"If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing to excess"
I am just back in Malaysia after several weeks travelling around America and Europe, where I acquired a UK old person's bus pass. With just one day available to use it, I opted for a policy of excess and set out on a journey from Sussex to Heathrow Airport.
The first bus, to Tunbridge Wells, had an advert on the back which read 'Ride Regency to Days of Steam'. I pointed this out to the driver when we broke down with steam and hot water emanating from the rear end. Once I reached the town I boarded a bus bound for Bromley. It took nearly 2 hours as we waited patiently for the most decrepit people in Kent to heave, hobble and wobble their way on and off. I used to believe that old age was better than the only alternative but this journey made me think again. I hadn't realised that humans could still function in such an advanced state of atrophy. They all, of course, had the same bus pass as me.
My research indicated that I should next take a bus to East Croyden. I couldn't bring myself to do it. The very name of the place induces in me a feeling of stultified dullness. Instead I chose a route that would take me through Central London.
On the top deck of a bright red London bus there was a good mix of ages and ethnicity but the rate of progress was still painfully slow as stops seemed no more than a couple of hundred yards apart. Fortified with a bacon and egg sandwich at Catford I hopped onto my fifth bus, to Victoria, and noticed the suburban houses getting progressively older as we neared the city centre. I was struck by the neighbourhood high streets which have retained the same size rows of shops which I remember from my childhood growing up in Twickenham; but where there was a butcher a baker and a greengrocer there is now an estate agency an ethnic cafe and a betting shop.
I got off the next bus too soon and walked through Hyde Park, full of sunbathers enjoying a glorious summer day which would have put nowhere on the Mediterranean to shame. Boarding a 94 in Oxford St I was looking at my watch as the journey had taken over 5 hours and I was still a long way from the airport. At Goldhawk Rd we were all told to get off. I don't know what the problem was but the bus was abandoned in the gutter and, after consulting the information board, I caught the next 237 to Hounslow. On this journey an announcement was made that the bus was on diversion, which seemed to mean that it chose traffic choked streets and stopped at places which didn't display its number.
I had a long wait at Hounslow for a 111 and was sorely tempted by the adjacent Piccadilly Line, but a bus pass is just that; it doesn't include the underground and I needed to complete my mission. I eventually reached my destination, with not too long before I could board the plane for Kuala Lumpur. It took 8 hours travel on 8 buses and is not recommended for those in a hurry, but if you have all day to get somewhere, the buses can provide a good platform to watch the world go by and add a bit of a puzzle to solve in navigating a route.
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