Day 14: The public bus from Labaun Bajo to Bijawa

6:00 and we are outside waiting for the public bus. The Spanish girl, Vikki, from last night has decided to come along. Remember when we were waiting for that bus in Ubud and we panicked when we saw the Ute? You can only imagine our panic when we saw this bus coming towards us, with luggage piled at least 3 feet high on its roof, filled with people, and it stops and calls our names. This is our bus? No? It can’t be our bus? Okay – well, there are 4 people, 4 seats left. We lift our luggage to join the now 3.5 foot pile on the roof, go in and take our seats. 

The bus is filled with people, the floor lined with stuff, and the whole back is lined with stuff. We figured the bus was pretty packed. It couldn’t possibly take on more passengers. Wrong! It took on more passengers. And more stuff!

About 15 minutes into the bus ride, I realize that my seat doesn’t have a backrest. Instead, I’m leaning against some lopsided round bags of produce. About that same time we realize there is some smell heavily hanging in the air. It smells like a wet, dirty mop. Then we realise that bag of stuff I’m leaning on in the source of the smell.

Alright, so, let’s just summarize:

1. We definitely have way more people than seats on the bus.
2. It smells like wet mop
3. I have no backrest (Pallavi takes a turn and sits for at least 5-6 hours here as well)
4.  am coming down with a sinus cold  and sneezing non-stop
5. The roads are the windiest roads ever

Then somebody tells us this journey isn’t an 8 hour journey – it’s a 10-11 hour journey! It’s about this time that we decide that perhaps it would be worth the extra $1 to take a shuttle bus. We might be backpacking, but we don’t have to live like this!

About 5 hours into the journey, we finally hit our halfway point (and our breaking point was long back) and start to here this THUD THUD THUD THUD under the right tire. It keeps going for a bit and the bus stops and they look at it, and keep going. We figure it might be just fine; however, that thud only gets louder and louder and louder. Finally, the bus stops and they decide its time to fix the tire. The girls all decide to take a bathroom break. As we come out, we see that their first attempt to salvage the tire is to take a machete and to try to hack off the bits that have shredded! Needless to say, this failed, and they had to change the tire.

Never have I ever been on such a long, cramped, quiet, windy, car-sickening bus ride. Clearly, the fact the children sitting next to us vomited reflected what we really wished that we could do. I wish I could say never again, but I think that would be a lie. We were all so excited to get to Bijawa, we wouldn’t have minded the 3km walk to town. First public bus experience in Southeast Asia = slightly traumatic. Also, we decided that perhaps it would indeed be wish to get travel insurance. This is not how I want to go!