Public transport has been the butt of jokes for decades: Nader Habib finds out why "Going to work by bus is traumatic. I look forward to retiring simply because once I retire, I will no longer have to get on a bus ever again. Sometimes it arrives on time with plenty of free seats, even window seats. Sometimes. But the day-to-day experience is more about -- well, you end up with what you end up with." Thus spoke my friend Mohamed Salah, 30; I resolved to join him, to find out if he was exaggerating. We made plans to meet at a major bus terminal in Moqattam at 8am the next day, with the aim of reaching Ramses by public transport as soon as possible. In the meantime, I noted down all that I knew about the topic. Cairo buses come in a variety of colours. The ones with blue or red stripes are owned by the Public Transportation Authority (PTA), and seem to be dwindling in number. The green ones, operated by private companies under PTA supervision and charging somewhat higher fares, seem to be spreading. Every day, some 4.6 million Egyptians use both these kinds of buses; another 1.5 use private buses. The next day is a working day, and 8am is clearly rush hour; everyone wants to get to Ramses, students and employees and all manner of people. It's been 10 minutes and only one bus has arrived: too full to board; some people manage to squeeze their way in, admittedly. We aren't so brave. We resort to Plan B instead: to take a private microbus to the nearest bus terminal at Sayeda Aisha Square, and try our luck from there; and Plan B seems to work. We are in Sayeda Aisha in no time -- testimony to the efficacy of the private microbus, a deadly mode of transport if ever there was one -- but it takes another 15 minutes for the first public bus to arrive. This being the end of the line, we board a nearly empty vehicle, sitting comfortably by the window. Three minutes on the driver starts the engine, and in the interim the conductor -- not dressed in uniform but easily identifiable by the wad of tickets he holds -- is swaying at the door calling out "Ramses, Ramses", the way microbus quasi-conductors do; it is as if no one can see the destination clearly marked at the front of the bus. Never mind. Not until we are on our way does real trouble start. The conductor has been handing out tickets mechanically for a while when, at the third stop, a man boards from the front rather than the back door, where he is supposed to, and refuses to pay the 25 piastre fare. Backed by passengers, the conductor insists -- and the man lays into both conductor and driver -- so the latter pulls over right in the middle of the road: he won't budge until the man has paid up, which the man categorically won't. Eventually the conductor picks up the number plate from behind the windshield, where it is illegally placed, and strikes the man on the head; he bleeds, women and children cry out. "This is unacceptable," one woman says. "I have children with me." First the bus is evacuated of women and children, then everyone gets off as the driver and conductor and non-paying passenger decide to go to the police station to sort out the row. And Salah and I end up at the nearest stop, waiting. We have waited for over an hour when, finally, a bus arrives packed to overflowing; this time we squeeze in, but we have barely passed two stops when a woman is heard screaming, "Shame on you! Don't you have female relations?" She is addressing the man who has tried to squeeze past her to the exit; another man cowers in the corner, too scared to move. Within the same half square metre, someone is reading the paper and someone else is craning his neck to read over the first's shoulder; a mobile phone rings and family affairs are being loudly discussed. My friend and I crane our necks too: as it turns out, the article being read is about the transport crisis. Salah says more buses are needed. He points to seats allocated to women, the elderly and people with special needs; they are all occupied by apparently healthy young men. Then the bus fills up even more: we turn into tinned sardines, but we can only be thankful for our position compared to that of the man at the perpetually open door, who is hanging on to the bus with one foot on the step, his hand clutching the rail. Before long it is difficult to breathe: in winter, passengers tend to keep the windows closed; it is as likely as not there will be someone sneezing or coughing right next to you, as indeed there is in our case. Salah plucks up the courage to ask the nearest window-seat passenger to open the window -- and everyone backs him up loudly, as if suddenly realising the possibility. A stop away from our destination, we spot two empty seats and take them immediately, thankful for a few minutes of rest at long last. The journey has taken two hours, and I feel as if I've already done a day's work. When Salah asks me if I will accompany him on the way back, I give a resounding no.
