Why God made low cost carriers

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There are two ways to travel around Borneo, fly or take a bus. Do to my lack of pre-planning and attempted efforts to not spend a ton of money I chose bus to get from one side of Borneo to the other.

If we were on a game show I should be seeing XXX for wrong answer. All I can say is I am very thankful for Air Asia right now and will be paying the $44 US to fly back to Kota Kinabalu from Sandakan in 2 days.

Here is a brief overview of my experience. The bus was nice enough and the road was mostly paved but everything else made my trip a dandy.

I had no clue what to do with my bag so I just stood there and stuck it under the bus hoping nobody would steal it. While I was standing there thoroughly confused, I noticed a man putting crates of live rabbits under the bus as well. Why you would need to take the fastest reproducing animals on earth across an island is beyond me. They could have called ahead and probably had baby rabbits waiting. Also, I was convinced I would have pellet poop all over my bag, that probably consumed my thoughts for 2 hours. Luckily I came out unscathed.

Now for the bus ride:

First - whomever feels that it is okay to bring curry on a public bus ride that last for 7 hours should be banished to sit on the shitter for the entire extent of the ride. After about 20 minutes of breathing into my shirt I gave up. Asshole. I thought maybe I was being over dramatic but I shared a cab with a group of Swedish people (hail to the homeland) and the awful smell was the first thing they mentioned.

I knew we would be driving through the mountains but had no idea it would feel like I was on space mountain for 7 hours. About every 30 minutes we came to a screeching halt just like at the end of the ride and my body was jerked around enough that all of my Bali massages were now in vain.

YIPPEE, there is a TV on the bus. Oh wait, it plays horrendous Asian music videos and blares them at the highest volume. Also plays the TV show Las Vegas which is completely random but it is not in English and the subtitles were font size 6. Not so yippee after all.

An experience not to be repeated, thank you to Apple for the invention of the IPOD.

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Comments

[amy]

bus rides
KT, I have a similar experience over spring break while traveling in Thailand. 7 hour bus ride from hell. the bus driver felt the need to pass cars on the smallest 2 lane highway with great oncoming traffic. It was like a 3d horror movie. then, to your point, the stentch of people and food was overwhelming not to mention the fact that the seats relaxed back so your head was sitting in the person's lap behind you. no way could you get up and move and you had to stare at that person. My return trip from Ko samui to bankok was a $150 US air plane ticket! no more bus rides for us girlie!!!! thanks for sharing.. amy