Tuguegarao Tricycles

There are cool things about Tuguegarao, but air quality isn't one of them. As previously mentioned, your lungs won't be particularly happy in the city. It seems as though all the outlawed two-strokes of the Philippines were sent there to die. In general, one of the most hostile-to-pedestrians small cities in the country. 

A typical Tuguegarao tricycle.

The milky smoke from two-stroke tricycles.

Tuguegarao Improvisations

I realized I hadn't been to an entirely new place in a long time.

I had been traveling, but to the same places all the time, and not really documenting anything, sometimes just going to the same spots everyday and watching the sunset. Going deep and getting accustomed and being pensive and actually a bit reclusive. Call it... Getting old? Not having a smartphone? Living in these times? Recent political events had left me feeling mentally dulled. As time passed, though, things remained consistently absurd enough to turn almost interesting, and I started taking photos again and poking my nose around like I used to.

Tuguegarao was a brief trip in March. I felt pretty much like my old self. It was the "entirely new place" thing, I believe.

Tuguegarao is a city neglected by its government. It is infested with cars and tricycles, and being a pedestrian is pretty tough. But its people are some of the nicest, and they've managed to shape their lives around an unplanned, vehicle-centric situation. Walking around is something of a healthy hazard (that's coming from a perpetually smog-enveloped Manileña), but during off-hours it's not so bad.

Anyway here are a couple of small things from there:

Repurposed plastic container tricycle accessory.

A bat sticker.

A cloth cover for exposed pipes.

Plastic cup inserts for holes on a gutter cover. Maybe things kept falling inside? Maybe it smelled bad?

Easy Rider

You can catch an "Easy Rider" to Dauin from the Dumaguete Public Market. There is (to my understanding), one terminal on each of the four sides of the market, each going to one or two destination outside the city (I've taken the Sibulan and Dauin one).

Easy Rider to Zamboanguita

 The general nature of operations of an Easy Rider is like that of a jeepney. The name is a mystery to me, as the vehicle is usually a multicab or fiera. It reminds me of the "bus" that used to bring me to school when I was younger. One of my school buses had a Nintendo Family Computer inside, proving that indeed, wonderful things can be done to a fiera.

A defunct route?

Driver documentation at the Dauin terminal, which is one of the busiest.

Repurposed bottle for chalk/marker holder, at the wooden board that keeps track of Easy Rider drivers

Fasten your non-existent "safe belt"

The Movable Sabbath

I've been quite busy in the past few months. Thanks for the emails. I've been ever the itinerant, and only of recent have been united with my laptop. Enough to post one or two things, hopefully more...

I'd traveled to Dipolog recently. The city is small, clean, relaxed, and has an unusually low population. Trade is far from brisk, because of the transportation situation. There is an airport in the area, but shipping is another thing altogether. The place does not seem to have a lot of local crafts-- many of the goods are sourced from Bohol.

There are no taxis in Dipolog. Everyone gets around by walking, riding jeeps or private vehicles, or taking tricycles. The tricycles are inexpensive. Ten pesos gets you from the airport into town, and twenty pesos to the airport (under the assumption that they will not have any human cargo going back into the center).

Also cute, is that they list their "days off" on the back of their tricycles. This is presumably to regulate the amount of traffic. Another possibility is to keep tricycle-driving viable. In the absence of a scientific method to analyze population-to-tricycle ratios (and with cab drivers in Davao complaining about the glut of cabs that basically makes a lot of them sit around, passenger-less all day) this might be a good idea.

Other cities like Dumaguete have proposed (and tried, and failed) color-coding their tricycles for easy identification of those that should not be on the road.

In Dipolog, the days off are painted on the back of the passenger chamber of the tricycles, together with the tricycle's registration number and the sentence "Keep Dipolog clean".

Cupholder. Now How?

Malaysian drink hanger, v. wire and screws.

Although I find it a terribly unsettling idea to put hot beverages in plastic bags, I also find it nice that we still live in a world where cupholders are just one kind of in-car beverage-resting thing.

We Call It A Skylab, Because...

Bobong, our motorcycle dude.

Like a Filipino town name, the etymological origins of the skylab (a motorcycle with a plank to accommodate a life-threatening amount of passengers) are numerous. My sister-in-law, who grew up in Mindanao, says that it is a contraction of "sakay, lab" ("ride, love"), a driver's holler to potential female passengers.

Some rubber strips to secure baggage...

Others say it is named after the Skylab satellite that fell to the earth during the 70s. And so on, and so forth.

... or squish it, as they did our vegetables.

Unfortunately, the most boring explanation is usually true. In this case, the Skylab was a brand of tuk-tuk from northern Thailand. The local incarnation has neither the roof nor the paltry safety features of the Thai version, but is fun. Take a cue: more terrain-versatile, cheap, modifiable (according to load) vehicles are in order.

The ride.

A skylab, not quite fully loaded yet.

Pedicab Lighting Improvisation

Masbate is actually in Bicol, across the ocean from Samar.

