On the Buses - African Style

Maybe I'm biased, sitting here grumpily in an Austrian train carriage having just wasted a good hour by getting on a train going the wrong way, but I have a theory that travelling in third world countries (by which I mean of course Africa, as I seem incapable of getting myself anywhere else) is actually easier than in our supposedly well-ordered European society.

When I'm travelling in Africa, I don't have to deal with bus stops, timetables, connections the vagaries of a computer-generated, to-the-second transport system dreamt up by geeks in the logistics department of local government headquarters.

It's simply a matter of flapping my hand at the first rickety vehicle that hoves into view. You want to go somewhere? Stand on the side of the road and wave. You want to get off? Slap the side of the vehicle or bellow at the conductor and the car/minibus/pickup truck will screech to a halt (tipping most of a bucket of chicken gizzards from the lap of the adjacent passenger, admittedly) and dump you neatly in front of your destination.

There's more. Take refreshments, for example. No more humping bags painfully in and out of station buffets or sterile supermarkets, or waiting for the woefully inadequate drinks trolley to come squeaking along the aisle.

No, on an African bus, minibus taxi, matatu, dalla dalla or even train, the refreshments are fresh, hot, cooked to order and served up at every stop (and as often as not whenever the vehicle slows up slightly or pauses at a junction). Eager faces appear at the windows, eager hands proffer treats, money changes places and you're in possession of an armful of juicy mangoes or a goat kebab, still sizzling and wrapped in newspaper.

If you're not sitting by the window, the passenger who is will helpfully take your money and collect your goods and change. Imagine trying that on the London Underground or the New York Subway: 'scuse me mate, but I can't really be bothered to get up; could you pop to the chocolate machine on the platform for me? Here's a quid, I need twenty pence back'.

In Mozambique, they take bus window catering to an even more stylish level - small boys at the bus station in Maputo proffer chilled bottles of white wine accompanied by elegant long-stemmed glasses to make sure the journey goes with a swing...

If it's not food you're after, you can easily avail yourself of any presents you may require for those of your nearest and dearest you expect to meet on arrival. Provided the gift that's guaranteed to bring a loving grin to their faces is a plastic reproduction wristwatch or a wooden giraffe, that is. Of course this handy combination of travel and shopping can get a wee bit irritating on the longer (say, 18 hour) bus journeys that tend to prevail in Africa.

And I never can help wondering just why it is that Africans (in particular lady Africans) feel it necessary to load themselves up with a hundredweight of consumer goods before undertaking a journey between two major cities (going to Nairobi/Durban/Arusha to visit Auntie? Don't forget to stock up on enormous plastic washing up bowls and knitted nylon blankets before you go, will you?) and THEN supplement this already enormous load with every piece of fruit and useless plastic object being sold through the windows along the way. And they laugh at us travellers with our backpacks!

But all in all, or at least from my Africa-sick perspective here on the Austrian National Railway, you can keep your online timetables, automatic ticket machines, left luggage lockers and buffet cars. I'm yearning for the smell of dust and diesel oil, the taste of a hardboiled egg sold with a little twist of salt in brown paper, and the feel of hot, wet plastic seating beneath my bare legs...

If you've yet to be convinced that a spot of African public transport is anything but a ordeal of physical and mental endurance, the following tips might help: when travelling on African buses, follow a few simple rules of etiquette and you won't mark yourself out as an incorrigible greenhorn: