The original jeepneys were U.S. army leftovers of the Second World War period, turned by the filipinos into minibuses for public transport. Today"s jeepneys seem to be some kind of bastard transport from hell, born in the nightmares of Ronald McDonald or Pennywise (the clown from Stephen King"s novel "It"). (I think that the priest in the picture is trying to perform an exorcism to free the jeepney from satan.)

As you can see in the pictures, when it comes to decoration, anything goes. Apparently, the filipino standard of good taste follows the rule of "the more pain it causes to the eye, the better."

Just two weeks in Manila and I"ve already seen jeepneys dedicated to Dragon Ball Z, Britney Spears, General Douglas MacArthur, Ratzinger, Star Wars... I even saw one totally covered with motifs from the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy!! The one in the pic, for example, is totally covered with names and pictures of rock stars.

Although the preferred theme for decoration seems to be catholicism. (Christ and the Virgin Mary seem to be really omnipresent, at least in every major city of the Phillipines.) Yesterday someone told me that there is a huge jeepney export bussines between the Phillipines and some african countries. Apparently good taste is spreading all over the world. Be prepared.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this educational post on freakish public transport, which happens to be my first post in english (for all my non-spanish speaking fans). Now I"ve got to go to my new-and-soon-more-than-happy-shared home (on jeepney, of course, it"s just 7.5 pesos!!) PD: Alain, if you happen to know the correct translation for "hortera", you are more than welcome to help :)