Brave new commuting world

A co-worker sent me these pics, thought I'd share it. This is a crazy way to commute!

This truck has a GP number plate....please tell me he has not been holding on all the way from Gauteng. ;-)

Edit:
No it's not an advert, the logo is simply a kind of watermark/copyright thingy.

Golden Arrow Bus

I've been making use of the Golden Arrow bus now for just over a month.

It is very difficult to find anything positive to write about the bus or the company it belongs to.

The new modern bus they are using on the Station to Waterfront route prompted me to try out the service.

The sad thing is that although the bus is new the service is still extremely bad and unreliable.

I get on from the Two Oceans Aquarium busstop in the afternoons but I've had an average wait time of 20-25 minutes. This wait time is not what the call center promises me it should be. I've been calling the GA info number now for over a month on a weekly basis and have been told that the busses takes between 10 and 15 minutes.

I've met people from all over the world at this busstop. People on vacation, people attending conferences.

Here's a short list:

Couple from Austria

Couple from Great Britain

Couple from USA(African Americans who refuses to take that ugly yellow bus)

Scientist from Russia currently residing in Germany here for a conference on bio-diversity.

Family from Lyon, France

I've met these people all in the last month. The reason I've met them was because they were confused about the busstop, the bus, the time and the route it takes. The funny thing is that they all approached me in the same way:

Them: "Is this busstop?"
Me: "Indeed."
Them: "How you know?"
Me: "The big yellow B on the tarmac over there is the secret symbol for bus."
Them: "Is going tooooo?"
Me: "Cape Town station....in the city."
Them: "Ahhhh oohh good good....and when is coming?"
Me: "That is a very good question. It should be anywhere from now to within half an hour from now if everything goes well."
Them: "And what are the routes for these bus?"
Me: "Ha ha ha ha, no routes here...there are no route maps for these busses, you have to phone the company that owns them...here's the number if you want."

Sure they could have taken a private taxi or could have walked, but they all expected the bus service in Cape Town to be as smooth and friendly as in their parts of the world.

Sadly they have all been bitterly dissapointed.

Edit:
Forgot to add that the bus drove past three of us waiting for it. We were on the correct spot to be picked up and everthing. I phoned, complained but couldn't do anything because I did not get the number of the bus.

The Fifth Season

We have moved into what I refer to as the fifth season here in Cape Town. This is the season between winter and whatever was spring. It is the season to be dotty. The gods are crazy, the weather patterns are crazy, the animals are crazy and last but not least commuters are crazy.

The other day I took a coach further down the train, a coach that was not MetroPlus, but Metro. Just Metro.

In the old days it would have been called 3rd class.

In South Africa there is no such thing as 2nd class.

Three stations down a man got on the train with his cigarette still in hand and smoking. He made landfall on the seat right next to me.

The man to the left of him told him to put out his cigarette in his language and he complied. He then decided to start talking to me about the hard life he has to lead these days. As he started talking I realised what his problem was as his breath was smelling like the inside of an old liquor store that had a couple of crates of broken beer bottles.

He rambled on about how good the old days were under apartheid and that at least they knew what they had and what was coming. He further explained how these days it is impossible to survive and then requested a job in my garden for the Saturday.

Luckily for me my station was up next and I got out of the liquor vapor cloud.

Sometime last week another silly man dressed in a leather jacket and sporting a hairstyle right out of the 70's curling over his ears started checking everyone's tickets. He was clearly not in the employ of Metrorail and took this oppertunity to chat to all the ladies on the train. He had some story about taking in all old tickets as those would be discontinued soon. He even took in some, clip most and tore up an unfortunate man's ticket!

He got involved in an argument with a man that didn't have a ticket and when this man started accusing Metrorail's lack of control our 70's man started backing away.

He exited the station waving a ticket just like everybody else. No doubt there were a couple of people stuck without tickets at the turnstiles that morning...

People are strange

Bling bling headphone man

That crrrrrazy preacher

Art girl, sometimes beautifull as is, sometimes turning heads as a scary snake girl or purple hair gothic/emo/something or other. You can't rush art!

Station progress photos

Check out the writing on this sign....WTF, never mind slipping and hurting, just DON"T damage the tiles.

Another day another crazy preacher

All I want to do at the end of a long day is to get to the train, find a seat, get out the book, reflect a little on the days activities and then start reading while the train moves along steadily.

All is peacefull and quiet until another crazy proxy from heaven steps on the train and starts screaming truths and secrets about the one god that gave us breath and saves us from cobras in the wild and criminals on the streets.

This particular one is as mad as a crazy man stepping on a train and starts speaking loadly without permission of almost 100 people.

The guy next to me wanted to take him outside at the next station but crazy proxy just kept those words of wisdom rolling.

At one point I wanted to ask him to bless us with the one thing I really needed from above(or the universe as I see it) and that is silence.

New Golden Arrow bus type

I am impressed. I know, me, impressed? What may you ask impressed me? Golden Arrow bus company has a new tpy eof bus that runs the Waterfront route. And so for the last two days I've been going straight for the bus stop rather than walk the walk.
For the 10 minutes of bus ride I feel like I'm a European country or other first world country.
I promise to post a pic here soon...

OK, so where is the catch. The catch is in the wasy the system works. Nice new bus, same old crappy system, where you have to go to the drivers cubicle and wait for change or your ticket clicked. This wastes anywhere from 5-10 minutes. This is clearly not a priority for GABC as they don't realise time is money.

Solution: Employ a conductor to check the tickets while the bus is in motion.