2009: Journeys 3 (Prague to Paris)

Getting out of Ukraine turned out to be more difficult than going in, but I made it back to Prague for Easter weekend. LOTS more people than when I visited in January, but the weather is perfect and everyone is out worshipping the sun during the day and enjoying balmy weather at night.

Prague castle at night

Prague Symphony with Mirka

Trains, hotels and even hostels were completely booked during the Easter holiday (I was lucky to get a bed in a slightly run-down hostel more or less in the center of Prague), so I had to get on yet another overnight bus to get back to Paris. Aside from the fact that sleeping on a bus is not very comfortable, I've always had a fear of overnight buses because I imagine the driver falling asleep at the wheel at three o'clock in the morning. I know they're professionals, I know they're used to long overnight drives, but the possibility crosses my mind at least, even though it's never actually happened to me... until now.

I was comfortably dozing, curled up into a foetal position in my double seat (lucked out because the bus was almost full). I must have been dozing, at least, because I don't remember anything, any transition at all between being asleep and being awake. I'm awake now. Everyone on the bus is awake.

Not only awake, but airborne. The first thought I have is "my body isn't touching my seat," and that strikes me as strange. My second thought is to recognize, simultaneously, the furious sound of rough pavement rattling our wheels as the bus swerves onto the shoulder and the startled sound of one of the drivers up front crying out "oh! ho!" The screeching of tires. My mind goes back to the position of my body... completely airborne and beginning to move forward. I grip a railing that used to be in front of and is now passing below. We can't be breaking down, I think irrationally; I've already had my bus breakdown experience on this trip, back in Belarus.

I look out the front window and realize why the tires are screeching - we are careening directly toward the 2-foot high metal barrier that divides the highway. We're not breaking down, I realize... we're crashing. I look at the lady across the aisle from me and her two little girls. She must be terrified for her kids, I think. And then I fixate again on the fact that everyone is momentarily floating in the air and yet completely quiet. Not one passenger makes a sound while one of the drivers up front keeps shouting. I never find out whether it was the guy at the wheel shouting or the relief driver, who had been napping until the bus went out of control.

The entire weight of the bus is now on the shoulder. So many tires rolling over the bumps and divets in the shoulder pavement make a horrific roar that drowns out all other sounds. It doesn't help that the highway is bending to the right. Actually, that's probably what woke the driver up in the first place was the bus continuing straight when the road bent to the right. It takes heavy braking and a dramatic swerve, but the driver manages to miss the center divider and oncoming traffic on the other side. He pays for it, though... even I can feel the back of the bus getting away from him as we swerve to the right across several lanes of traffic. Horns honking, cars maneuvering to avoid us. I remember how important it is not to take turns too fast in a big, heavy vehicle like a fully-loaded bus.

But, while he clearly could do better in the area of not falling asleep at the wheel, our driver is quite amazingly competent at regaining control now that he's woken up. We come to a rest diagonally, across two lanes and a shoulder, but somehow he manages not to hit anything. He must be in shock a bit because the first thing he does is to grab a flashlight and go outside to do a walkaround inspection. The relief driver calls him back in. We creep slowly across to the larger shoulder on the right side of the highway and stop again so that they can do the inspection properly (i.e. not in the middle of the freeway). I look at the clock... 3:07 am.

A few minutes later, with no explanation offered and, amazingly, none demanded by any of us passengers, we pull back onto the road to continue our drive to Paris. I think it's safe to say, though, that I was not the only one who slept lightly for the rest of the night and perked up every time the bus strayed from its lane.