Filipino Transportation 101

I realize I'm beginning to gloss over the things that have become everyday to me. I'll try to do better with that, and start by explaining modes of transportation here. I can't say much about transportation island to island since I've only flown from Manila to here (and flying is a pretty universal experience), but I can explain transportation on my island.

First off, there are 7 modes of transportation that I've observed so far: personal car, motorcycle, bicycle, public bus, public jeepney, pedicab, pod-pod, or randoms. I'm going to try to explain each one, but since I'm not the most automotive-savvy person in the world, I'm not really down with the whole automotive lingo, so bear with me please.

• Personal car: These are usually manually operated SUVs. I've seen a few automatic ones, but this is rare and usually limited to the wealthier of the wealthy (it's very rare for a family to have its own car).
  
  
• Motorcycle: The city here, Dumaguete (about an hour away from me), was named as the city with the most motorcycles in the world a few years ago. They are everywhere!! And they fit as many people as possible on them. There's a saying here in the Philippines: “There's always room for one.” I've seen motorcycles with as many as 5 people on them, including babies that can't be more than a year old, it's quite scary. They get pretty creative also; I've seen a motorcycle with the man driving it, and a woman sitting behind him somehow holding 2 medium-sized dogs, 1 in front of her and 1 behind. And I have yet to determine the motorcycle driving age here since I've seen kids as young as 13 or 14 driving them.
  
  
• Bicycle: Pretty self-explanatory. Although, I've seen quite a few one-speed bikes here that are really old and rusty, and I cringe every time I think of having to peddle them uphill.
  
  
• Public bus: The main public bus here is the Ceres Liner and it goes all the way along the coast on the 2-lane highway, through all the municipalities. It takes a little over 2 hrs to go from Dumaguete on the east coast to Bayawan on the west coast and there's only one designated stop the whole trip which happens to be in Siaton :) But that doesn't mean that people can only get on and off in Siaton. All you have to do is stand on the side of the road and wave the bus down when you see it come and it'll stop, let you board, and continue on its way. It's the same with getting off; you just tell the conductor when you get to your stop and he'll have the bus stop to let you off. The tricky thing is, if you don't know where you need to get off, you'll miss your stop. To keep this running smoothly there are 2 workers per bus. One is the driver and the other is the conductor. The conductor deals with the tickets and making sure the driver stops when people need to get off. The system works really well. And the best part is that it only costs 50 pesos (~$1.14) to go to the city, although on my living allowance this isn't as cheap as it would seem. Anyway, back to the bus, I've seen some interesting things on that bus, including 2 live chicken being transported in a plastic bag with their heads poking out; a mom changing a baby's diaper; and one time, an old woman tried to spit a huge wad of spit out the door, and it dangled from her mouth before dropping on the step...she looked at it and then returned to her seat. Welcome to the Philippines.
  
  
• Public jeepney: These run the same way as the buses but aren't as consistent (a bus goes by every 10-20 minutes), they only go a couple municipalities over, not the whole coastline, and are usually cheaper than the bus. They can also get way more squished. I've seen jeepneys with about 25 people in them (this density would mean people are sitting with one butt cheek on a seat and then other on their neighbor's lap) with an additional 4 hanging outside on the step and bumper and about 7 or 8 sitting on the roof. It's really quite a site to see.
  
  
• Pedicab: These are trikes (motorcycles with a side seating area attached with an additional wheel) except with a bicycle instead of a motorcycle. These only go short distances (only around the main part of Siaton or other municipalities), which is understandable since the bike is a one-speed. These cost about 9 pesos on average (~$0.20) for any distance. And Filipinos take full advantage of this since they are unwilling to walk more than 2 blocks to anything. They always give me strange looks when I tell them I'm fine with walking.
  
  
• Pod-pod: Exact same thing as a trike, with a different name. These are mostly in the city and also cost 9 pesos for any distance. They work the same as a taxi in the states where you wave it down and get door-to-door service. The only difference is that here you pay 9 pesos per person. So sometimes it's difficult to find a driver willing to take just you across town since he'll be going all that way for only 9 pesos. But if you have more people with you, he's more willing since he'll get more money. One of the things they do is actually wait for more people who need to go to the same place you want to go. So at the bus terminal in the city when I get off the Ceres Liner, I go to the pod-pod pick up spot, tell the driver where I want to go, get in the cab, and then wait for him to find more people that need to go to the same area. It's an interesting difference sharing a ride with complete strangers, but hey, that's how it's done here!
  
  
• Randoms: I really don't have a technical name for this, but it's basically just random vehicles that people crowd into to get a ride somewhere. This can be anything from a truck that's used to carry livestock to the roofs of other vehicles. Filipinos are really inventive with how to get from one place to another.

That's all for now! I hope I was able to educate you on the common modes of transportation in the Philippines!