Jaffe

Chinatown bus

This weekend I went to Boston to go to my friend Rob’s wedding. I decided to take a ‘Chinatown Bus’, because I heard how convenient (and cheap) they are. There are several similar companies, operating buses for travel among New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia (www.staticleap.com/chinatownbus/), with names like ‘Lucky Star’ and ‘Fung Wah’. I decided to go with Lucky Star (www.luckystarbus.com), as the technician in our lab, Leigh, had just used it on a trip to Boston a couple of weeks ago. Still, I had my doubts about how clean it would be and how long it would take for me to go from New York to Boston. I had visions of a jam-packed bus, standing room only, with babies screaming and chickens flying all over the place. Anyway, for $15 each way (+ a 50 cent surcharge for booking online) it was worth a shot. I was surprised to arrive at the ‘bus depot’ to find it was just a normal looking shop, on a main street (Chrystie) in Chinatown, about a 5 minute walk from the Canal Street subway station (conveniently on the same line that runs from the upper east side). There was a girl asking passers-by if they wanted a ticket to go to Boston, kind of like the minicab guys standing outside of a bar late at night in London. It seemed like I was the only person who had made an online reservation, but they looked at my printed receipt, asked me to sign it, and said that it was my ticket. I waited with a few other people until the bus pulled up about 20 minutes before we were supposed to leave, literally parking in front of the shop. I put my suitcase in the luggage compartment and boarded.
The inside of the bus was similar to the Greyhound buses I took home from University in the late 80s/early 90s, except there were 2 TVs on either side of the bus. I thought maybe there would be some ‘in-ride’ entertainment! By the time the bus left for Boston it was about 2/3 full, with maybe 30 people. When we started off I realized the TVs weren’t going to be used, so I took out something to read for the ride...
About 3 hours into the trip we pulled off the highway and into a little strip mall to make a pit stop. We parked in front of ‘Century Buffet’, next to another Lucky Star bus (presumably going to New York from Boston), and the driver announced ’15-minute break!’ Everyone filed off the bus and into Century Buffet; they seemed to know what they were doing so I followed like a lemming and into a completely empty (except for us) Chinese buffet restaurant. The owners of the restaurant must know the Lucky Star people because nobody said anything as 30 people walked through to use the bathroom. A lot of the people from the bus got some food (a lot of fried, fatty, chicken, pork and beef dishes) for the road, we all filed back on the bus, and after a head count, left for the second leg of the drive.
We ran into a little traffic outside of Boston, so by the time we got to South Station it had been a 5 1/2 hour drive. For $30 round trip, I'll take it!

posted by Aron @ 6:44 PM