My Ride From Hell

Now for the scoop on my hellacious bus fiasco. I hope you’re sitting down.

Let me preface this by saying that my bus ride down to DC from New York was flawless. It was a spacious bus. Big TVs. The bathroom was clean. Overall it was a great experience. In fact, I thought I had found the best Chinatown bus in the world.

Fast forward to the events of Sunday, August 24th, 2008.

I began my travels around 4:10—Alicia, Emily, and Kara drove me to Chinatown attempting to get me on the 5:00 bus. The 5:00 bus for which I had reservations. The 5:00 bus that Chinese people who got there AFTER me got on. The 5:00 bus that ultimately left me behind. The Chinese lady who squashed my dreams summed it up best: “Five o’clock….no,” she barked in her little communist accent.” “YOU…SIX O’CLOCK.” I wanted to squash her face. But I refrained. And instead, I waited.

I waited and waited for that nasty six o’clock bus. My phone was dead. My ipod was dead. I had no book, magazine, or money to buy anything. So I just sat there. While I was looking remarkably like a hobo, I met Dan who was also waiting. He was a self-proclaimed 100% Irish, Korean and would be the only reason I stayed sane for the next SIX HOURS we were cramped onto that ridiculous third-world-country-esque bus of doom.

First, there was no air conditioning for the first few hours. And when someone finally said something to the driver, the bus started making strange sputterings that sounded like a once functioning air-cooling system that had obviously given up on life eons ago. Little spurts of cool air wafted out of the vents—but nothing worth the effort the bus was clearly exerting to produce it. Poor Dan was wearing sweat pants. I would have died if I had on anything more than my sundress. It was sweaty. It was smelly. And we just wanted to open a window. But all we could do was look outside at the beautiful weather through the prison of the glass and pray to God we would survive. There was an emergency exit we considered smashing through—but figured that would only make the situation worse. So we suffered. And tried to distract ourselves from our awful reality by talking about better times.

Then I started noticing that the bus was turning around every now and then. I thought to myself, now that’s odd. Because the last time I checked, we pretty much go in a straight line to get from DC to New York. Not too many curves in the equation. Then I realized, that @&%@ bus driver is @#%&$# lost! A ride that should have taken 4 and a half hours ultimately took six because of a) horrible traffic and b) a bus driver who obviously had no clue what he was doing. I hate incompetence. Especially when I’m paying to be subjected to it.

So I finally got to New York at 12:30. I would have kissed the ground…but it’s New York. That would be gross.

So the moral of the story: there is no safe Chinatown bus. For $35 you could get a vehicle reminiscent of a holocaust transport just as easily as transportation conditions westerners have come to expect as normal. So be wary. And bring a fan just in case.