On the Conquering of Ridiculous Travel Apprehensions

"You have to do your own growing up, no matter how tall your grandfather was."  

Abraham Lincoln

I've bungee jumped in blinding rain in Northern Thailand.  I've been hit full on in the face with a folded up phone book.  Hell I've even gone swimming less than forty-five minutes after eating, and there are only two things under heaven and earth scare the living bejesus out of me - zombies, and taking the bus in Sri Lanka.  When I hear the blaring horns approaching and the Doppler effected screams of bus routes buzzing all around me, I shut down faster than a diabetic kid after a candy corn binge.  The general advice to "just listen for the town name you want and they'll shout it!" feels vaguely insultory when all I can make out above the traffic noise is "MATATARATARATARARARA! MATATARATARATARARARA!"  God help you if you're trying to hop aboard the Puthukkudiyirupu line.  But in the interests of drinking cheap arrack on a sunny beach front, I decided to brave the storm and try my hand at public transportation.

For the trip from my home base of Panadura down to the Southern coast, I knew from reviewing my guidebooks that I was supposed to catch an air conditioned bus that runs every fifteen minutes down Galle Road.  That's about all I knew though, because the bus stops aren't really listed, there are no schedules and basically when you see the bus you want, you wave your arms wildly in the hopes that it sees you and deigns to take you on board as a passenger.  My supervisor at work said he would make sure I got to the stop ok, so I felt confident that I wouldn't screw this up too badly.  I packed my backpack for my weekend trip, stuffed the carefully counted out and pre-folded bus money in my front pocket to make life easy when it came time to pay and took stock of how expert a traveler I was by giving myself a nice congratulatory wink in the mirror.  So confident was I in my on-the-road-prowess, in fact, I even changed into a more travel friendly tshirt and ditched the extra pair of pants and button down I was going to bring along.  Packing light meant less to worry about later, I assured myself, as I took my first steps out into the greater world of bus travel.

Supervisor and I took a slow five minute stroll to the unmarked bus stop where we waited for the Number 2 down to Matara and my super awesome beach weekend.  Only then did I realize that I had failed to eat breakfast, and it was going to be three hours until I got to my next stop.  And then I further realized that I didn't go to the bathroom before I left the house.  So in five minutes I had already ignored the prime directives Mom always set before starting out on a trip - food and bathroom awareness.  As I looked up at Supervisor to see about asking for a snack and a bathroom break, he started waiving down my bus and I knew that my time was up - looks like I was gonna have to rock some Stride gum and pray the road wasn't too bumpy.

I stood waiting to get on board, clutching at the straps of my back pack and looking back to wave at my boss to let him know I was going to be ok, feeling as if the Sri Lankan bus system had reduced me to being a friggin' five year old on his first day of camp.  In one fell swoop I admitted to myself and the whole world that while I am quite capable of holding down a respectable law career, booking my own international travel and making a delightful pb&j should the need arise, I could also in one moment forget myself entirely and be so blinded by the prospect of getting on a bus that I would fall to tiny little child-like pieces.  Somewhat disheartened by my epic emasculation, I slumped down in my seat at the front of the bus and figured I might as well enjoy the ride.

Now you might think that having a perfect head-on view while driving down a Sri Lankan highway is a great way to see the areas you're passing through, but it's also a great way to see your life passing before your eyes - luckily, of the thirty or so close-calls we had, we only had to slam on the breaks and swerve entirely off the road to avoid oncoming trucks like two or three times.  No big whoop.  Conductor came around to ask for my money, and I instinctively reached down to my shirt pocket to grab my pre-counted fare to hand to the kindly bus-keep.  When I felt no pocket where pocket should be, it quickly dawned on me that while I was smart enough to pack light, I wasn't smart enough to realize that the shirt I left behind was the one with my money in it.  I scrambled to gather up the necessary paper from my wallet to pay the conductor and luckily had enough to stay on board, but I received at least one angry harumph for wasting the nice man's time.  Once I finally forked over enough rupees to cover my passage, I settled in for the long-haul and started chomping on my spearmint gum to pass the time.

Ultimately, I reached my destination, hungry and in need of a restroom but all in all no real worse for the wear.  I had successfully taken a bus, despite my apprehension to the otherwise, and in so doing had opened up a whole new world of travel around Sri Lanka.  I can hop a 2 or 3 hour bus and get pretty much anywhere at this point - and hopefully I won't have to feel like a five year old in the process.  Despite some growing pains, I'm becoming quite the adult over here.      

Now the only thing left to fear is a deadly zombie attack...but so long as they don't figure out how to use the buses, I think I can get a nice head start on 'em.