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An amusing travel tale about My Very First Bus Ride in Sri Lanka

My first two encounters with Sri Lankan bus drivers occurred on my very first day in Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka. The experiences were as different as yin and yang are. Let me start this travel tale with the yin experience.

After a chatty local cab driver picked me up at the airport and dropped me at my hotel, I had to go to the train station to collect my reserved ticket to Anuradhapuram my destination for the next day.

Feeling adventurous and wanting to travel like the locals, I decided to take the city bus to the station.

Conveniently, the nearest bus stop was right next to my hotel, visible from my room window.

After I inquired at the front desk, a very caring and resourceful receptionist advised me to take bus number 138.

Ma’am, take the umbrella with you, it looks like it’s gonna rain – he suggested.

I followed his advice, placing the umbrella into my small travel purse alongside my two charged phones, a power bank, wallet, passport, and a bottle of water. Then I left the building.

Going Nowhere in Sri Lanka Without My Sunbrella…

While standing at the bus stop I had seen from my hotel room, trying to orient myself with Google Maps on my phone, someone gently tapped my shoulder.

– Ma’am, ma’am, you are waiting on the wrong side of the street.

The receptionist pointed to the bus stop on the opposite side. Without a doubt, he must have been watching me from the hotel window for a while and decided to intervene. Thank goodness he did; otherwise, I might have ended up god knows where – certainly not at the train station.

With a big smile on my face, I thanked him for his attentiveness and quickly marched away. Since it was a major city avenue and not some small side street, my brief detective investigation showed that the safest and most legal way to cross was at the pedestrian crossing.

Do you know Murphy’s law? Well, I kept being reminded of its existence.

As I walked to the bus stop on the other side, several buses numbered 138 passed by. Unfortunately – without me on board. By the time I reached the stop, I had just missed the fourth one, which drove off right in front of me. I was eagerly waiting for the fifth one to arrive.

Conductor Collecting Money

Lucky Me, I got a seat 🤩

I waited and waited. Despite having spent most of the time sitting, my legs were tired and soft. I had been traveling all day. My journey began early in the morning in Hyderabad in with a layover in Madurai, India from where I flew into Sri Lanka. After landing, I took a taxi to the hotel, which took over an hour.

At that point, I wondered why I hadn’t ordered a taxi or a tuk-tuk from the start. It was a bizarre kind of stubbornness. I don’t know if this only happened to me, but my decision to wait a bit longer was justified by the fact that I had already been waiting for so long. Peculiar how the mind works, isn’t it? Does this happen to you too?

Fortunately, 15 minutes later I saw a big number 138 on the front window of a city bus approaching the station.

I waved to stop the bus, but when it came close enough I saw it was jam-packed. Not wanting to be squeezed in, I signaled to the driver that I wouldn’t be boarding and consequently, I watched yet another 138 bus leave without me.

–The next one should come any minute now, – was the mantra I kept telling myself.

And I was right. Murphys’ law seemed to take a break, and soon after another bus 138 arrived.

I entered through the back door, found an empty seat on the left side next to an open window, and quietly congratulated myself on a half-accomplished mission. The bus wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t crowdy as the previous one.

By the time I sat down, I was soaking wet, not from the rain, but from this tropical, monsoon-like humidity.

I felt it in every cell of my body. I was melting away like butter melts in the heat.

I could see them, tiny water bubbles slowly forming on my skin’s surface. Once they grew heavy enough, these sweat droplets gained speed and slid down my crossed inner tights, back, arms, and face. I got a free sauna experience for the price of the peanuts.

Under these circumstances, I felt extremely fortunate to have secured a seat next to the open window as I got at least a tiny bit of fresh air reaching my melting body. I was grateful beyond words.

As for the speed of the bus – we were more standing than moving, which was not surprising since it was around 5 pm – peak traffic time. The busy streets were full of rushing cars, nervous tuck-tucks, packed buses, and other vehicles, all trying to reach the final destination. Tired commuters were heading back to their beloved homes from their offices.

The ride was quite dynamic and full of events. A few minutes and several stops into the journey, the bus was packed again.

Local radio blared some nice reggae music from the speakers at full volume, or at least it felt that way.

Vendors selling snacks, fruits, and drinks entered the bus from both ends hustling and trying to make some money. However, I don’t think I could use any of my bargaining skills with them, to be honest!

I watched passengers constantly jumping on and off the bus. It seemed as if this bus had limitless capacity – I swear on my mum.

No matter how full the bus appeared, more people still managed to squeeze on at each stop.

The conductor was like a real-life magician. With the pile of banknotes, collected from the passengers in his hands, he would suddenly disappear into the crowd inside the bus only to reappear moments later.

At one point, he jumped out by the front door and didn’t return, yet the bus kept moving without him. I was extremely curious about where he went, thinking he might possess some kind of superpowers. A few stops later, he reappeared behind me.

I realized later that he exited through the front door, quickly walked along the bus outside, and re-entered through the back door to collect fares from the passengers in the rear. Navigating from the front to the back inside the packed bus was mission impossible.

Despite our slow pace, time flew by.

My personal Google map assistant reminded me, that my stop was coming up in two stops. I immediately stood up from my seat by the window and began pushing through the crowd toward the back door. I made it just in time, jumped off the bus, and proceeded towards the railway station to collect my golden ticket to Anuradhapura.

Oh, you want to know the second part of the story, how I came back to the hotel? In this case, I can only disclose that I was happy to return to the room in one peace…

With all my love 🫶

T.

PS Did you encounter any real-life magic or magician? How did it happen? Was it a part of a travel tale or it happened in everyday life situation? Let me know in the comments below.