Ep. 115: What It's Like To Commute In The Philippines

What it's like to commute to work in the Philippines. So once upon a time I commuted to work and I was fresh out of college. I rode my moped to work 30 minutes each way, which was an interesting thing. I wrote it all through the winter here in Utah, and we had some really, really cold days. And I was on this moped. It was like 150cc's and I rode it for 30 minutes and it was interesting. It only lasted eight months, though. It took me eight months to quit that job and to start working from home. I've worked at home, from home ever since. That was 2004, 2005. I don't really know the pain of commuting, but others do. So my ofs, Julia, before she started working for me, which was, I think in 2010, she had worked an office job which required her to commute in Manila. And then it also took her all over the country. So she's done quite a bit of traveling around and commuting. And it turns out in the Philippines, you have a bunch of options. So here's what she had to say about it. We have buses and trains. Like most countries in the world, we're world renowned for our jeepneys, but we also have other options that make commuting an adventure. So jeepney, if you don't know what it is, it's kind of like a mini bus where passengers get in and out from the back and they have benches along the sides and in the back of the bus. And so it's kind of like a truck with a truck bed with benches in the back. And it's covered, the bed is covered. They're small. They get super, super crowded. I've never been in a jeepney, but I've seen them, like with people hanging out the back and they're driving down main roads. I'm just giving you that description. Hopefully we can get a picture in the video here. If you're in, if you're, if you're watching this, listening to this on the podcast, go search up jeepney in the Philippines. It's kind of an interesting thing. She continues. If you live inside a subdivision, our version of a suburb, the best way to get around is to ride a tricycle or a tricycad. These are motorcycles. Tricycle or bikes. Trisicad with sidecars that either follow a regulated route or you can take them anywhere you need to go within the community. So because of their small size, most tricycles and trisicads are not allowed on major roads. But in Places where public transportation is limited, you'll find these vehicles sharing the road with cars, trucks and buses. So I can tell you that I've ridden tricycles a lot of times. So I've only been to the Philippines once. It was in 2010. I took my family to the Philippines. We went to Boracay, which is really a tourist destination. It's a small island and we really just sat on the beach for five weeks. I brought my whole team there for a week and we, I got to hang out with them, which was totally, totally amazing. We rode trikes, they call them trikes, all over that island. And there was kind of one main road through it and there would be cars and there'd be trikes. And it was, it was really, it was, it was really kind of fun. And we would get my family, which there were five of us at the time, we'd get all five of us on a trike and that was not an issue. She continues. Another commuting option is the calisa, or horse drawn carriage. In Manila, the calisa is mainly a tourist attraction, which you can imagine, but in places like Tuguegaro and Vigan, Calica can get you where other vehicles can't go. If you go deep into rural areas, you'll see carriages drawn by carabao, Philippine water buffalo. The more modern version is called Klig, where they use a motorized hand tractor instead of a carabao. So hopefully we can get this picture into the video. If you're, if you're listening to this podcast, just audio, you'll need to go look this up or check out my newsletter that I sent out about this. This is so interesting. I'm going to describe it. It looks like it's like somehow a flatbed trailer frame that they stuck a, a pickup truck's bed on. But the bed only covers like the lot, the back half of the trailer. And then on the front of the trailer, they attached it to an axle and wheels. They have a tiny little motor sitting on top of it that'll turn those wheels. I mean like a lawnmower motor attached to these kind of front tractor wheels. And then this weird contraption to help steer it when you're sitting 10ft behind it. The whole thing, I mean, I can only imagine this is just like. This is third world ingenuity where they use what they have and they invent things and they figure it out, they make it work, which is exactly what they've done here. There are seven people on this picture that she sent me and they're all smiling and getting where they need to go. So Julia continues, last but not least is the Habal Habal. It's a motorcycle modified to fit up to nine people instead of two. It's also called Skylab because it kind of looks like a space satellite if you're squinting. These motorcycles are used in mountainous areas. She says, yes, I've tried them all. No, there are no seat belts. So the Skylab or Habal Habal is kind of like a motorcycle with a platform built across the front shock and a platform built across the back. And yeah, the picture she sent me has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Nine people on this motorcycle. And now, just so you know, this isn't like an 1100 motorcycle. This is like a 150. It's like a 150cc's with nine people. So, yeah, I've ridden the trikes. It was pretty fun for me. I've talked to other people that have been there and they were terrified of them and didn't want to do it. But this is how come commuting in the Philippines works, how you get around. Now, if you're in Manila and you're commuting very often, you're gonna take a jeepney or a bus or maybe a car. Commute times there are so long. I've talked a lot to people who had a two hour daily each way commute in Manila, just a wreck. And that's one of the reasons why they love working from home through onlinejobs. Ph. Where they're gonna find a good job. It's gonna say, I mean, can you imagine saving four hours a day not commuting? Gosh, it's such a big deal. You can read more about kind of the Philippines culture and things that we do to, to take care of our people and to help them as they work from home. In my book, the Altruisting Lever, it's available@altruisinglever.com it's free if you'll pay shipping, which I think is $7, and we'll ship it to you. It's a physical hard copy book. And you'll learn so much about the culture and how things work and how you can be really, really good at this, at getting people in the Philippines to work for you.