Why I like to travel by bus- Part One

I am one in a million in Sri Lanka who likes to travel by bus. (Not when it's crowded ofcourse... :) ) Bus rides are indeed interesting. There are many things that you can witness while travelling by bus. Things that you can never see when you are inside a vehicle. I have seen and heard many things. Most of them very funny. So, I thought I should share those stories with you all.

Let me start with one of my favourites. This happened about 6 months ago when I was on my way to Uni. In Sri Lanka, most of the private bus conductors don't issue tickets. People don't seem to care since they just want to reach their destination. I must say it's the same with me. I don't care whether the conductor gives me the ticket or not because anyway i'm going to throw it the moment I go home.

This particular day, I got on to a 138(Kadawatha-Pettah) bus and gave the conductor money and he just took it without giving me a ticket. After that as usual I started day dreaming about all sorts of things. That is one thing I enjoy doing when i'm in a bus. Half way through my day dreaming was disturbed when the conductor started throwing tickets at all the people. It didnt take me long to realize that our bus has been notified by another that there are officials who check for tickets a miles ahead. The conductor was giving everyone tickets as fast as he could. And in doing so he was giving about 3 or 4 tickets to one person. And suddenly the bus was stopped in less than 5 minutes. The conductor tried to look cool and the officers who check for tickets(aka- "Tikko") came inside and asked the people to show their tickets.

Now you must be wondering what's so funny about this story.. :P Ok...here is the funny part... one "tikka" asked for a ticket from an old lady. Usually each person is supposed to get ONLY one ticket. But since the conductor gave about 3,4 tickets to one, this poor old lady gave all four tickets to the tikka. This drove the tikka mad. He turned to the conductor and asked him "you gave the tickets just now didn't you?" and scolded him. The bus driver had to pay a fine too. The whole bus was laughing at this incident. I couldn't help thinking it was a good lesson for the conductor. However, the conductor was blaming the old lady the whole way. But the lady innocently said "how was I to know? You gave me four tickets". :D

Ha ha ha! Now wasn't that funny? ;-)