Manila Traffic

So I just got back from Aklan and let me tell you, that trip just added to the ten thousand posts that I need to start writing ASAP.  I know, I know… my mountain of backlog is just piling up! Bad blogger.  Bad, bad blogger!

Seriously, it was such a wonderful and refreshing trip that I almost didn’t want to go back to the city. Oh,  to just stay there in our house by the beach, with nary a worry and just the sound of the lapping waves right outside our window. Such paradise!

We (Hubby, brother and myself) almost didn’t make that trip, though. And all because of traffic!

One of the things that we have to be prepared for whenever we travel is the commute from our home to the airport. We live quite far from Pasay/Paranaque where all four airports are located.  And  traffic is almost always so bad that what should be a 45 minute-commute  takes more than 1 1/2 hours. Another source of headache is taking a cab. Which is stressful because we have to deal with taxi drivers who charge (sometimes way) more than what’s on the meter.  If I can hire a car or a van, I’d definitely go for it. But that takes planning and well, more money than I’m willing to spend.

Anyway, we didn’t have to deal with power-tripping taxi drivers on the morning of our flight.  Instead, what confronted us was the terrible traffic jam. (Mental note:  avoid booking Friday flights.) Everything seemed okay until we reached Katipunan.  There was a bottleneck at the Katipunan-Santolan intersection and everything just went downhill from there. To get out of Katipunan, our driver turned right at Santolan only to get stuck  for more than 20 minutes.  The whole time, I was cursing myself for not leaving home early enough. (Mental note:  DO leave home 3 hours before your flight.) To make the long story short, we arrived at the airport just in the nick of time. Thank God!

And so, the moral of this story is:  never underestimate Manila traffic. It’s not world-famous for nothing.

Oh and by the way, we barely missed another traffic jam on the day that we got back.  It was only when we got home that we found out about the bus bombing incident in EDSA.  But that’s another (sad) story.