"No Ordinary bus ride…"

"No Ordinary bus ride…"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

     Recently I had the mixed curse and blessing of riding an ordinary bus to work. It was a cool night and that would play a great role in my comfort later.

     I flagged down a bus and thought that I was boarding an air-conditioned bus because when it was speeding toward me it looked like one , but I was surprised to see that all the windows were open and letting in the same cool air I was enjoying just seconds ago. I had a choice, I could stay or I could go down, Ordinary buses had a reputation for attracting unsavory character types but this bus seemed to have ordinary looking passengers, students from Fatima and people getting off from work and even some people who looked like they had the night shift as well (they had the same just got out of the shower look as I did).

     So I decided to stay and the moment I sat down I realized that I was in for a ride. I suddenly thought of 2 places that you normally wouldn’t mind passing by if you were in an air-conditioned bus. That was the Tullahan Bridge and Balintawak. The former was flanked on both sides by the Balintawak Beer Brewery who has dumped their chemical wastes in the river for decades , it also happened to be the end point where garbage from nearby Quezon City would accumulate. It once was said that you can't fall into the river, the garbage was solid enough to step on! As for Balintawak, that places has long been the common market where goods were being sold. Livestock and vegetables and all their accompanying filth. Both places stank the hell out of each other and I haven’t smelled these places for years now thanks to the air-conditioned buses that took me from Valenzuela to the MRT in Trinoma.

     Now I was dreading not getting down but the moment we passed The Tullahan River I realized that the place didn’t smell at all and at the breakneck speed of the Bus (literally because it would swerve in and out of traffic like we were riding a crazy taxi, this would be crazy bus) the cool air actually felt and smelled great. The same can be said when we passed the Balintawak area, the smoke was still there but the stench of a market no longer permeated the air. I started to think I was having a cold but I wasn’t. Could it be that these places were actually getting better? Just one look at the garbage piles accumulating on the street made me think otherwise. The crazy bus ride was fast, gran turismo fast as the bus can speed up among other vehicles. I was at MRT Trinoma within 15 minutes! It was fun though my neck still hurts from all that weaving in and of traffic.