Everyone should travel by bus once in a while

I took the bus into town yesterday and can highly recommend it to all. Travelling by bus offers us several very important things.

Firstly, you view your route from a different prospective. Sitting high up and able to look over hedges and fences at the things that would normally pass by on the periphery tells a whole different tale of the places you travel through. What once was a grim and dismal road can become a path through meadows and fields.

Secondly, you are forced to relax. The pace is set by someone else, someone you have delegated responsibility too. There is nothing for you to do now except enjoy the journey. Any motorcyclists will tell you riding a bike, although enjoyable, is a constant task of reading conditions, evaluating risk and managing manoeuvres. On the bus all that is forgotten, all you need to do is look at the world passing by.

Finally for me at least, is the opportunity to watch and interact with other travellers. All types of people travel by bus and the bus itself forms a mini, self contained community for the duration of the trip. I always seem to get involved in conversations with other travellers on the bus. Not life and death stuff, but never the less important tiny glimpses into the lives of others. I always think these are precious moments that reinforce in me the belief that we are all bonded in our humanity. Something that can seem totally opposed by the typical scene of commuters sitting one behind the other, each in their own vehicle, avoiding any kind of contact, even eye contact, with the other commuters around them.

So I say to you all, take the bus once in a while, look at the new world outside the window, talk with the person sat next to you and enjoy the ride.