When My one-year long study life in US ended, I took a 10-days trip with my wife before returning to China. It was a impressive trip with both beautiful view and hardships on the road. I dislike surficial tours that can not let me understand more about the local people and culture. In this sense, the trip was worth the money, time and all the efforts.
We traveled mainly by taking Megabus, as college students or poor people did. We had lots of luggage, I know that we might get in trouble when taking buses, but I thought it would not be a big problem because I planned to pay more for the extra luggage. Everything wend very well before entering the Magebus. The city bus driver, a kind old black man, helped us pull the luggage. When I tried to give him tips, he denied. He said he helped us because he love Chinese and help us from heart not for money. He gave us a kindly smile and went back to his bus.
We arrived very early, so we had to wait for the megabus to arrive. It was our first time to take this kind of bus. At 3:40 PM, the megabus arrived. The driver was also a black man, but he was strong and a little fat. My wife stood most near the bus, but the drive said she was not standing in the queue, and let her to go back. We followed his directions, when it came to our turn he said you got too many luggage so you could not get on the bus. I said I could pay for the extra luggage. He said no no no. You could not pay me anything and ordered us to stand at the end of the queue.
After all the other passengers got on the bus, he told me that I could buy an extra ticket for the extra luggage but have to finish it in only 3 minutes. I became worried and nervous and a little angry. I worried that I couldn’t catch the other magabus. I was a little angry because he already saw us with extra luggage 20 minutes before but only told us what to do when the bus was going to leave in 3 minutes. Another ridiculous thing he did was counting down when I was trying to call the company to buy an extra ticket. He was doing his job, but by no means trying to help. He seems want to bring shame on us on purpose just because we are Asian foreigners and bring two extra luggage.
After nearly 10 minutes, he seem enjoyed enough of the show he made, he let me get in the bus but never ask about the extra ticket. He seemed not care about the tickets at all. He did give some sarcastic remarks on this issue in his native English with black people’s accent. All he said was how stickily he was following the rules of the company and it was all my fault that the bus was delayed. He let me sat on the steps beside him first and then separated me from my wife by asking me go upstairs(my wife sat at the first floor). First I went upstairs following his directions and then returned to the first floor by another ladders in the bus. My mood was terrible. My whole body was depressed and shaking. What kind of driver he was? I don’t know. I also can’t understand.
The trip had to be continued. By any means, it was not a good start.
