Been there, done that, etc.
|
I feel it helpful to reprint these testimonials; often, when I tell friends and those concerned that folks from all over have been commenting on these pages, they rarely believe me. "I mean," they'll say, "who's gonna take time out of what could be a very pleasurable surfing experience to write in about a bunch of horrible, third-world catastrophes?" (I'm paraphrasing here.) "I'll show you," I'll say (that's pretty much verbatim). "I'll post them someday, and take up an entire page with nothing but people's own, bone-chilling experiences of bus travel over spindly bridges and blind curves in rickety buses through lesser-developed parts of countries that few people have ever heard of, much less taken mass transit in." (paraphrasing, again. I'm not very eloquent when pressed.) "You're an idiot." (verbatim.) Unfortunately, this conversation invariably comes around to, "Yes, I suppose if someone was fool enough to take the time to create these pages, than I suppose that there are people out there who would take time – for whatever reason – to respond to them." (They always think their so very clever when they say that.) So. The comments are printed, at right. If you'd like to add to them, by all means. |
 |
Mercedes
bends On minor roads, bus drivers had the habit of driving their huge Mercedes buses while standing up, demonstrating their prowess and joking with the passengers as if it was some kind of floor show! On a trip to the Caspian Sea, I recall one silver-haired "handsome devil" of a driver producing a wad of well-thumbed photos from his hip pocket (while driving up a mountainside at maniac speed) and showing them off to passengers at the front of the bus. The photos were of a mangled Mercedes bus that had plunged into a ravine...very similar to the one I could see through the window. I don't recall any explanation, only his laughter at passenger reaction. Cheers and good luck. Minibus
chicken Guard duty? They wake up only when the dolmus (generally a 10 or 12 seat Mercedes Benz) leaves the road and the clattering of earth and stones on the underside of the vehicle becomes impossible to sleep through. This is potentially even more dangerous than it sounds, cos if you run out of road all too often you'll end up in a militarised area, and the Turkish soldiers take guard duty pretty seriously.
On the other hand, you can travel all day for less than a pound. Churlish
to complain really.
nolo bridgicus
We come up over the hill, mud-splattered headlights barely illuminating
the murky forest. Reaching the summit, the driver jerks awake,
wide-eyed: a huge tree is down across the road, and beyond the tree, the
road ends at a gully where the bridge has been removed. Removed to
where? Sitting with my nose to the window, I wasn't really asking those
kinds of questions.
The driver hits the brakes: s-q-u-i-s-h-h-h! Nothing happens. The driver
gears down. Nothing happens. All the geometry I thought I'd forgotten
comes back to me, measuring the distance between the bus and the tree,
and things just don't balance out very well.
The driver does the last thing he can do: he veers to the left, missing
the tree. He runs into the brush and the bus teeters, kicking up dust
and foliage. We skid to a stop on the edge of the ravine, one wheel
hanging over.
I get out of the bus, along with all the other passengers. My friend,
who's coming from the states to visit — I remember I'd promised him
adventure.
Sheesh.
Moped plunge?
We rounded a
corner -- not even a hairpin one at this point -- and coming directly at us
up the mountain was another vehicle and an old man on a moped. The old
man, about 80, was apparently in some sort of a hurry and he had decided to
pass the other vehicle on his way up the mountain, on his mode of
transportation which is powered by something akin to a lawn mower motor.
The old man and his moped were directly next to the oncoming vehicle, and
thus couldn't pull over, and he was right in our path.
Our bus driver swerved to avoid hitting the man, and the front wheel of the
bus rolled up onto the little stone "barrier" which marked the edge of the
road and "protected" vehicles from the drop down the mountain. As the
front wheel topped the barrier, the bus driver made the decision to
sacrifice one old man instead of thirty ten-year-olds, and he pulled the
bus back over the barrier and to safety. The old man and the moped did not
survive the incident, but we did.
Get a bigger hammer Then we got back in and kept going. We were tired
enough of our seats that we figured we'd be more comfortable, not to
mention safer, if we sat on the top of the bus with the locals. So we
climbed up on top and enjoyed the spectacular views from up there. (I'm
sure it was safer, too.) Halfway to Dhunche there was a lunch stop in a
small town at the bottom of a valley. When we tried to leave town, the bus
simply would not go up the hill. It was overloaded. So we and several
other tourists simply got our packs and started walking. I wanted no
part of that journey any longer.
Related story: Another passenger on that bus related that they'd been on a
different bus recently -- they'd been driving along, curvy mountain roads,
when all of a sudden the driver jerked the bus to a stop. The passengers
all looked on in awe as he sat there, spinning the steering wheel 'round
and 'round and 'round in his hands.
Whoa, dude!
Near-plunge Club |