Bath House Edition - The Mansion (Pasay City)

Ever been inside a bathhouse? To those who doesn't know what it is, see this page from Wikipedia

Back to boldXXXpression and this article.Just a few days back I sampled one of the remaining bathhouses located in Pasay City called The Mansion, unlike the other bathhouses there are in Metro Manila, this is the least mentioned in the world wide web. It could be due to the little knowledge Pinoys have about businesses like this. Anyway, it took me quite a while to find the place because no one can actually tell how to get there in the first place, on their Facebook page and Blogspot page you can write their address down and some useful information on locating the place but in actuality finding it exactly is kind of and rather difficult.

At the doorstep of The Mansion

I rang their doorbell, a nice young man opened the gate and let me in through the gates and through the big main door made of solid wood. Inside, a very rustic looking counter and another nice looking young man (actually better than the other one) greeted me and welcomed me to the place, as it was my first time to come over the counter boy had to confirm if I was refereed to by a member to the place before he accepted my payment and issue me a reference number - Apparently now, The Mansion no longer offers membership to any walk-ins. I paid for the membership fee and the entrance fee of about P400 then I was provided with a key that's attached to a bracelet, just behind the door besides the registration counter the entertainment area with a performance stage said hello to me, it looks rather sad without the entertainment on in it going on but its okay, there's only one turn available to better explore the place and it's on the left side if you'll come from the registration counter. To the left after that is the entrance towards the locker area and to the right is the entrance towards the bar while straight ahead is headed towards the swimming pool area and shower area and upstairs you'll find yourself at another entertainment area where the entertainment is a nonstop stream of man-to-man films (Not that sure if there's any Filipino or Asian movies available though - Never got a chance to go through their collection).

The first floor

As soon as your inside, you'll get to see the main stage where most the productions being held at The Mansion takes place, you can reach out to their staff to find out the schedule but The Mansion has a regular event every Tuesdays and Saturdays. There's not much place to hang out on the main halls of The Mansion as the locker room most of the time is the hangout place for the staff while the bar lacks enough seats to accommodate a bunch of customers. At the wet area where you'll get to find the swimming pool, the shower area and the sauna (although on my visit there it wasn't switched on), when I was there, only a handful of customers was with me inside, no one was in the swimming pool so it's rather difficult to say if the pool is available for use or it's just there for show. Now, here's the part I find rather awful, the shower area looks very dirty and neglected, it has no heaters, lighting is very bad, it has no tiles on the floors or walls, the soap/shampoo looks like in a dispenser that's publicly available in poorly maintained comfort rooms and there are shower heads that are not working at all.

Connected to the wet area of The Mansion is two story dark, wet and a rather stinky place where you can do some hot touching with other people. The most immediate entrance to it is wet and awfully dark, on the right you'll find a place that looks like their dump area but if you turn to the right you'll be able to reach a very narrow wood stare case to the second floor where there's a nice huge leather coach and large window overseeing what looks like a parking area for The Mansion. This is based on my opinion is the most effective place to explore people.

The second floor

There's only two areas here that's available to the members of The Mansion, the entertainment area where you get to seat in front of a nonstop stream of man-to-man films and the bed room (my own term as all there is to find are beds - no need to add anything else, you definitely know what goes on out here).

For some reason, all the places I've been to inside The Mansion I never stopped scratching due to mosquito bites.

My take

Altogether, I find The Mansion very promising mainly because it's more than just a bathhouse with its in-house bar and performance stage unfortunately it's not being maintained that well. I understand that there are people who ensures that's the place is being taken cared of but the effort being put into it has to be raised to bring out the best out of The Mansion. There's no security personnel at The Mansion unlike the other bathhouse that I've been to, the current practice of not letting people walk in and register is one thing, getting a person with actual experience in watching the place spells the difference totally. Overall, my rating to the place out of 10 is 8. I may opt to come back or may not. And oh, not sure what sort of customers The Mansion are attracting but when I was there they're mostly old people.

Note: Due to the fact that this review's tone came out very negatively, please understand very well that this are all based on the point of view of the reviewer as of the time this article was published on the boldXXXpression website.

By RPMJr Communications Team with 2 comments