If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys
In my life, during these "some" years of mine, I have tried all types of transportation, even those that are considered commercial.
I have never driven a submarine, space shuttle, Formula 1 car, fighter plane or helicopter...
But that's why I sailed the seas, lakes and rivers in big ships and small boats.
I was on the tracks in pre-war train buses, freight locomotives and wagons, subways, trams, but also in modern high-speed trains.
Flew jet powered planes as well as propeller powered ones.
I drove on rural and forest roads in various machines, but also drove some expensive cars, drove SUVs and vans, cargo trucks, forklifts, small motorcycles (never motorcycles with a lot of cubic capacity), bicycles and was driven in the same such vehicles.
And I was transported in buses.
This morning when I woke up, I wanted today's post to be in written format, without a lot of pictures, because in the last few days, I've posted a lot of pictures...
I waited like every Friday, and waited for the topics that galenkp gave for this weekend.
A few topics caught my attention and I thought about them as I wrapped up the business activities for this week...
And when I started home, in the parking lot of the bus that takes us home, instead of the usual red buses, there was this green one, with the previously known name of the carrier.
FLIXBUS
And a flashback in my head.
A reminder of a stay in the Netherlands ten years ago.
Who would have thought that bus transport in the Netherlands would have anything to do with the topic:
Travel problems: What's the worst taxi, bus, train, ship or plane travel you've experienced?
I'm not going to write about the burned-out train buses I used to ride on the same tracks of the country where I live, when the journey lasted an hour because of the noise and clatter while driving us through the vast plains of Vojvodina.
I don't want to remember the trauma of the people around me when we were kicked out of the plane on the runway due to a malfunction, and after two hours were returned to return home in the same but "repaired" plane.
Many around me were crying then...
And I don't even want to write about situations (rare, but there were) when, due to turbulence, most of the plane was covered with vomit and tears of adults.
For me, who is not squeamish, and I'm not afraid of crashing and falling apart (because I adore amusement park attractions), these situations on the plane are not terrible, because I know:
When I got on the plane and it took off, it was going to land. One way or another. Fate will tell which one.
And only nausea and falls on the decks of vessels on seas and rivers...
No, I have fond memories of ships, which I rode the least often, and now I want to ruin them by talking about a few of the worst situations I've experienced.
I will write about the experience I had while visiting a well-organized, cultural and beautiful country.
In the Netherlands.
I rode a tram, a train, a bicycle, a car and a van...
And when I wanted to go on a day trip to Rotterdam from Amsterdam, I had an unexpected, negative experience.
We were younger, we didn't have a lot of money, so we looked at every step where we could cut costs.
Instead of buying tickets for the extra comfortable and fast train, which connects Amsterdam and Rotterdam by rail, we decided to buy tickets for FlixBus, which were 3 times cheaper.
At the bus station in Amsterdam, we were waiting on the platform of the bus station for the arrival of the bus that ran the Hamburg-Brussels route.
The first negative experience, the delay of the bus in a country where transportation is organized so that there is no delay of even a minute, and not more than half an hour that we waited for.
When the bus arrived we got settled in and very quickly, the bus headed for Rotterdam.
That trip should have lasted a little longer than 1.5 hours.
While driving, the driver was often on a mobile phone. From the tone of his voice, we concluded that he was arguing with someone.
And after we had been driving for almost an hour, he turned off the highway, without letting us know what was going on.
People were dozing so they didn't notice right away, and I, who know my way around well, concluded that the bus was going back to Amsterdam.
When a few more passengers asked the driver what it was about, he said he had to go back to Amsterdam because there were some passengers left at the station.
What to do, we'll lose another two hours.
But we will not change the plan, we are not giving up on visiting Rotterdam.
At the station in Amsterdam, he stayed for a few minutes, 4 passengers entered the bus, and we started our way to Rotterdam again.
At some point, the two passengers got into an argument with the passengers we were returning for. I don't know German or Dutch, but I understood that it was a argue.
And that argument turned into a fight in a bus that was driving very fast on the highway.
The driver stopped the bus at the first stop and the discussion continued outside the bus.
It didn't occur to me to interfere in that discussion and calmly (apparently calmly, consoling my partner), I remained in my seat.
After half an hour, the journey continued, and one of the passengers had a broken nose...
In Rotterdam, when the bus stopped, I was the first to get out, because I did not think of being a witness to be questioned by the police, who were called by the driver because of a fight on the bus.
And anyway, we shortened our trip by three hours due to someone else's negligence.
The stay in Rotterdam that day was beautiful and remained in a good memory, although the green bus, FlixBus, which, wherever I later met it on the roads, reminded me of that unpleasant and dangerous situation when driving on the highway, in which it could easily happen that a large number of passengers got involved in a fight.
The return to Amsterdam, with a downpour of rain at the station while we waited for the bus, which was late again, was peaceful, and because of wet shoes and clothes, we also had a bad cold as a memory.
We survived, but the experience was so bad that we never considered FlixBus as a means of transportation again, no matter how much the savings were.
I remembered while I was writing this the words of one of my friends:
And where did you see that it is good and cheap
The truth that was proven to me by the FlixBus transport service.
What are your experiences with FlixBus if it transports in the countries where you are from? Was I not lucky enough, so that the first and only time remains an ugly memory for me, or are such situations really common on trips with them?