Pedicabs are cheap in Samar (5 pesos or so). They are labeled "Masbate Bikes" and are painted in similar patterns, resembling calesas or sorbetes carts.

But the real treat is seeing them at night. The beautiful transformation occurs when riders attach lighting to the bikes after dark. Empty tin cans act as wind guards for lampfires, which are produced by recycled bottle gaseras (usually Lipovitan bottles), filled with kerosene and a dampened wick (some of them seemed like kapok fiber). Flickering lights and (slow) moving vehicles don't usually go together, so it's fun to sit back and watch while eating your oily street food of choice.



















A tin can housing the lit wick of a Lipovitan bottle gasera.



















The gasera is held up by another improvised aluminum part.



















A parked bike, lit up.

Upside Down Bird

Jeepney mudguards in the form of Tweety Bird, upside down.


The wide part of the skull where the mud splash would be more copious.

Today's Jeepney Mudguards

Don $ Pulubi (pulubi = beggar)


Something "new" in my life.

Religious Car Ceiling

Overhead altar.

The disorienting right-hand-drive setups inside Thai taxis are compensated for by the familiar presence of religious paraphernalia inside (albeit on the ceiling, at times). Though not a mishmash like the Filipino dashboards (Buddha-Jesus-bobbingheadcat), some proved to cram as much as possible into a small space.

Frosted Jeepney Mirrors and Such

I consider many jeepneys to be in the "Parang Mexican" style. The Galleon Trade sparked a whole wave of artisans who produced ornamentation that was similar to that of the other colony at the time.


Frosted designs on the mirror, with usual padded ceiling.

I've always assumed that influence was more one-way (into the Malay region), but some recent readings (I'll post about the book in the near future) and musings have suggested otherwise. Those speeding by in red, green, white, those pre-sticker-art painted horses and etc. with aluminum accents, those kind of hint at an aesthetic and materials environment (new, plentiful cheap paint or pigment?) of an era gone by.


Look up!

Push The Button 2 Stop

An old doorbell against faux wood and plastic leather.

Spaceship jeepney. Button was non-functional.


A US flag motif up front.


Some guy's shirt: "Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question, yes is the answer."

Schooljeep Windows

To keep children from falling out, probably.

Graceful iron grills from windows of a school service jeepney along Pasong Tamo Extension.


Smaller than a bus, larger than a school service tricycle.

Trike Stop Dama

One guy plays with one peso coins, and the other, twenty five centavo coins.

Dama is a game that can be highly portable/spontaneous. A board, a pen to scrawl lines out with, and coins or stones are all you need for an improvised game that is sophisticated enough for grown-ups. It is a common sight at tricycle stops.


Slow day, with a snoozer in the back.

It is not a very gripping game that commands a lot of (non-player) attention. At least, not until people see that someone is taking photos.


Within a few seconds, aspiring extras come running from their tricycles to pose.

Space Ship Jeepney

(A previous jeepney ceiling post can be found here.)


Retro space ship (or cheap motel)style. Shiny mirrors, a little television screen.

Mama Mary Stickers

In a jeep.


In a tricycle.

Jeepney Cleanliness Tools

Rolled tightly and tucked above the long rearview mirror spanning the width of the driving chamber. Below it, "God Bless Our Trip".

Jeepney drivers keep an arsenal of circular cleaning rags, actually sewn from a bunch of scrap fabric. I've lately been observing how they store these while not in use.


Like cinnamon rolls, they look even more fantastic when different colored cloth is used.


Just four rags, and just sort of put on top of the mirror, near a Jesus sticker.

Inter-Regional Trucking Ads, and Buri Fruit

Bicol, Mindoro, Marinduque.

Fiending for buri fruit at the wrong time of year, I trekked over to Asuncion, Manila for a futile search of the palm goodies. That is where you go for fruit of all kinds. And above are the signs for the trucking services that make the marketplace happen.


Mmmm.

All I can do now is stare at an old photo of it and wait until October, or so the other vendors tell me. I bought it from a roving vendor (who told me about Asuncion) selling the chewy, bite-sized, palm fruit chilled on a hot day on Juan Luna Street.


Mmmmmmm- mmm.

Pride of South Cotabato

Stop.

More indications of migration within the country-- a Pasay jeepney's mudguard. Citing your provenance on your jeep is pretty typical. This always gets me thinking-- how do we harness the multicultural nature of Metro Manila?

Lost and Found

A student, hands clasped in cooperation, and possibly a famous landmark or highway connecting the two areas.

What do tricycle drivers do when they find something left behind by their passengers? If the thing has no value nor any marks of identification, how do they return it? Posted in front of the passenger seat: a card for the Leyte Samar Student Org (since 1982). It has the curious nature of being hand-colored. I couldn't tell if it was photocopied, but if it wasn't-- wow.

(The organization is made up of students in the National Capital Region who are from Leyte and Samar. That this ID was found in a Paranaque trike shows the regionalistic tendencies of the Pinoy, and our predominantly migrant composition in the metropolis.)