Thursday, January 25, 2007

Woes of Public Transport

I was riding the bus the other day (like I’ve been doing everyday the whole of my life) and was wondering what utter chaos it is.

If you are among the unlucky masses, like yours truly, who doesn’t have their own private transportation devices such as a car, motorcycle or even a moped, the only means of getting around is to use the instruments of public transportation. In my case these are mostly buses and three-wheelers. After relying on these for all my life, it’s a sin not to write a few words about them.

First of all there are the busses. They provide as much comfort as riding an earthmover. Most of them are basically lorries with seats and railings stuck in. Well at least they have cushioned seats. Some use this neat little trick to load more passengers by setting the seats closer together. The idea being that they can put in more seats in the limited length of the bus. The more seats, the more passengers you can load up. The result of this is that nobody above four feet can sit on them without getting pains afterwards. If you have long legs you have to be a contortionist to get a ride sitting down. Your upper body looks straight on while you lower body is twisted and hanging out in the aisle. If you’re not lucky to get a seat then you’ll have to hang on to something and do a balancing act at the same time. All bus drivers have this wonderful talent of getting a bus stop without slowing down. 60 to 0 in 0 seconds. Unless your holding on tight you’ll be still going forward when the buses stops or have an intimate moment with the floor. It all becomes much more fun during rush hour. You get to ride cramped up with a whole bunch of strangers packed up like sardines in a tin. Errant elbows sticking you in sensitive places, stampedes on your foot, BO and other assorted smells…oh yes what fun it is. And the conductors are true magicians themselves. No matter how packed the bus is they still manage to load more passengers inside. They prefer to think of the bus as having an infinite amount of space. The four walls of the bus is just a trick of the mind you see, it’s all in the head of the passenger and the conductors know the truth. Of course people who are blind to this fact get the life squashed out of them. Oh well life goes on…

So until the day I get my own device of transportation (don’t see that happening anytime soon the way they are raising prices. Just when you think enough saved up the prices go up…oh well that’s entirely another story) I plan to get myself an armour suite and keep on riding the busses…

Cheers!!!

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