why driving isn't as fun as it seems
for the past month or so, i have been driving around town. it is every person's dream of having a car to call his/her own, and i am no different. although i cannot say that the car is mine, it has already been very close to my heart haha. corny.
anyways, i have this theory: if you can drive in Manila, you can drive anywhere in the world... well, that theory has a corollary: maybe everywhere, except Bangkok.
It's really fun - running around on gas, not on sweat. But there are some things about driving that isn't much fun. Today i will attempt to enumerate them for you. Some of them will be very Filipino in nature, which will require elaborate explanation (for you Singapore folks), and some are just true universally.
So here goes, my top reasons why driving isn't as fun as it seems:
Honorable mentions - in no particular order:
Buses: unlike Singapore, where buses are the most inexpensive and almost convenient mode of transport, here in Manila, it's not as pretty as it seems. Well it's still a bus, just like Singapore's, minus the numbers, the ez-link, the 2nd floor, the aircon, and TVmobile. The rest is the same: it has windows, seats, and has vandalism on the last 3 rows, mostly. Well, we also have bus lanes, but they all somehow clog up the entire road. Mostly on major roads. they're so humongous, but they move around as if they're the size of a Beetle. They cut lanes and block your path as if the President is inside. Totally irritating.
horse-drawn carriages (kalesas): well, this one obviously doesn't appear in Singapore, except when the Barbie sale comes on, and Barbie is seen on posters flying around on a unicorn-drawn carriage. Well, u get the idea. Generally, nice and has a very cultural feel to it. Once only roamed certain parts of Manila, the more culturally preserved once. But now, some stray ones can be seen on roads in the city. Where they obviously do not belong. It is simply not very reputable to have a horse die on our roads because of tuberculosis or something like that, due to pollution. Also, the idea of a bucket dangling below the carriage to collect poo-poo is cool, but what if the poo-poo doesn't shoot in??? remember, their eyes are on the road, not on... ok... let's leave this one...
people running around on the streets: now this one is very general. There are a lot of variations of this. The kids who are roaming around asking for alms (limos, in Tagalog), people who sell all kinds of stuff on the road (newspapers, peanuts, ice cream (with a very cool Nokia ringtone-ish tune that it plays wherever it goes... REALLY), rags, candies, believe it or not they even sell toy helicpoters on the roads here - and they really do fly - a little), children who run across the streets while they play games (they are very fast), and children who bathe in front of their houses (this is amusing - not in a paedophilic manner - because you even see parents watching them joyously... aaaahhhh... the simple life.) Anyways, it's hard because jaywalking is very popular here. It's like a prerequisite to becoming a true Filipino. Sometimes when I make a turn, there will suddenly be children running across and stuff like that. Very dangerous.
tricycles: a very close cousin of the Singaporean trishaw, but instead of a man carrying it, it is actually a motorcycle (and a very old one) attached to a little tin house. I do take this form of public transportation very often, and it is really an experience. Very fun and convenient. But it's not fun if you're the car behind it. For one, it travels, at most, twice as fast as a human, maybe more, i don't really know cos it's really fun inside. haha. Also, it is a distant cousin of the squid. It's like a mechanical squid. When it accelerates, it ejects black smoke, which blinds any predator behind it. Well, something like that. So it makes the car behind it slower, blinder, and more prone to health threats. Oh whatever, just overtake it lah.
humps: Yes, finally something that people of all races can relate to. It is definitely a safety precaution. I can attest to that. But here, humps (mostly) are characterized by one of the following: no paint, or too much paint that was not allowed to dry properly and hence paint is all over the place. Not very helpful.
traffic lights: another safety precaution turned problem here. Of all the roads here, 99% are not well-supplied with traffic lights, according to Singapore standards (where there is a traffic light and a "flashing man" (haha) every two steps. There's even one in front of every house, or Something like that.) and among the 1.00% that are supplied, 50% do not work properly. Among the remaining 0.5%, 99.9% of them are not observed. Som much for rules, huh? (all statistics are derived from ME.)
... and now for the top 3 ...
#3: potholes galore
Some roads are so out of maintenance that it seems as if meteors have rained on them (it is so bad that i actually used "meteor" and "rain" in one sentence. If it gets any worse, i will not hesitate to use "garden" as a description. It is THAT pathetic.) Sometimes it is so bad that you find yourself in Need for Speed or Grand Theft Auto situations, where you would have to go to the opposing lane just to avoid sinking into them holes. I hate that sinking feeling.
#2: jeepneys
From wikipedia:
As American troops began to leave the Philippines at the end of World War II, hundreds of surplus jeeps were sold or given to local Filipinos. Locals stripped down the jeeps to accommodate several passengers, added metal roofs for shade, and decorated the vehicles with vibrant colors and bright chrome hood ornaments. The jeepney rapidly emerged as a popular and creative way to reestablish inexpensive public transportation, which had been virtually destroyed during World War II.
A Philippine jeepney. behind is a bus.
#1: ROADKILL (i will not provide a graphic representation of this.)
Road fauna or roadkill is a non-scientific term describing animals fatally struck by or ridden over by vehicles on roads and freeways.
It was one sunshiny morning as i was driving down this road, and i was in front of the traffic. Like the responsible citizen that I am, I stopped at the sight of a red traffic light. When it turned green, to my horror, my eyes beset on a poor decimated cat on the road (REALLY decimated). Close to my right hand side was a jeepney. My soul couldn't take running over the poor cat, it was simply unethical. So I swerved to the right to avoid it, almost hitting the jeepney next to me. In his rage, the jeepney driver gave me a big fat honk, and drove away, giving me a taste of good old black smog.
This is animal cruelty!!! They should form the Department of RoadKill (DORK) or something like that and assign aides or public workers to sweep the streets. Firstly, my doctrine of "never run over animals, be it alive or dead" must be instilled into every person. My analysis of the matter yielded the following results:
The top 3 animals who are involved in roadkill:
Cats -- 99%
Dogs -- 0.5%
Birds -- 0.5%
Somehow, I don't know why.
So there you go, reasons why driving isn't that fun. Maybe these are also why driving here is such a unique experience. For one thing, people don't need the traffic lights. All they need is a car with its lights working driving ahead of them at all times. If it stops, you stop. If it runs, you run. If it turns, just go ahead and turn with it. Now if it crashes, that's a different story...
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