The wheels on the bus go round and round...

The first time Luke and I rode a bus to Seoul we were surprised by two things. The first of these was the number of people fast asleep when we boarded the bus and the second thing was the tremendous speed at which the bus travelled (which made the first thing surprising all over again).

It was our third weekend in South Korea and Luke and I had decided it was time we ventured into Seoul. During the week Ellie had told me about the buses so we were all clued up on where to catch them, what number bus to take and where to get off. We didn't have to wait long before the number we were waiting for, a 1000, pulled up at the stop. We got on, paid the fare and turned to look for a seat. As we quickly surveyed the slumbering passengers and made our way to a seat, the bus lurched into motion and roared away from the stop. Struggling to remain upright we made it to a seat and, rather ungracefully, plonked ourselves into it. As the driver crunched through the gears and got the bus up to a ridiculously high speed, Luke and I shared a quiet laugh about the number of people sound asleep on the bus. It was a long time between stops and we wondered how many of the sleeping people were supposed to get off at the stop after ours and how many of them would wake up in time. We screeched to a halt at the next stop, Yonsei university, and Luke and I witnessed for the first time the amazing inner-alarm clocks of South Korean people..... at least 6 people woke up suddenly as the bus stopped, leapt out of their seats and made their way to the doors. Not only did they wake up as though someone had snapped their fingers to bring them out of a trance, they all looked fully awake, immediately! None of this yawning and stumbling groggily! They were up, off and clicking away in their heels and business shoes all in the time it would have taken me to yawn, rub my eyes and sleepily mumble "where are we?"

Luke and I were still amazed by this event when the bus took off again and holy moly! Did it ever move! We tore into Seoul at an incredible pace, the driver was a lead-foot in the extreme! We feared for our lives as he rounded corners on busy roads at crazy speeds and we wondered how on earth people managed to sleep in such situations, shouldn't they be holding on for dear life like we were? We arrived in Seoul with our nerves in tatters and decided that surely all the bus drivers weren't like that, they couldn't be, could they?

We spent the day wandering around the lovely and very vast city of Seoul and by the end of the day we were ready to face the bus ride home..... the driver on the trip home was worse. Not only was he an absolute speed-demon, he had clearly never been taught how to drive the bus properly. He crunched those gears every time he changed them and the poor bus sounded so sick I was sure the gear-box was going to drop out of it at any moment. Still, we made it home somehow and I must admit I felt a pang of sympathy for that driver every time he stalled it-I remember how that feels..... although I wasn't driving a bus!

Well, Luke and I now believe that the bus drivers of South Korea are in fact hired based on how fast they are willing to take corners and how much they are willing to dodge and weave through traffic. I could count the number of times we've had a cautious bus driver on one hand! The majority of them swerve in and out of their bus lane, use their horn liberally and over anything (or nothing) and like to approach stops at speeds which make you think they must have forgotten that people want to get off, then they SLAM on those breaks and send you flying into the people around you or the back of the seat in front of you. I was once "lucky" enough to be standing right next to the driver (the bus was so full I had no choice) and I was astounded to see on his speedo that he was hurtling around a bend at 90km/hr! Though really, I shouldn't have been surprised at all now I think about it.....

However, despite it all, there are still times when you will find Luke and I among those sleeping on the bus. Amazingly enough, we have gotten completely used to it and will now nod off and have a good old nap on the way home from a long day in Seoul. But while this may be so, I still thank my lucky stars every time I set foot on solid ground after a journey with a South Korean bus driver, I guess somebody, somewhere, is looking out for all those sleeping passengers.

Lucy