Jeepneys are a remnant of post-WWII days, when the resourceful Filipino people used the chassis of US Army jeeps to create small buses. Of course, these are newer. Every jeepney has a custom paint job and a big name across the front. It might be anything from 'Rosemary' to 'Desert Cruiser' to 'Las Vegas' to 'God's Gift.' Each is licensed to operate in a specific area.
To catch a jeepney to a certain town, you wait on a certain corner. There's no schedule. You might wait a few seconds or several minutes, but there are lots of jeepneys, so you never wait long, during the daytime.
This is the jeepney we rode to Mangaldan. It says 'Manaoag - Dagupan & vice versa' on the side, but we only rode it as far as Mangaldan. It cost us each 18 pesos one way - - about 40 cents. You can pay the guy riding on the back or the driver, whenever. It's all so unstructured, it makes me wonder how they keep track of who's paid and who hasn't.
So, you climb on through the back and sit on one of two long seats along the sides. At the most, I counted twenty passengers on this jeepney, filled pretty snugly. Filipinos don't seem too concerned about 'personal space' and, of course, they're small people. There's plenty of breeze as long as the thing is moving down the road, since there's no glass in the windows, and that's fine. It kind of reminded us of riding the old Rose City Transit buses when we were young kids - - the old, rattley ones before the days of TriMet. There's a lot of noise from its motor and everyone else's motors on the road, and the radio playing. Between towns, the jeepney will stop for anyone waiting along the road, and, to let the driver know when you want to get off, you rap on the ceiling.
After our meeting in Mangaldan - - and, by the way, try pronouncing that without a hard G sound in the middle, like 'singer,' not like 'finger' - - we let a couple jeepneys go without us, because they were too full to accommodate the six of us. The one we ended up riding was older and a bit shabbier inside. It was filled to capacity once we got on, and someone was also carrying a large folding table with them, so that stood between the two lines of passengers until its owner got off. It was tall enough that we couldn't see the people across from us. You often see all manner of cargo on top of a jeepney, as well.
We thought this 'buckle up' sign was pretty funny, since, of course, you can't.
The trip took about 35 minutes, each way.
I enjoyed watching this little princess on the ride home. : )
Awesome! It reminds me so much of the "chicken busses" in Guatemala. They took old converted school busses, gutted them, and re-installed the seats with extra rows. They were also brightly painted and operated the same as these. Very clever. Sure makes you realize how litigious Americans are that such things would never work in the U.S.
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