Day 4 - A bus ride to remember

A grey and rainy day, got up early to go to Hideaway island, and then decided it would be a waste as the weather was so crap. We decided to play UpWords to pass the morning away. Our lunch destination was Iririki Island, an island resort within Port Vila. We had previously said that we would attempt the bus 'system' in the light of day, and as we exited our lobby there was a bus waiting. We paid our 150 vatu and got dropped into town, no dramas. We had contemplated staying at the Iririki Resort when choosing our holiday, and once we got there, we were a bit envious of it. It was beautiful and overlooked the ocean. Lunch was nice and Mick enjoyed watching the waiters stuff up people's orders (ours was 90% correct, we weren't charged for 1 beer, they are the sorts of mistakes  we enjoy!).

Given our success on the bus earlier in the day, we decided to try the bus on the wy home. The rest of the blog will be written twice, so you can see how we each interpreted the series of events that unfolded...

Mick: 

Standing at the bus stop, a reggae bus turns up with loud music. It looks to be in one piece and not about to fall apart, so I flag it down. I ask the driver if he can take us to the Holiday Inn. I get a blank stare, so I say it again, a little slower and louder; still nothing! I was then going to get my room key out of my wallet to show him the hotel, but decided against it as I dint want him seeing all my money. At this point, the 'passenger' in the front seat says "yes". So we jumped in hoping that he knows where the hotel is. The driver looks back at us through rear vision mirror, and then cranks up  the music, and other 'passengers' start laughing. At this point I start to question whether I hailed a bus or just a regular car!

The bus starts heading in the right direction, and as it makes the right turns to get back to our hotel, I start to relax. The bus struggles up the final hill before getting to our hotel, and now my only concern is that the bus is going to break down, and we will have to walk a bit. After hitting the peak of the hill, the bus quickly picks up speed as it heads down the hill, and it zooms straight past our hotel turn off. The hotel was less than a 1min down the road, so even though he had other passengers to drop of, logic says he would drop us first. I start to get concerned now, thinking, do we just ask to pull over now and walk the 2 mins. The bus somehow gets a new lease on life and is hooning down the road, our hotel getting further and further away. It is currently raining, and this crazy bus driver is tailgating and over taking at hi speeds. I, too afraid to say anything, and thats who I begin to pray. I prayed and prayed that we won't get killed in a car accident, or get taken out the back of Vanuatu and bashed! 

As we are getting further away from the hotel, and getting further away for civilization. I think our chances of getting a taxi back are slim, so I am willing to walk back. While still fervently praying, I finally whisper to Damo, do you think we should just get out and walk! Damo agrees (thank God, as I didn't want to debate this one as we were hurtling down the road!). We were approaching a round about so we had to slow down a bit. The bus pulled into a service station, we quickly jumped out and headed back up the road. As we walked, the bus drove past us, they probably had no idea what the hell we were doing, but I didn't care! It turns out, we got out of the bus so far away from the hotel that it would have been just as quick to walk from town!

Damo: 

After a serene peaceful lunch at Iririki island we decided to return to Port Vila to do some shopping, however it was a Sunday, and that meant that every store in town, bar one small store selling an assortment of cheap beach towels and even cheaper toilet paper, was closed. So we decided to go back to the hotel. As it was drizzling we decided to catch a taxi or a bus, whichever came first. Unfortunately for us what came first was a bus.

Now the buses in Vanuatu are not really buses. They are more like mini-vans built entirely from spare parts that have somehow survived the 90's and 00's either by sheer magnetism or by being held together by a thin veneer of dust. Or maybe they are held together by the cheap decals that are plastered all over them, decrying anything from mobile phone carriers to slogans like "Respect for All". And it seems that every male between the ages of 18 and 35 drives one of these vans with their surreptitious red B on the number plate - so much so that there are always hundreds of these vans skimming around the streets of Port Vila.

But not today. To our immediate misfortune there were only 2 buses running along the streets of PV today. One, a clapped out gunmetal wonder complete with maroon pin striping straight out if the 80's spewing plumes of black smoke from its rear. And the other I hear you ask? Well it was the 'One People' Port Vilan People's Republican Reggae bus, of course. We missed out on the greyhound, and found ourselves hailing the bright yellow reggae bus.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and had I been more observant I think I would have recognized the warning signs and not boarded the 'One People' death trap. The blank stares from all 3 occupants of the bus as they pulled to the gutter should have been the first warning sign, and the even more vacant response when we told them our destination should've been enough to make us back away quietly. It wasn't, and we jumped aboard. I thought 'this could be fun' and 'it's character' and that it would make a good story for the blog. I put the niggling suspicion that I could smell the reek of old ganga wafting out of the upholstery out of my mind as  we set off and took the familiar turns to get onto the crest that runs through the city, and head up the peninsula to where our hotel is situated. 

It was when we started to climb the incline that the bus started to slow down dramatically - we even stalled a few times, and I thought "this is ok, if we have to get out and walk, we are not that far away". That was when I noticed a bottle in the drivers right hand, balancing on his lap. The bottle was open but I couldn't see the contents, but I'm fairly certain than it wasn't Appeltiser. Alarm bells started to ring in my head, but i thought what could possibly happen? After all we were only travelling at around 1km per hour at this stage, and we were so close to our hotel.

As we coasted through the roundabout where we should have turned to go down to our hotel the klaxons in my head started to raise the alarm, and they picked up volume as we headed downhill and picked up speed on the wet and narrow road. In an amazingly short amount of time were driving at a pace that would give a Concorde pilot a heart murmur. And to make matters worse the other buses on the road were not. As we accelerated towards the rear of the bus in front I started to get really worried, and as we pulled into the oncoming lane to overtake the bus I was positively scared - I even heard myself say "We're gong to die". 

We couldn't over take the bus as there was a rather selfish motorist on that side of the road driving towards us, so the driver pulled us  back in behind the van infront. Now the passenger in the row in front of us stuck his head out the window and directed the driver, as his field of vision was impeded by the back of the van ahead of us. And we successfully sped up and overtook the van ahead. This wondrous manouevre was then repeated to overtake a 2nd van. Oh and I probably forgot to mention that the bus didn't have any seat belts.

Thankfully we were approaching the bottom of the slope and the driver steadied out as he drove into a petrol station, pulling to a screaming halt narrowly missing a concrete pylon. Seizing the opportunity we jumped out of the cab and made our way back on shaky legs up the road to get back to the hotel. It was amazing how much ground we had covered in such a short time - by my reckoning we probably covered 3kms in the space of a minute. We had to walk for about 20mins to get back to the turn off.

After that adventure, we were staying safe within the compounds of our hotel for dinner! And, we agreed - no more buses!