In Xiamen, busses play a large part in your life. As it happens we live near the coast where the mountain comes closer to the sea than anywhere else. Whereas this would normally cause a lot of traffic congestion as cars go from the centre of the town to the university area and onward up the coast, here a dual carriageway “bridge” has been built along the shore out at sea so not many cars come down our road. All the busses do though. This means that we can walk out of our apartment block and in 200m we are at the bus stop for some 20 busses that can take us almost anywhere in town or up to the north of the island. The cost of the busses is 1 yuan if you pay cash but 0.9 yuan (about 9p) if you use a swipe card and you can stay on as long as you like. So, ok, the busses can be a bit ropey but you rarely have to wait longer than five minutes for one and they are air conditioned. Everyone uses them. Service people use them to come and fix your electricity or CATV internet connection. One incident that flummoxed Viny was when she bought a microwave. She asked the supermarket sales person if they would deliver it. They agreed that they would. Viny then wanted to give them her address but the man said there was no need. “Why is there no need?” asks Viny. “Because I will be on the bus with you.” He says. They can get a bit crowded at peak times. As well as the seating of 35 there is no limit to the number who can squeeze in. Well, the physical limit seems to be about 50 people standing. There are techniques for dealing with this. When the front door is jammed solid, ie standing all around the driver, then people cram into the exit door. The problem then is that those people have not paid so they pass the money forward from person to person till it gets to the front and it is put in the pay box.
It is interesting that the busses are definitely run as a “service”. I have not yet seen anyone just miss a bus. If the driver sees someone who is running for the bus, he will wait for them even though they may be some distance away. Sometimes the busses start and stop four or five times at a stop to pick up stragglers.
The other thing which is notable is the etiquette on the bus. An old person or a person with a child always gets a seat. From what I can tell, this is the rules which are not enforced but are instantly adhered to when an old person gets on the bus. Occasional “arguments” occur when a young person gives his seat to someone who doesn’t consider themselves to be old.
The other thing which is notable is the etiquette on the bus. An old person or a person with a child always gets a seat. From what I can tell, this is the rules which are not enforced but are instantly adhered to when an old person gets on the bus. Occasional “arguments” occur when a young person gives his seat to someone who doesn’t consider themselves to be old.
So how do you know where busses go. Simple - google it. The google map of Xiamen has all the bus stops and what busses stop there. Also a route finder that gives you the route plan.
Driving generally in Xiamen is pretty scary. Bus drivers are ok, though I do see some of them getting road rage when stuck behind an idiot driver. Cars seem to pretty much drive wherever they want, drifting from lane to lane regardless of anyone else. Sometimes they do a U turn in the middle of the road that rarely works out and ends up as a 5 point turn. Other drivers don’t give them room to complete the turn – the concept of giving way to someone has not been invented yet. Pedestrian crossings don’t mean much but it does seem harder to get knocked down on one. One general problem seems to be that pedestrian crossings are often near cross roads with traffic lights so when the green man says go you tend to assume it is safe to cross. Well there are two problems with that. One is that there is a traffic turning right rule (remember they drive on the right) which says that cars turning right can go through the red light. This is quite sensible as they are not getting in anybody’s way. The other thing is the things that travel on two wheels are not “vehicles” as such so don’t have to obey any traffic rules. Also as many of them are electric, they are silent so hum past you at high speed out of nowhere. They can travel on the pavement or on the road and do not have to drive on the right. They can carry as many people as they can (rarely more than 4) or carry heavy loads of long steel piping looking more like a jousting match or 10 big gas cylinders – a rolling bomb, and of course helmets are never seen. I have often seen an electric bike driving against the traffic flow on a multilane road, between the lanes. I see accidents every day but I have only once seen a fatality and he was under a bus. He wasn’t moving and people standing around did not seem to be attending to him. I suppose the traffic does not move very fast in the city so accidents are usually not bad.
