The Bus Ride

Hey everyone,

I took a bus ride back home yesterday. It took me more than two hours to get home, and two bus changes. You see, public transport system in Dubai is still in its infancy stage. But there were two reasons why I took the bus yesterday and not a taxi.

*The fare was coming much cheaper: 5dhs, as opposed to 80dhs by a taxi.
* Sometimes, in different cities, I like going on the bus, because thats teh best way to see a city.

Nevertheless, the bus ride took a long time because of the heavy rush hour traffic from Dubai to Sharjah. However, I have some interesting small details that made my day more enjoyable.

1. There was a constant ringing of cell phones. There were two ring tones that were hilarious, and ironically were the ones that would ring the most. One was of several birds chirping as if they were in some jungle. Eveytime his phone rang, it felt like I was in a zoo with birds everywhere. The other ring tone was a like a shrilly scream. So everytime that rang, people would look around to see who screamed!

2. There was one Indian guy who was talking quite loudly in his cell phone. He was talking in broken English, and it became obvious later that he was talking to a Russian girl. He was asking her stuff like: what you look like? what your height? what your hair color? what you like to do? Then he was telling about himself: I am tall, I am 75 in weight, I like everything, I like you.

3. Eveyone stared at one another. Most of the people in the bus were the labor class kind of people, so I stuck out so prominently. I dont blame them, but man, they stared the whole time.

4. When the bus left the bus station in Dubai, five minutes later, the dirver parked on the side and got out of the bus. For 30 minutes, he was standing outside since he was supposed to handover a purse which the previous passanger forgot in the bus. I could hear people in the bus muttering, swearing and getting impatient. I was lucky I had my cell phone so I could play games and take pictures of the city.

5. I wished the bus was like the bus in the movie Speed. We were going so slow.

So I made it home, and I think it was not so bad. At least I got to see the side of the city which I usually dont.

Mansur