Philippines - Transport

A small swarm of Tricycles

The Filipinos have developed  some unique means of getting around.

Cosy inside the Tricycle

In Laoag the most numerous vehicles are called  tricycles - they are in fact small motorbikes with sidecars. There seem to be an enormous number of them here and they are constantly on the go.  Kathleen and I have tried this.  I think for Kathleen it was more challenging than the cable car ride in Barcelona.  We really had to rub shoulders to get in and the ride certainly gave one a feeling for the road.    Kathleen refrained from screaming when she saw a bus coming straight for us. Thankfully she threw up later and not on the spot.

There seem to be only two traffic rules - get to the destination as quickly as possible and don't die in the attempt.  I have seen no less than four Filipinos getting out of one these things - Filipinos are smaller than we are.   There has never been a moment when I could not hear one of these machines putting by our hotel.   They seem to travel in swarms of up to 10 or 15 machines.   It is hard to imagine how they make money doing this as only about 1 in 4 seems to have a passenger; the fee for a 3 km ride was 40 pesos - about $1.

The second unique vehicle used for transport here is the jeepney.  They are derived from WW II jeeps but have been extended by various amounts to accommodate 10 to 15 passengers in a hop on/hop off from the back mode.  I understand they travel relatively fixed routes - the hard part is figuring out what the route is.  You have to wait until it is full before the driver will leave.  It is much more social than the tricycle as the last person on has to pass his fare through all the other passengers to the driver and then the change is passed back.  It is about 1/5 the cost of the tricycle for the same distance.  Each Jeepney is unique and many have a name such as ``Jesus is Lord`` or ``Amazing Grace``.  See  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuIQHiAHExg for more info on Jeepney riding.

Calessa

A third common conveyance is the Calessa.  There seems to be one of these for about every 10 tricycles.  It is drawn by a single skinny horse. This one carried a family of four plus the driver.   They cost about 5x as much as the tricycle and don`t appear to be any more comfortable.

The fourth major category is anything that works.  I have seen a family of 3 on a small motorcycle, lots of combinations of people using bicycles and people riding on top of a cattle truck. An interesting one is the kuliglig - a two wheel tractor towing any sort of passenger or freight trailer. These are more common in rural areas.  I love the name - it is what they sound like.

A good way to go?