Sleeper bus

The thought of a sleeper-bus from Ruli to Nansing was appealing in as much as the 12 hour hourney would be on my back, and not so crushing on my little ass. The 2 hour leg to Mangsi was a treat...I was alone on the four-person platform at the rear of the bus with my face nicely pressed into the window. The early morning sun appeared over the landscape like a small red ball. There was no heat in this fireball but the orange light filled the mist and dust covered landscape of fields and shadowy distant mountains with a warm glow.

But then...well before then we pulled into Mangsi to a big flurry of action where folks were testing out options and arguing bed numbers. Duly dusted and plumped, folks took to their (agreed) bedspaces. All further movement in the contained and sardine-like tin-can of a bus was not unlike the child's game - do you remember the game with 8 squares out of 9 which had to be re-arranged in a skillful manner to create a picture? The mere shifting of position to realign one's neighbour's elbow from your kidney to your rectum required a bus-load of assistance. It was a good thing that we stopped only once (1100 hrs for lunch) before trundling to a halt in Nansing at 2030 hrs (some 13.5 hours after kickoff!). Only the baby boy sharing the four-person platform was able to pee and it was with only the assistance of three adults and one plastic bag that he was successful. The rest of us just crossed our legs for the duration.