Here to stay

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

Those of us who think sea travel will become, if it has not yet turned, passé because of cheap air travel, can think again. While airline tickets have become cheaper, and I understand will continue to even be cheaper, I don't think this will render sea transportation Jurassic.

I used to think that way. After all, who will keep taking the boat when airplanes are much faster and more convenient? I thought only those who still do not go online, where one can usually purchase cheaper tickets, will continue taking the boat, but at the rate computers have become an integral, indispensable part of our everyday, it was only a matter of time when online ticketing will become the norm, and with cheap tickets available there, one of the first victims would be sea travel. Or so I thought.

This week's boat trip made me realize boat transportation will stay on, at least within our time. Without ships, who will transport these people who travel like they were bringing their entire lives with them, the ones who not only bring their bags and luggage but sacks of provisions, and even appliances? Sure airline tickets may be cheap, but what about the baggage?

I don't think airlines can take the kind of baggage the average sea passenger carries.

Let me put that in figures. Airlines accommodate 15, sometimes 20, kilos of check-in baggage and seven hand-carried. With cheap tickets, they are very strict with that, because I understand total weight determines the volume of fuel they have to use. Thus you see, at the check-in counters, people usually opening their bags and removing excess baggage, and in many cases, even throwing out the least important things in their bags so they do not pay for their excess weight. This, by the way, is a pervasive scene at airports. There must be a way of teaching our passengers, especially our overseas workers this excess baggage rule. Not only does this cause inconvenience in the check-in line, it breaks my heart to see them fork out their hard-earned dollars and dinars for baggage they would have shipped more cheaply by courier.

Let's face it. Pinoys do not travel light. In international airports, you find the boarding line where passengers lug all sorts of baggage, from portable TVs to electric guitars and you know that flight is bound for Manila. Oftentimes, I cannot understand, sometimes even shocked, by the things we try to stuff our baggage -- pump toothpaste, sandalwood soap, Japanese rice, takeaways, hotel toilet paper and even ash trays, towels and doormats, take-out cups and glasses and all sorts of stuff we say, are souvenirs of our travel. Really.

With sea travel, a passenger is allowed 75 kgs free baggage, for as long as they are personal effects and will fit, in his or her place of accommodation. Of course, it is never clear what that means, the guys at the pier just decide whether your luggage fits the 75-kg. rule or not. I was made to pay, for example, for two boxes of home decors that could have well have fit in my cabin and it was pointless to argue with the in-charge who wasn't saying anything and was just writing out the OR for the "excess baggage" fees.

Ok. It is not a perfect world.*

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