Bus Rides Gone Bad

Every time I go home I take a bus to my hometown of Ajuy, 87 kms from the city, a two-hour journey amidst verdant fields and stretches of hilly terrain overlooking the azure sea separating Panay from Negros island.


Steel and men.

I took my usual bus line home, Ceres. Yes, the goddess of agriculture. We were cruising along the national highway when the bus screeched. Our driver stepped on the brakes but not before the steel rods protruding from the truck in front us pierced our bus' windshield. Our bus windshield had cracks like the sun's rays. The conductor told the driver to chase after the truck driver. But I knew that our bus driver knew he was at fault. The truck with steel rods we was stationary when we hit it. The truck managed to get away.

But what ensued was three police stations visit in three different towns. What was usually a 1 hour and 45 min ride took 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Well, finally I made it home and once I am in the comforts of my home, I just managed a "nakabunggo ang ceres nga nasakyan ko, dugay dugay ang byahe"


Of drunk and unruly busmates

Going back to the city,fresh from my eventful ride two days before, I found myself on a packed bus with no conductor. The driver was also the conductor.

And for a seatmate, I got a drunk, rowdy guy who was talking #@a%$ the whole time saying if he was the conductor, things won't turn out this way. Add to that more passengers are getting on the already cramped bus. It was getting dark and the drunk guy's ramblings and endless taunts of the driver were getting on my nerves.

But a wake-upper in this story is when people started complaining about the bus' numerous stops to pick up passengers, the driver/conductor asked the complainants how would you feel if you were the one on the road trying to hail this "last trip" bus and it doesn't stop? At the point I had to agree with manong conductor, the best way to look at an incovenient situation is to see it from the perspective of the other party. So rather than bitch about it, I might as well just sit back and experience this misadventure.

As G. K. Chesterton said, an adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. And an inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

my new crush

I have a new crush. He's big, white, and really clean. And he also has a very feminine feature on the side, big flowers. Mannrose Liner.That's his real name. My latest crush is a bus.

My heart skips a beat whenever I see it. For reasons I cannot explain, the sight of this new clean bus plying the streets of Makati inspires me. Maybe it's the fact that it's the first time I have seen a nice clean bus in the Metro. With all those second-hand Korean and Japanese buses scattered all over the city, it's quite refreshing to see this rare sight.

The bus philosophy

But there's more to my unexplainable affinity to this bus. It’s a silver lining behind these dark clouds of hopelessness looming all over us. However disheartening our situation might be, especially with everything that’s been happening all around, it’s uplifting to see something different, something unexpected ………that along our crowded thoroughfares, a nice clean bus may come along….
Even if we only see old dilapidated buses for now, we just have to wait and make sure we won’t miss the nice bus when it finally passes by