Driving to Manila

I mentioned the other night that there'd been one heck of a storm about an hour before I was due to leave Baguio for Manila. Well, it was one heck of a storm by the standards I'm used to but apparently nothing much for late Summer in Baguio. There was, however, enough rain to close Kennon Road and we had to take the Marcos Highway to Rosario.

It's about 50 km's more if you take the Marcos Highway but it's said to be much safer. Safer must be a relative term; I found it white knuckle all the way. Much of the road is winding, narrow and with a steep precipice to one side. It doesn't increase your confidence when you see a semi-trailer hit the anchors and slide off the road into a ditch right in front of you.

Just after that semi-trailer the road would have been 2 centimetres deep in water. Not much, less than an inch, but a continuous flow. It wasn't raining at the time, that was runoff from the hillside to our left. The precipice was on our right and that's the direction the water was flowing. Gravel and mud strewn across the highway. Did I mention that this was at midnight and there's no street lighting? They also have precious few botts dotts to mark where the road goes.

Fifteen minutes later we were staring down a bus approaching on our side of the road. He wasn't moving to his side and the driver was considering his options. Suddenly the bus swerved out of our way and we saw why he'd been so uncompromising. A large tree had fallen halfway across the road!

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again; there are times when you have to trust your driver. He knew the route; for the rest I had to trust in the providence I don't believe in. Quite the dilemma!

Once we hit Rosario we were in familiar territory. That's the MacArthur Highway where Kennon Road joins it. By the time we reach there we've descended a mile and we're pretty much at sea level. When it's just me and the driver we light up when we feel like it; but this time we had a non smoking colleage of mine along so we stopped in Rosario at the Shell Service station for a smoke.

Up in Baguio it doesn't feel like you're in the tropics; it's cool and the humidity isn't oppressive. In Rosario you know you're in the tropics. Even after midnight it was warm enough and humid enough to be perspiring profusely!

Thus we continued; through Carmen which is a town with about a mile of brightly lit stalls on the side of the road. The thing is that every single stall seems to sell the same things. Melons, jars of honey, roasted pig and charred corn. It's hard to know the criteria by which one would choose one stall over another. I've seen those stalls at two times of the day; at 7 PM on my way to Baguio and at 1AM on my way to Manila. No difference so far as I can see! Maybe they're open 24 hours a day?

When we reached Urdaneta I was ready for another smoke. And so it went all the way to the North Luzon Expressway. It usually takes us four hours to get that far and by that time I'm concerned about the drivers wakefulness. Thus it is that I usually suggest we stop for a coffee at the Shell Service station just south of the Mexico exit. I always buy; to me it's trivial, to him it's 10% of his pay for the drive down and back.

I hope that doesn't come off as being condescending; believe me, it's not meant to be. It seems ridiculous to me that my driver gets paid a mere US$1 an hour for ten hours driving. They tell me that's good money but I know I wouldn't do it. I've talked a little about this in the past; I usually tip him 500 pesos each way telling him it's in gratitude for getting me there in one piece. Money well invested I reckon.

Perhaps not this time :-) As we proceeded down the North Luzon Expressway after the coffee I became aware of the usual indications that he was falling asleep; we started to slow down and drift to the right. I tapped him once or twice and suggested that if he were feeling sleepy it might be an idea to pull over for a nap; I had plenty of time (in the order of 4 hours) up my sleeve. No, he said, he was ok.

Ok. We continued. And then, suddenly, I realised that we were awfully close to that bus in the next lane over. Fortunately we and the bus were travelling in the same direction at pretty much the same speed because we were scraping paint off both our vehicle and the bus. My colleague jogged the driver, he awoke and we veered away. Pulled to a stop and we all got out, shaking a little. The driver and I lit up and we persuaded him to nap for half an hour.

We arrived at the airport about 5 AM, just the right time for me to go to the airline office and request a pass to the airport so I could check in with outdated tickets.

As for the driver? I don't know whether I should mention it to Ohmee or not. He's normally reliable and I don't want to see him lose his job but on the other hand I do want to continue surviving these drives. Maybe the fact that he didn't get his tip this time will send the requisite message. *shrug*