Last passenger on the bus.

I am the last passenger on the bus. I sit in the back seat in the right corner of the bus. Behind the driver. It is a Toyota 16 seater minibus. In Hong Kong there are tons of these racing across the whole territory taking people from place to place.

It is my chosen transport when I leave work to go home and sit here, writing on my iPad for this blog.

The bus is number 807 B and is on route from HOng along University station to Mak Pin roundabout in Sai Kung country park. That is in fact just one stop from our village. One stop and about 200 meters. Well, stop is not the right definition. Minibuses doesn't really have any stops as such, they stop everywhere a passenger wants to get on or get off.

I hope to get on this mini bus from Wu Kai Sha train station which is at the end of the Ma On Shan train line. The bus should depart from there every 15 minutes, so there I stand waiting and waiting. Sometimes 30 minutes. And no bus.

I am bored. And then I think and get ideas. Often I don't because I just want to get home and try to listen and hope to hear the characteristic low humming of one of the mini busses approaching. Is it the right one going the right way.

All of this will require a little more explanation.

There is two kinds of 807 minibuses and both operating from Hong Kong university station. One is my one, the 807 B, and then there is the other one, which is the 807 K. Like I said, my one - 807 B - Goes to and from my village. The other one - 807 K - from a much bigger village closer to what is the beginning of the “big town area” around the settlements from MA On Shan and down to Sha Tin.

Che Ha village, I think it this bigger village is called. Anyway. This bus is much more frequent than my one because there are much more people going there, but because of so many people living there and wanting to get there from the train at University station, they also take the 807 B bus, because it also passes that bigger village. If then the bus is full and nobody wants to get of at the station where I am waiting and needing a lift, the bus will surpass that stop as no seats are available and nobody wants to get of. Therefor, why should the driver then go in there?

For me, of corse, this is mega annoying. I could go all the way home with that bus, but many of the people sitting in it and filling it up, will only go maybe 3 or 4 stops further than this station, and then the bus will be empty all the way through the curves and the forest to my village and the roundabout at Mak Pin. But I am not in it. I. Fact no one is.

That is why I am sitting there now, all alone on the bus. Tonight I was lucky and some people wanted to get of at the train station where I wait for that bus, and then it had room for me. 3 stops later everybody else has got off, and there I sit, in the furthest back corner of the bus and the driver will take me very quick home to my village.