Bus System: the Epic Saga
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2007
1
33
72
Trip End
Jul 03, 2007
Dubai,
United Arab Emirates
Friday, March 9, 2007
What started as an attempt to get home early ended with me hiking across Media City at two in the morning with a Pakistani man following me, asking me questions and lecturing me about how women shouldn't wandering around this late at night.
I was in the center of town, and it was getting dark, as it always does around 7 pm here. I thought I would be so smart and try to catch a bus home so I could be back early and do internet business. Nope. I got on a bus, and for two hours we were gridlocked in horrible, horrible traffic. We waited for 20 minutes, and then moved forward 10 feet. That sort of traffic--I wanted to rip my hair out! If only I hadn't been lazy, it would have taken me five minutes to just walk through the neighborhood.
We made it to the central bus station. For the better part of an hour, I waited for bus number eight to appear. When it finally did, the driver made me get off because he was going in the wrong direction. It turns out there are two loading points for #8's--one goes deeper into town, and the other goes out towards the American University. The one I needed was in this second part of the station, hidden behind all the little food places. I'd been standing in the wrong stop and missing the right buses all this time!
So I waited for the next bus in the CORRECT terminal. It went like this: Bus pulls up. Liz gets on. Liz gets off again, because the driver was shouting that he was only going as far as Jumeira Beach Park--which isn't even halfway home!
This happened three times in a row. (Why, though?)
Finally, it was very late, and I'd either missed or been kicked off of all the other buses. That meant I had to catch a Night bus, and they have a totally different route than the regular daytime ones. So I had to figure out which one I needed.
As it turns out, the bus I needed was supposed to show up at midnight, which meant I had to wait for a while, alone, in the dark, and starting to get really hungry. Several buses pulled up, but even though they went in the direction I needed, they wouldn't let me on because they didn't go to the exact location I mentioned.
I was just getting ready to shoot my wad on a taxi, or check into a hotel, when all of the sudden, my bus pulled up! It was 1 am at this time. And that is the epic saga of my journey home.
Anyway, I was really surprised my the sheer dumbness of the evening. Usually, I like taking the bus. Here's why:
-Dubai buses are clean and airconditioned, and the seats don't face weird angles the way they do on the Metro. I don't know. America has very 3rd world buses, somehow.
-Dubai buses are also cheaper--it only costs like 80 cents to go across town in Dubai, and 40 for a closer distance. You tell the driver where you're going and pay upfront, which I like better than having to find a spare dollar and quarter and slip it in so I can go half a mile, and keep track of my transfer slip.
The only problem is, if you're female, the driver has the right to kick you off if there are no more "ladies only" seats, even if there are other seats open. The same for men. They can't sit in the Ladies Only seats even if they are the only seats open. And I remember the first time I got in line to ride a bus, I was rudely informed that I wasn't allowed to wait in line with the men. Just as I was fuming about that, the doors opened, and I was allowed--in fact, expected--to cut to the front and get on first. Before you start to rave about segregation, remember the American bus system used to be much more segregated, and not nearly as chivalrous.
Like most bus systems, the buses don't really follow a fixed schedule, and if you want maps of the route, you have to look it up online first. Saves paper, right? Like this online TravelPod!
