BUSES, BOATS, PLANES & TAXIS
As any commuter and driver in this country know, the shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line. You could get a ticket for jaywalking, making an illegal left turn, or worse, get mugged.
God is in the details, even in getting around. I find that paying attention to details can decide how a trip or ride will turn out: comfortable, pleasant, torturous, or grueling. For example, on long trips note on which side of the jeepney, bus or fastcraft will the sun's rays hit. My friend is an expert on that, being blessed with a keen sense of direction, geography, and where east and west lay.
Me? I was almost fried riding a bus to Baguio. Blame it on carelessness and overexcitement -- yehey, adto na mi sa Baguio -- because whenever I commuted from Cebu to Mandaue I knew which side of the jeepney to take in the morning or afternoon from observations where the sun will be when we hit the highway.
Speaking of jeepneys if we have the luxury of getting a ride before its full and thus choose our seats, there are certain seatmates we normally try to avoid. These are the obviously drunk, the morag salbahe, hold-upper, mangunguot o may b.o. To that I add two more, passengers with kids sitting on their laps -- the dirty soles of their shoes always bump and rub against my leg, and if they are having a tantrum my knees get the worse end of their kicks. The others are girls with long hair. Now that it is en vogue long hair remind me of those times when someone else's crowning glory was whipping against my face when the driver hits over 40 km/hr in the highway. Hair in my eyes, nose, I didn't know if I should yank the girl's hair or hand her a rubber band to secure it in place.
Let's go to boats. My mom and brothers always check out the best room, cabin, cot in every new boat that plies the Cebu-Surigao route. I thought they were being difficult whenever they gave instructions to the person assigned to purchase their ticket: "if its MV Kurdapia get cot numbers 54, 57, 60 and 63; but if it's MV Kulasa get us four beds ending in odd numbers in the tourist section." Considering that the overnight trip takes eight hours or more it makes sense to pick the bed farthest from the entrance, hallway, or toilet.
My former boss takes this technique a step further, he only schedules his trips to Cagayan de Oro on days when his favorite boat departs. His favorite spot? A double deck bed in the tourist section with a wall on one side. Out of a hundred bunks, he estimates only eight have that advantage where at least he can sleep on one side without facing anybody.
By taking the cheaper overnight boat trips one European backpacker was also able to save on hotel expenses and thus stretch his shoestring budget.
Where fastcrafts are concerned the best seats are in the middle because these are less susceptible to motion compared to the front or back. Not only that, they're the closest to the canteen counter, TV monitors and entrances/exits.
Aisle or window? You have this choice of seats at the fastcraft or plane. If I'm having problems with my bladder or in a hurry to get off, I pick the aisle seat. But if I want to catch a nap or am going to some place for the first time, then definitely the window seat it is. On a long-haul flight to the US -- over 18 hours -- I discovered the best seats are in the middle rows [provided the flight is not full] because one could raise the arm rests and lay on three to four vacant seats as if on a bed.
From buses and jeepneys, boats and planes let's go to taxis. Why is it that every other taxi driver thinks he's competing in the Grand Prix? Following a slow-moving car -- the latest model of a popular brand -- my taxi driver muttered, "some people have no right to own a car. A great car like that should be maximized for its powerful engine … that car is wasted on that wimp."
Pity that this is the common attitude of drivers who drive other people's car, they only care about getting from one place to another at the shortest possible time to earn their daily bread. Never mind if the vehicle gets scratched or dented. And never mind if their reckless way of driving is stressing the different parts of the car -- repair and maintenance is not their problem.
The running joke among taxi drivers in Cebu is that a fleet of mini-cab taxis operated by a businessman in Mandaue-Lapulapu is being used for practice-driving. No wonder most of these units are in bad shape.
Finally, avoid those sabot-sabot system with those opportunists in airports and ports who prey on gullible travelers. When in Manila, steer clear of those airport taxis without meters. They will charge you a hundred bucks per kilometer on the speedometer and you'd end up shelling out ten times more than the regular metered taxi rate. Going to Makati, which would fetch only P50 to P75, I ended up paying P800. The car was one of the later models where the driver had controls to all the door locks and which he used to intimidate me into paying.
Licking my wounded pride for being so stupid, the next time I went traveling on official business I took the more expensive official airport car services. They charge fixed rates by zones, collect payment and issue receipts at the airport. However, this is no guarantee that these airport car services have honest and professional employees. Trusting the name of an international car rental company, I was rudely shocked by its driver who was so friendly and insisted on making a stop on the way when I asked for the location of an ATM when he turned down the tip of P20 and demanded P150. A regular taxi ride from the airport to a dorm near Roxas Boulevard where I got off does not even reach P75. I wrote the car company a nice letter and they reimbursed the amount I paid the driver, suspended him, and gave me a voucher good for one free one-way airport transport. Glad to know that this company is professionally run and can handle its rotten eggs well.
Whenever I have a talkative, over-inquisitive and friendly driver who claims to be a Bisaya my alarm bells go off because this seems to be a prelude before they zero in for the wallet.
My co-worker never accepts rides from guys without car keys because he assumes they're the middle men who demand tips from passengers and collect commissions from drivers.
This is what I detest about going to Manila, the ordeal of surviving the commute from the airport. As soon as you emerge from the arrival area you are besieged by touts screaming "taxi, taxi." They persist as if , d'uh, you didn't see or heard them the first time, and as if yelling "taxi, taxi" in your face will wear you down until you capitulate. Like, pastilan, would I be standing here for 30 friggin' minutes if I wanted a taxi? I'd much rather take the bus because in all my years studying and working in Manila I never had an unpleasant experience in buses even when I commuted at midnight. Same thing happens at our Mactan airport that is why I felt sad when they discontinued the aircon bus shuttle service to the airport. Negros Navigation gets top marks not only because even if they are a monopoly in Bacolod their ships are clean and service is excellent, but also because they provide aircon shuttle buses from the port to the city.
In Manila I heard that there are uniformed cops who assist passengers in hailing a metered taxi. The cops hand a set of instructions on paper to the passenger advising them of their rights and what to do if the driver tries to pull a fast one, i.e. write down the plate number. The cops were there when I flew to Manila last Sunday, but no thanks to my twice-delayed flight (they did not even serve us supper) I was not in the mood to test this new scheme at 10:00 p.m. I flagged down a bus, got off somewhere in EDSA, two-thirds on the way to my hotel and boarded a taxi.
Next I pulled out my cell phone and sent a message to an idle pager so the driver will me hear me intoning, "I am now in Guadalupe in taxi number ABC 987, see you in 15 minutes." What do you know, he even gave me the correct change of P2. Do I feel guilty for not trusting? Naaah!
September 18, 1998