Slippy, Shitty Bus Ride
Singapore to Thailand
Caroline jumped up screaming. Stamping her feet and waving arms it looked like a new form of experimental dance. It was all very impressive.
“Don’t just fucking sit there,” she screamed, “HELP ME!”
Somehow, an insect with a taste for blood had crawled inside her jeans and was busy biting her ass. She dropped her trousers and took to killing it with frantic bitch slaps and verbal obscenities. I tried my best to help, issuing directions whenever the beastie scuttled into view.
“Left, left, left…get it!”
In the privacy of a hotel room this behaviour would have been completely acceptable, but as you might have guessed, our present situation was far from isolated. The overnight bus from Singapore to Thailand was packed with Malaysian businessmen and Thai families who had been sitting quietly listening to the strangled sound of a Singapore radio station. A few had even been sleeping, but now they were all wide awake and staring at us like vegetarians eyeing a veal crate. Caroline flicked the dead insect from her leg, pulled up her trousers and slipped back into her seat, aiming polite smiles at the bemused locals around us.
Thankfully, our role as on-board entertainment didn’t last very long, being abruptly replaced by a dubbed version of Gladiator, stuttering to life on a Sony Trinitron at the front of the bus. The passengers turned to watch whilst we stared out the window, trying to ignore the children looking over seats to point at us. Order restored, the coach continued its journey, zipping over the Malaysian border to the sound of Australian battle cries.
An hour or so later, when Russell Crowe was being attacked by tigers, a new problem raised it’s ugly head. Before leaving Singapore, Caroline and I had stuffed ourselves silly with cheap local food, stocking up for the long journey ahead. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now my stomach was beginning to churn, flip-flopping around and issuing demands: Get me to a toilet, and quick!
I trotted to the back of the bus, but found the toilet cubicle padlocked shut. Clutching my stomach, I retraced my steps along the aisle, worried moans accompanying every step. Passengers exchanged looks that said ‘What’s the English idiot up too now?‘, as I stumbled past towards the driver.
With no common language between us, what followed was a frantic display of charades as I tried to communicate my problem while he drove the bus. Without dropping your trousers and squatting down, trying to convey this kind of information isn’t easy and the poor man watched my actions with bemused interest.
Eventually, a female passenger translated my problem, transforming the driver’s confused expression into one of worried concern. Waving me away, he put his foot down and the coach barrelled down the highway at speed. A few painful kilometres later it slowed and swerved sharply into a large pot-holed car park. Bouncing across broken tarmac, each rut and depression felt like a sharp kick up the arse that threatened to pop the cork from my bottle.
The bus shunted to a halt outside a collection of small concrete buildings, bellowing steam from open windows and glowing with florescent light. We’d arrived at a Malaysian transport café – and not a moment to soon.
I scrambled from the coach clutching my stomach with one hand whilst unbuckling my belt with the other. Passengers looked on with alarm as I ambled into the outhouse like an Olympic hunchback. It occurred to me that they might take this opportunity to convince the driver to leave without me, but as I stumbled into the men’s toilets, I realised that this was the least of my worries.
There’s no nice way of saying this, so I’ll just say it. The ground was covered in shit – a milky brown ooze that stank of rotten chillis and ammonia. To make matters worse, I wasn’t wearing shoes, only a cheap pair of rubber flip-flops. I considered my options, but my contracting bowels quickly reminded me that now wasn’t the time to be British.
I took my first step; slowly lowering a foot into the sticky waste that flooded the flip-flops and seeped in between my toes. It was like treading grapes in a sewer. My cheap sandals gave little grip and I shuffled forward like a newborn foal, legs bucking and bending at unusual angles with each unsteady step. When I eventually reached the cubicle I was dismayed to discover it was:
- a pit toilet,
- ankle-deep in turds, and
- door-less.
What little pride I had left disappeared at that moment. I was now operating on autopilot.
I dropped my trousers, straddled the hole and did what needed to be done. The feeling of pure, unadulterated pleasure abruptly ended when I opened my eyes and saw my fellow passengers gazing down at me. In my rush to get off the coach I hadn’t noticed that from its raised seating you could see directly into the toilets through large ventilation holes in the roof. Caroline was among them, smiling down at me. From my elegant position on the throne I tried my best to smile back. I think I even managed a wave.
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