Driving – PI. The Times They Are A Changing

Like most Angeles expats I enjoy driving down to Subic for a couple of days break now and then, which is why I was so happy when Radial Road 3, better known as the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX) finally opened. While I knew all the old back roads and short cuts, it still used to take me and hour on a really good day, 2-hours on a busy day, and much longer in the wet. This month, using the new SCTEX, easy to get onto via the on-ramps on Clark or from the NLEX, I took she who must be obeyed (the wife) to Subic. Even with the heavens dropping more rain than a typical English summer, it took less than an hour’s driving, door to door from my house in Angeles to parking at the Wild Orchid Beach Resort in Barrio Barretto.

As a normal male driver, i.e. one who hates having to walk more than about 20 yards – or leave his pretty new car on a bit of unguarded scrub ground, my biggest complaint with Barrio Barretto/Baloy Beach has always been the parking. While most hotels have a couple of parking slots, access tends to be through tight alleyways or in small narrow spaces out front – where people squeeze through between the cars, knocking off wing mirrors and scratching the paint as they go. But here again, new developments and a bit of forethought by the owners have improved things. After pulling in through the wide, security guarded entrance to the Wild Orchid, I found myself in a large car park, and could sedately drive right up to the large, covered entrance to unload the baggage (that’s our luggage, not my wife) before leaving the car in a secure parking bay, safe in the knowledge that it would be in the same state when I returned to it.

So I guess it is true to say the times they are a changing for drivers in the Philippine Islands – now if we could just sort out those pesky, overcrowded roads in Manila!