not that kind of person, I’d hate to meet somebody who did go around pissing on people.
“You’ve pissed on 66% of the people in this room!” I point out, indicating the dark patches on my t-shirt and the piss still clinging to his naked, hairy leg.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about”.
It’s at this point that I begin to wonder if maybe I’m being Punk’d. I expect to see Ashton Kutcher’s infinitely punchable smirk as he enters the room, preparing to take credit for the most disgusting thing he’s done since Two and a Half Men.
“You want another room?” the security guard asks.
No, I think to myself, I’m going to crawl back into the wet, pissy bed and go back to sleep.
I’m about to give him a piece of my mind for asking such a stupid question, but a glance at my phone indicates it’s 5.15am. I’m supposed to be up in 45 minutes anyway.
“Don’t worry about it,” I reply sullenly, snatching up my toiletry bag and making for the bathroom.
Enter Fetal Position
I’d like to tell you I manfully shrugged off the moment and went about my day unperturbed, but I felt strangely violated to have been given such a nasty baptism to start my day.
I didn’t quite slip into the fetal position and sob to myself in the shower, but I did use almost all of my newly purchased body wash scrubbing away at my poor, ravaged beard.
Much as it manages to hold onto food that misses my mouth, so too did it hold on to the acrid stink of the Norwegian’s piss.
I swear, it didn’t quite leave my beard until later in the day when I gave it a good, long soak in the ocean.
Your Say
What’s the most embarrassing or traumatizing thing that has happened to you while staying in a hostel?