Ode to a pedicab

To the tune of “Smelly Cat” (with apologies to Phoebe Buffet).

Pedicab, pedicab,

I really hate using you

Pedicab, pedicab,

It’s not your fault.

There’s probably nothing that illustrates the immediate challenge of adjusting to life in the rural Philippines as well as my relationship with pedicabs. I have a love / hate relationship with them. Okay, if I’m honest, it’s more of a hate/hate relationship. Let me explain…

If you don’t have a motorbike or a car, the only way to get around the provincial capital, Catarman, is on foot or by pedicab (a bicycle with a sidecar) or trike (a motorbike with a sidecar). They cost the same – P5 within one side of town or P10 to cross the runway to the other side of town.*

They both have a shade canopy for the passenger, and in the rain, some riders partially enclose the sidecar in see-through plastic (which helps, kind of, an umbrella is recommended to cover the gaps). The posh pedicabs, and most trikes, have shade for the rider as well. They are made out of wood and metal with a foam-covered seat (which does little to soothe the impact of the potholes). They are nominally designed to carry two people (two very small people, with no bottoms, elbows, or shopping bags – all of which I usually have). I’m covered in bruises from squeezing in and out of them with colleagues or doing my shopping. The roofs are quite low, so if you’re over 5’5” expect to bumps your head on the roof whenever you hit a bump in the road!

In short, pedicabs are slow, uncomfortable, too hot when it’s sunny, too wet when it’s raining, and a really excellent way to inhale lungfuls of noxious fumes from other road users, particularly when stuck in evening traffic trying to get through the gates at the runway. Trikes are quicker and generally slightly more comfortable, but where do you think those noxious fumes come from?!

Riding in a pedicab also makes me feel like a pampered princess, or an echo from the colonial past, sitting comfortably while everyone else does all the work (although I think I’ve made the point already that they’re not actually comfortable). They’re open-sided so that everyone can see you, which, being one of only two foreign woman in town, means being stared at a lot. It’s not hostile staring, but it’s also not a comfortable sensation having everyone you pass stare at you as though you were from another planet or have two heads or a pair of horns!

There is one thing I love about pedicabs – they are very colourful. Most are painted in bright colours in geometric designs with the family name (or perhaps a wife or child’s name) on the back.

But here’s the thing…

The men who operate pedicabs are among the poorest in the community. They spend hours every day, cycling backwards and forwards in the hot sun or the pouring rain, earning P5-10 per trip (P20 if they have two passengers) and that’s what puts food on the family table.

To put that in Aussie terms… say a pedicab driver does 10 trips across town (about 3km on average) at P10 (AUD $0.30) per trip, that’s P100 for 30km or AUD $3. Let’s say the driver does 20 trips per day, half of them with two people, that’s still only AUD $9 per day. Could you live on that, let alone raise a family on it? Could you cycle 60km in >30ºC and >70% humidity propelling up to two or three times your own weight?

So, I’m going to keep using pedicabs, and I’m going to try hard not to feel so guilty or uncomfortable using them, because I have choices that most of the people operating them don’t. And not using them isn’t going to help anyone at all.

I will learn to enjoy them… hinay hinay la (slowly slowly, in the Waray-Waray language)

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* The runway splits the town in two. To the west, is the administrative side, Dalakit, where most of the government offices are, and where I live and work. To the east is the main part of town, with the majority of shops, restaurants, hospitals, etc. You can only cross the runway in a vehicle before 6am or after 2pm when the gates are open. In between, you have to get out at the gate, climb through the doorway, walk across the runway, and board another pedicab on the other side.

This is not as dangerous as it sounds, because there’s only one plane a day, which arrives around 6:15 and departs around 07:00, so I’m not sure why the gates are closed until 2pm. I’ve heard various theories and have no idea which one is true. So, if travelling across town between 6am-2pm, the best option is to catch a trike which can take you the longer way round on the bypass road with a pleasant view of the rice paddies.