Life in the Philippines - Jeepney Transportation
Another form of Transportation which seems to be the most commonly used by locals is the Jeepney. It is like a private form of public Transportation where the driver owns the vehicle and drives a route. There are Jeppneys everywhere and they seem to travel quite a long route.
They are very economical to use … the price is 8 pesos and what you do when you get onboard is you pass your money forward. Each person keeps passing it forward until it reaches the driver. Basically it is a flat rate just to board the vehicle and you can stay on as long as you like. One problem with using Jeepneys is that during the normal ‘rush hour’ times they are just packed … I’ve even seen brave souls hanging off the back. I travel to and from work with a large, loaded laptop case and it would be quite tricky with the Jeepneys I’m thinking.
The key to Jeepney use is to understand their route info. If you look closely at some of the pictures I’ve got here you will see a yellowstrip on the side of every Jeepney. This is the route, for example Pasig to Mandalloyung … I’m not sure how to interprete what the route is that the vehicle takes and it might be that the locals just know which Jeepney goes along what street.
This is quite likely as every single Jeepney has a custom and unique paint job done up by the owners. It isn’t just paint that is custom, often they will have flashing lights and sirens too. Many times what I have thought to be a police vehicle turned out to mearly be a flashy Jeepney.
I have taken Jeepnes once and it was great. It was off time and we were just returning from Badminton .. we walked up to Shaw Blvd and immediately caught a Jeepney. Passed our 10 pesos forward and enjoyed the feel of the wind passing by because the Jeepneys have long window openings down each side … but no glass in the openings. You would think this would make it easy to tell where you are but I found it tricky to tell that we were near where I wanted to get off.
To get off you mearly knock on the roof and the driver swerves towards the road edge … they never really get there and ALWAYS stop anywhere they want. I think this practice is what makes the traffic so slow everywhere but on highways.