DrGMIA
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2011
- Bikes
- Oldest 1931, newest 2016, numerous makes and models in between on several continents
Manila, Philippines
I have been motorcycling in the Philippines for some time, poking around on a customized “big motorcycle” (over 400 cc). The below is part of a motorcycle magazine article to be translated and published in a foreign publication. Here, by request, is the segment in English.
Not lost in Manila, Philippines
Piloting a motorcycle through Manila. Think of it in the same cranial zone as would be sticking your head down into a dank well-used toilet like pictured below and asking, “Hey, ___________, (insert whomever’s name you like) are you down there?”
There was no super highway around Manila. Several vectored into the central part of the city, then dumped the cars, trucks, buses, jeepneys and motorcycles into the labyrinth of potholed, clogged, unmarked, and traffic congested streets.
Four times I had dealt with the guts of downtown Manila, the streets seemingly like an infected and cancer ridden lower intestine. The motorcycle adventure of driving through Manila each time was as close to nightmare adventure riding as one could experience.
I had heard the tale of two Germans trying to ride their big BMW adventure motorcycles through Manila. They were dedicated GPS users, no paper maps for Gunter and Jurgen. If a GPS showed their route, then “It must be so!” They marched through Manila following the pointed arrow on their Garmin screens.
After several hours, when seeing the same monument twice, Gunter yelled, “We make two circles around the center part of Manila!”
Jurgen shouted back at Gunter, “Vot est das! I follow you, we both follow GPS. Vot! Vot! Vot!”
Gunter, realizing Jurgen was in the red zone of STRESS, replied, “We stop fur bier.”
Jurgen, always a foolish follower, nodded a “Ja!”
Gunter thinks, “Jurgen est stupid. Follow me, follow GPS. We need a guide.”
And stop they did for a beer. While washing the diesel fumes off their teeth and tonsils they asked for directions from the street side vendor selling beer, soda, chips and chewing gum. This was their second mistake.
The person from whom they asked directions would likely not in their life make as much money selling beer and soda from their small street shop as one of the two BMW motorcycles cost. Humbled, but not wanting to appear “low,” the vendor gave directions. Suspected was the vendor never having been more than 2-3 kilometers from where their shop was located and had no conception of where the BMW’ers wanted to go, but offered directions anyway, to save face.
The BMW adventure bike riders eventually squirmed out of the lower intestines of Manila and found themselves happily driving down a four lane toll road towards Subic, but only after another half circle of the city.
(Here the German GPS’er tale ended.)
The DrGMIA into the bowels of Manila began.
“It scores high on the scale of buffalo-adv-motorcycle-droppings.”
(That was a quote I admit to making.)
I was armed with a paper map purchased from a hotel front desk. It showed a new toll road connecting the north and south roads into Manila. The map lied.
The blue super highway showing on the map was not completed yet. All traffic was spit off the nice highway and into the lower bowels of Manila. To make the adventure more nightmarish road construction caused all vehicles to detour through neighborhoods of low income housing. This was not the lower intestine of Manila; it was closer to the sphincter.
Manila was hot and humid, like a steam bath. Traffic moved slowly, often coming to a halt as trucks and jeepneys met head-on in streets with room for only one vehicle. Stalled in the foul smelling congestion was full-on breathing exhaust fumes mixed with stinking street smells that had cooked for a few hours. It was not a fun motorcycle adventure.
Knowing my paper map was telling me falsehoods, and not wanting to circle Manila like the German GPS’ers did, I decided to use a tool I learned in 1970 when lost in Paris one night: I asked a local motorcyclist: “Which way to Subic?”
The motorcyclist asked me back, “Are you lost?”
“No,” I answered. “I know I am in Manila, just want to know which way is out.”
The motorcyclist first tried to tell me how to make the next few turns, then gave up and said, “Follow me.” He turned on his turn signals to a blinking mode and started threading his way through traffic. I followed.
My guide went out of his way to lead me to a street that would, if I stayed on it, take me to the toll road and on to Subic.
Before we parted we spoke for several minutes about our motorcycles, travels and work. I gave him several motorcycle stickers to pay for his guide service which he happily accepted. He told me he was a member of the federal traffic police, and thus the reason for the flashing lights on his motorcycle. He then invited me to a Manila Bike Week and we traded email addresses. It was an interesting way to meet a local motorcyclist.
While I was not lost in Manila, I was certainly in a twisted situation. Possibly when I return the super highway will be completed. Until it is I will place my trust in asking for local guidance in exchange for a few motorcycle stickers versus GPSing my way two-three times around Manila or following my lying map.
[The words and photographs in this aimlessly wandering post are my jaded journalistic way to have a little fun, counter-postulate or postulate and laugh at myself. No one should take anything included personally unless they perceive the literary shoe as fitting, and that is their opinion, a reflection of how they see themselves, albeit not my intention.]
