সোমবার, ১৬ নভেম্বর, ২০১৫

The Khulna to Barisal bus

By the time I got on the bus back to Barisal, it was way later than I had planned. Bus travel in Bangladesh (like most developing countries) is not that safe at night, as headlights are optional and there are occasional incidents of armed robbery. They're not that safe in the day either, but it's best not to tempt fate!

Metoo had told the guy at the bus terminal in no uncertain terms that there would be trouble if anything happened to me on the way back, which had the opposite effect than he intended. I would have been fine on my own, but I didn't want to cause offence. Generally if a grown man needs a minder for something as simple as catching the bus, he's an easy target. When Metoo left, and I got on the bus, the ticket guy told me I had to buy another seat for my bag. This is pretty common in Bangladesh, but it felt like a scam, so I asked for a extra ticket before i paid again. He unhappily wrote something to the effect of 'valid for two seats' on my first ticket, and thinking I'd won I left it at that. About thirty minutes into our bus ride, another guy, the ticket wallah, asked me about my bag, so I showed him the note on my ticket. This wasn't good enough, and I think he wanted me to remove my bag or pay again, but all the other passengers had witnessed me paying, so I knew they'd probably stick up for me. I just pointed to the driver, who was involved in the original negotiation, as if to say 'it's his problem' and ignored the ticket wallah.

When we arrived at the vehicle ferry, there was a pretty big queue, and it was getting dark. Heaps of the passengers got off, and walked up the line. I think they going to jump on the bus at the front of the queue and pay again. I didn't want to ask the driver what was happening, as I was pretty sure that he was pissed off about me beating the ticket scam. I figured that if I switched buses, I might have to stand the whole way and pay for two more tickets, and that if I got off my current one they might not let me get back on, so I stayed put. At this point it was getting dark, and our bus looked like this.

I.e empty. By the time we boarded the ferry it was dark. The remaining passengers, most if whom were women, were looking really worried, and some of them were calling home. After the journey from Barisal to Khulna, I'd promised myself that if I caught a bus that went on a vehicle ferry again, I'd get off for the crossing. But at this point there were so few passengers on board that in the case of an emergency, getting to the door wouldn't be a problem. I figured it was better to stay on board and avoid drawing attention to myself, so I just put my hood up and tried to look inconspicuous…

Three hours later, we made it to Barisal. I survived!


Source: https://joeliscurious.wordpress.com/tag/joel-vinsen/

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