Happy travellers

I had a wonderful experience travelling by bus in Penticton. I moved to Canada with my seven-year-old son last year from Bangkok, Thailand. It is totally different travelling in Penticton compared to Bangkok.

In Bangkok, I usually took the sky train or drove, but rarely took a bus because they were always crowed and it was hard to get on and off with a young child. 

When I first moved to Penticton, I did not have a driver’s licence. As a result, I had to take the bus with my son on a regular basis. 

The Penticton bus is never crowed: in fact, there are usually only a few passengers. The problem though is that the bus comes every 60 minutes in the day time and every 90 minutes at night. 

After a while, I learned the bus schedule by heart. We now know all the bus drivers and they seemed to know us as well.

One day in the winter, I took my son to a skating lesson. After finishing the class, I thought we still had enough time, so I taught him how to tie his shoes. 

However, when we stepped out of the arena, we saw the last day-bus just passed in front of us. I was shocked for a moment because the next bus was 90 minutes later. 

We could not stand at the bus stop for that long in the freezing temperature. Then I remembered that my friend’s house was just three blocks away, so I told my son to walk and wait for the next bus over there. He walked but also cried. Since then, I have never missed a bus.

Later in the spring, my son had a soccer lesson. When he finished, we had about 10 minutes before the bus came. While we were walking to the bus stop, he told me that he needed to go to the washroom. 

I said that we had no time; otherwise we were going to miss the bus. When the bus came, it was empty. My son said hello to the driver and also told him that he needed to go to the washroom. I didn’t expect any response.

However, after he drove for a while, he told us that he was going to drop my son off at a restaurant to use the washroom. 

He stopped the bus in front of the restaurant to wait for my son until he finished his business. He also called the bus driver of our transfer to wait for us. We both thanked him for his kindness.

Although we do not need to take a bus anymore because I have my driver’s licence, I miss it very much. I would like to see the bus driver again and tell him that he is the most wonderful bus driver in the world.