I have been motorcycling in the Philippines for some time, poking around on a customized “big motorcycle” (over 400 cc). The below is part of a motorcycle magazine article to be translated and published in a foreign publication. Here, by request, is the segment in English.
Not lost in Manila, Philippines
Piloting a motorcycle through Manila. Think of it in the same cranial zone as would be sticking your head down into a dank well-used toilet like pictured below and asking, “Hey, ___________, (insert whomever’s name you like) are you down there?”
There was no super highway around Manila. Several vectored into the central part of the city, then dumped the cars, trucks, buses, jeepneys and motorcycles into the labyrinth of potholed, clogged, unmarked, and traffic congested streets.
Four times I had dealt with the guts of downtown Manila, the streets seemingly like an infected and cancer ridden lower intestine. The motorcycle adventure of driving through Manila each time was as close to nightmare adventure riding as one could experience.
I had heard the tale of two Germans trying to ride their big BMW adventure motorcycles through Manila. They were dedicated GPS users, no paper maps for Gunter and Jurgen. If a GPS showed their route, then “It must be so!” They marched through Manila following the pointed arrow on their Garmin screens.
After several hours, when seeing the same monument twice, Gunter yelled, “We make two circles around the center part of Manila!”
Jurgen shouted back at Gunter, “Vot est das! I follow you, we both follow GPS. Vot! Vot! Vot!”
Gunter, realizing Jurgen was in the red zone of STRESS, replied, “We stop fur bier.”
Jurgen, always a foolish follower, nodded a “Ja!”
Gunter thinks, “Jurgen est stupid. Follow me, follow GPS. We need a guide.”
And stop they did for a beer. While washing the diesel fumes off their teeth and tonsils they asked for directions from the street side vendor selling beer, soda, chips and chewing gum. This was their second mistake.
The person from whom they asked directions would likely not in their life make as much money selling beer and soda from their small street shop as one of the two BMW motorcycles cost. Humbled, but not wanting to appear “low,” the vendor gave directions. Suspected was the vendor never having been more than 2-3 kilometers from where their shop was located and had no conception of where the BMW’ers wanted to go, but offered directions anyway, to save face.
The BMW adventure bike riders eventually squirmed out of the lower intestines of Manila and found themselves happily driving down a four lane toll road towards Subic, but only after another half circle of the city.
(Here the German GPS’er tale ended.)
The DrGMIA into the bowels of Manila began.
“It scores high on the scale of buffalo-adv-motorcycle-droppings.”
(That was a quote I admit to making.)
I was armed with a paper map purchased from a hotel front desk. It showed a new toll road connecting the north and south roads into Manila. The map lied.
The blue super highway showing on the map was not completed yet. All traffic was spit off the nice highway and into the lower bowels of Manila. To make the adventure more nightmarish road construction caused all vehicles to detour through neighborhoods of low income housing. This was not the lower intestine of Manila; it was closer to the sphincter.
Manila was hot and humid, like a steam bath. Traffic moved slowly, often coming to a halt as trucks and jeepneys met head-on in streets with room for only one vehicle. Stalled in the foul smelling congestion was full-on breathing exhaust fumes mixed with stinking street smells that had cooked for a few hours. It was not a fun motorcycle adventure.
Knowing my paper map was telling me falsehoods, and not wanting to circle Manila like the German GPS’ers did, I decided to use a tool I learned in 1970 when lost in Paris one night: I asked a local motorcyclist: “Which way to Subic?”
The motorcyclist asked me back, “Are you lost?”
“No,” I answered. “I know I am in Manila, just want to know which way is out.”
The motorcyclist first tried to tell me how to make the next few turns, then gave up and said, “Follow me.” He turned on his turn signals to a blinking mode and started threading his way through traffic. I followed.
My guide went out of his way to lead me to a street that would, if I stayed on it, take me to the toll road and on to Subic.
Before we parted we spoke for several minutes about our motorcycles, travels and work. I gave him several motorcycle stickers to pay for his guide service which he happily accepted. He told me he was a member of the federal traffic police, and thus the reason for the flashing lights on his motorcycle. He then invited me to a Manila Bike Week and we traded email addresses. It was an interesting way to meet a local motorcyclist.
While I was not lost in Manila, I was certainly in a twisted situation. Possibly when I return the super highway will be completed. Until it is I will place my trust in asking for local guidance in exchange for a few motorcycle stickers versus GPSing my way two-three times around Manila or following my lying map.
[The words and photographs in this aimlessly wandering post are my jaded journalistic way to have a little fun, counter-postulate or postulate and laugh at myself. No one should take anything included personally unless they perceive the literary shoe as fitting, and that is their opinion, a reflection of how they see themselves, albeit not my intention.]
