The traffic here is hectic!!! And I really mean hectic as it makes its way like a river in flood drifting from one side of the road to the other.
The roads are narrow and filled with tricycles (this picture is a good example of how to fit at least 6 people onto a stuffed out, small motorbike with a tiny side car), motor bikes (mostly small but driven like Citi Golf's at home winding in and out of the traffic) noisy with little power, but when everyone else is only doing 30 kph even a bicycle looks like a performance machine, bicycles (varying from BMX's to delivery bikes) and a stream of pedestrians.
In this context I decided to have my first outing early on a Sunday morning. As we headed out at just after six thirty I realised that these people don't sleep. The basketball courts were full and there were a number of people who appeared to be out shopping.
The first kilometre or so wasn't too bad and then we hit the highway. Dispel every thought you have of a highway. This highway is a narrow (just wide enough to get two cars through) strip of concrete which would be the standard road in some remote suburb. Things were going okay and then we hit the rebuilding of the road.
The new section is a concrete road being built about 20 to 30 centimetres above the existing decaying track. The challenge was now to make the transition from the low road to the high road. I've always had a problem driving a left hand drive car as I've found it difficult to judge exactly where the right front ends. Needless to say I failed perfection with my first attempt and the temporary sign was hit with a solid thump.
Fortunately modern wing mirrors are designed for these situations and it folded neatly against the side of the car. As I flusteredly pressed the various buttons the windows opened and now I was forced to pull up and sort out the various problems. It wasn't long and we were on our way.
The next major obstacle was the left turn in the direction of where we live. Firstly the landmark (the old bridge to Cebu) was on the right so I nearly didn't make it. And then as I swerved across the face of the oncoming motorbikes I realise I was in the wrong gear. At that moment I realised that people who normally drive right handed automatic cars should never convert to left handed manual cars. Too late.
As we lurched through the intersection I was grateful that the drivers here are used to slamming on brakes and swerving so we got through there without a scratch. It should have been plain sailing from there but very close to home there is a large Catholic church. The service had just ended and there were tricycles scattered all over the road collecting church goers.
There was a gap, iI think it was enough, but if the persistent bangs on the back window were an indicator ... it probably wasn't!! Anyway we slowly edged through and in a couple of hundred metres we were home.
Whew!! It was like being a learner driver all over again.
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