Baguio To Go (Part 1)

During the holy week of 2009 Me and my family went to Baguio together with my colleague and his family. We used my Father's 1992 Mitsubishi Pajero Exceed which was bought as a second hand imported from Japan. It was bought in Cebu and was already converted from right hand drive into a left hand drive vehicle. Because of fthis there are some things that's getting used to like the position of the hand break, the automatic transmission shift button, the signal light lever, the wiper lever, and the power windows. One bad thing about imported vehicles from Japan aside from being right hand drive is that the Users Manual is in Japanese that is why you have to press the unknown buttons and levers just to know what they are for. But eventually I was able to manage. We were supposed to leave around 4 in the morning but due to some difficulties waking up so early we left the rendezvous point around 5:00 already. That is why we have to endure the heavy traffic along North Avenue up to the North Express entry point. But the moment that we entered the Expressway the ride went smooth. A good thing when you're with your family and friends while traveling is that traffic time is shortened by a good conversation and a lot of laughs. It's not my first time in NLEX so I have no worries missing an exit. Besides, my friend is a very good navigator. He navigated our trips before when we went to unfamiliar places in Metro Manila and also when we went to Laguna and Tagaytay one time.

The road was wide in NLEX and was more wider in SCTEX. I never thought that I was already going 100km/hr in the expressway if it was not asked by my friend. This was the farthest trip that I drove and it was really a pain in the spine since you have to endure the long hours of paying attention to the road. I had the lives of two families at stake including mine so I said to myself that it would be better look at the road first than anything else. NLEX was not quite wide by that time since there were several vehicles that were traveling with us. Before, there was not much vehicles so you wouldn't notice that you are already doing more than a hundred so I would suggest you take a look at your speedometer most of the time especially when you are getting near the tollgate. The last time that we went here I had a hard time braking since I haven't noticed that I was so fast by the time I approached the Dau tollgate. Good thing that the brakes were doing fine and the tires were still new by that time. But this time this was not the situation due to that experience. My friend took care of the tollgate so I cannot remember how much we paid. We entered SCTEX via the Mabalacat exit. It was my first time to enter SCTEX so I was expecting a different situation since it was known to me that Subic/Clark were strict about speed limits. If NLEX is free flowing then you should consider SCTEX as a wormhole. When you get into SCTEX it's like its a different universe. The road is so calm and the vehicles are far apart from each other. I was cautioned by one of my friends that the place is swarmed by hidden speed cameras since he was caught red handed by the SCTEX authorities as overspeeding and believe me they actually take pictures as evidence so there is no alibi that you can think of when you get caught. Like the interstate highways in the US there is also a minimum speed limit aside from the maximum speed limit. It was really a bad thing that I can't find the cruise control of the Pajero since it was a very hard to keep pressing the accelerator with the proper pressure to maintain a constant speed. At many times I was tempted to go higher than a hundred but was afraid enough to get caught and spend more time processing to get my license back.