My next Cebu experience – a jeepney ride

Yesterday I added to my growing list of first of experiences … a jeepney ride! 

This would involve a tricycle trip to the jeepney station and then two jeepney rides to the Ayala mall.

Jeepney - heading to Ayala and SM malls

So, for those of you who don’t know what a jeepney is. It's simply a small bus but with many quite interesting features. It is about the length of a minibus, but generally narrower with two rows of seats in the back facing each other. The sides have no windows and when it rains the driver jumps out and rolls down a plastic shade.

There are thousands of them, many decorated in vibrant colours, others showing the scars of multiple confrontations and most of them belching black smoke.

Entrance and exit is out of the back and the loading of people happens in the exact reverse of what you'd expect. The first people who get in sit right next to the door. This means that all the other people have to shuffle past the early arrivals to the next available seat.

The headspace in the seating area is very low and as you shuffle along to your seat the driver will just pull off. With the likelihood of banging your head very good. At some point when you really think that the jeepney can't take another passenger. You are wrong ... it can.

The conductor (when there is one, stands on the step at the back, with notes folded around each finger) hollers at the driver, the Jeepney stops and another couple of people climb in.

Somehow everybody squashes tighter and tighter and the new passengers manage to find a seat. The last resort for loading more passengers is to extract a small stool from under one of the seats. Hey presto ... seating for another couple of people. 

After counting the others crammed in the front seat there were finally 27 passengers!.... and we think taxis in South Africa are overloaded.

To pay for your ride you pass your money back (when there is a conductor and forward to the driver when there isn't) from person to person and the change is returned in the same way. The standard fare for a tricycle or jeepney ride is nine pesos ($0.20).

So back to our ride. It certainly was a fun adventure (plus I think we amused a few locals judging by their smiles!), but not in the ideal weather conditions as halfway to town it started to rain. 

Carol wasn’t quite sure the exact place to jump off. As they had closed the side of the jeepney she was crouched down, peering out of the back looking for her one landmark. A hotel with a name starting with "D". 

This is certainly not easy, when you are crammed butt to butt with 24 people and you are sitting somewhere near the middle.

Very upmarket jeepney

The next thing I learned was to stop the jeepney you bang coins against the metal frame. But as it was raining Carol's banging was in vain. He didn’t stop (I think his intentions were good?) so at the next set of traffic lights we made our own decision ... clambered through the other passengers and jumped out. Across the street and into the shelter of a second-hand shoes store.

We thought it may be possible to wait out the rain but it just kept coming down. So decision time again. After spotting a jeepney going our way we raced across the street through the same intersection (when in Rome!!!) and jumped into it.

Unfortunately for the rest of the journey the shades were lowered, it was very hot and stuffy and the rain kept pelting down.

A driving characteristic of jeepney drivers is that they have no rules. Or the only ones they have are the ones they make up as they go along. Fortunately major accidents are infrequent as with the congestion it is only on rare occasions that you are doing more than about 40k’s an hour.

We arrived at the mall, did our shopping and after a very pleasant lunch decided not repeat the experience and took a very dilapidated taxi home.