If You Can Play Mario Kart, You Can Drive In Manila

In fact, that might actually be the “simulator” they use when assessing driving skills and abilities – think naval aviators in zero gravity, G-force, virtual reality simulator machines, Filipino style. Which, of course, translates perfectly into being chased by Donkey Kong driving a rickshaw, honking madly while blindly changing lanes and throwing apples and mushrooms at whatever/whoever is in the way… It’s scary, to say the least.

The first thing I noticed was that the horn is more of a rite of passage on Philippine roads than it is in New York City. It often takes the place of blinkers, actually. Blinkers are way too proactive. No, it’s much easier for the 1982 Kia to just start merging in front of a city bus and then start honking madly as if to say, “you will let me iiiiiiinnnnn!”

It wasn’t long after the horns that I realized the ominous lack of traffic lights. This epiphany was brought on by the sheer terror that seized my mind and body when the hotel taxi driver picked me up from the airport on my first trip to Manila. Approximately 300 yards out of the airport gates he turned left into oncoming traffic without any hesitation or apparent fear whatsoever. I reached for the nonexistent Oh-Shit! handles thinking my death was imminent, and then watched in fascination as cars, busses, and Jeepneys just started slowing down as he honked his way across four lanes.

Another noteworthy observation is that the roads and “highways” in the Philippines are not at all unlike the windy, random, and hazardous roads of Mario Kart. For a third world country, Manila is a pretty prosperous and fast-growing city. As a result, buildings popped up everywhere with no plan or structure to the layout of the city, and as such there are tiny little byways that loop around in every which direction and somehow end up merging out into a major road. I’m telling you, this city is next to impossible to navigate as a foreigner. The taxi drivers we get around the city constantly amaze me. The other day I took one to the mall to go souvenir shopping and the guy squeezed between two cement road blocks to go on a basketball court-sized, completely open and unlined section under a highway ramp. Once we got to the other side I realized there was a tiny road leading out through two more giant cement road blocks that was basically an on ramp to another, bigger road. WTF. This was an actual, designated road! He didn’t just get creative and hope some barriers to get the Americans to their destination. Crazy.

My boss and I have decided that in an effort to maintain our sanity while on the roads of Manila, time in the car should either be spent talking on the cell phone or engaged in deeply heated debates so as to take our attention away from the dozens of death-defying maneuvers our drivers are pulling out of their asses. So far it has worked – all of the events have turned into hilarious story material rather than trips to hospitals. Most of the taxi drivers here just keep a rosary hanging from their rear view mirror, and rub it frantically every time they fly around a blind corner or thrust themselves within a centimeter of an on-coming bus. I thought they should be throwing the oil slicked rags or pineapple bombs out their windows, but then again, I was never very good at Mario Kart.