Why do people like roller coasters? I’m sure a psychologist or pathologist would ramble on and on about adrenaline, synapses, etc, but it just seems strange that we’ve evolved to crave and enjoy a certain degree of fear. I understand that evolution works in complicated ways, but this particular trait seems very counterintuitive to me. I would think our ancestors carrying the hunger for fear in their genome would have been eaten by tigers or toppled off cliffs. I can understand that the people who took the biggest risks may have reaped the biggest rewards and therefore been the most viable mate, but I doubt this characteristic was part of the evolutionary arms race for humans. The majority of those who didn’t grab that brass ring surely met their untimely demise.
I’ll be honest; I love roller coasters. I like them because they make me feel safe. Statistically, it is more likely for me to be hit by a bus while walking to the grocery store than it is for me to be killed on a rollercoaster. These are machines specifically designed to be safe as they carry riders around the air treating them to beautiful views and a nice breeze in their hair. Even sitting on a park bench there is always a risk of getting mugged or injured by a falling branch. During a massage somebody could be stealing your wallet, or during a nice relaxing dinner you could choke on a piece of chicken or get sick from chefs not properly washing their hands. I can’t think of a safer and more relaxing scenario than sitting on a chair high in the air with everybody around you locked to his or her seat.
But for those of you whom are adrenaline junkies and are thinking about visiting this part of the world, it would seem as though Macau is the place to go. They have bungee jumping off buildings, high stakes gambling, and exotic shows and experiences all geared to get your blood (and money) moving. Hong Kong on the other hand has much more relaxed and family friendly fun. Yes it has crazy parts, but these activities aren’t sold to tourists as publicly or abundantly as they are in Macau. Needless to say, I like Hong Kong!
But what can tourists in Hong Kong do if they need an adrenaline rush? Two words. Red minibus.
The Hong Kong minibus network has its roots as an illegal form of transport. Vans registered as taxis or goods carriers reacted to customer demand and an insufficient transport network by running unregulated service along corridors where climbing into the back of a stranger’s dodgy cargo van seemed like a pleasant alternative to riding on a public bus. The government initially turned a blind eye to this, but in the late 1960’s the growing popularity of minibuses began to pose a threat to regulated bus service. In 1969 the government finally acknowledged the presence and relevance of this illegal activity, but instead of enforcing and stopping it they opted to legalize and regulate it.
Today there are two types of minibuses, green vans and red vans. Green vans have government regulated schedules, routes, and fares. These busses operate just like a normal bus and run consistently. The red vans on the other hand have no set routes, no set stops, no set fares, and no schedule. They go wherever they want whenever they want. Their only goal is to get people in and out of the bus as quickly as possible while wasting the least amount of time and money covering gaps in service and latent demand.
Last Friday after a night of karaoke and a few drinks I found myself stranded in Tsim Sha Tsui at 2am with no bus or train service home. My only options were a taxi, which would cost about $250, or finding a red minibus, which would only cost around $20. The choice was obvious. I went looking for a red minibus.
Even though these busses usually don’t operate from proper bus depots, they are still relatively easy to find because somehow they know when you are looking for them. It is as if one of the qualifications for being a red minibus driver is psychic ability. While we walked down the street the appropriate bus pulled over, doors open and headlights flashing, with the driver calling for us to get in like a pimp luring lonely men into his whorehouse. We obliged, and the moment the majority of my body was inside, the bus accelerated down the street as quickly as possible, doors still open and me still clinging to the bars at the entrance step.
As I entered the minibus my first thought was that it looked and smelled like a mobile shed. The driver had bags of personal belonging, piles of dirty shoes and clothing, tools, boxes of random electronics, and a few brooms and cleaning supplies that clearly had not been used piled in the front of the bus. The seats were all wrapped in uncomfortable sticky plastic, the kind old people stereotypically put on their couches. After I sat down my first thought was to buckle my seatbelt. Where I expected to find a seatbelt buckle I instead encountered a large deposit of mysterious slime. I tried to wipe the slime off of my hand by rubbing it on the wall of the bus next to a sign warning that not wearing a seatbelt was illegal and may result in a fine, but this only made my hand dirtier. I then realized that the seatbelts had been wrapped under the plastic. Since accessing them was out of the question, I started thinking about where my head would go if the bus made an abrupt stop or was involved in a collision.
About 10 inches in front of me was a metal pipe, with an L shaped joint pointing directly towards the center of my skull. I assume this pipe was there to comfort passengers by letting them know that if the van was involved in a serious accident they wouldn’t have to worry about injuries or suffering because their head would immediately be split open by this strategically placed metal joint of death. In the very front of the bus hung a large red screen displaying the speed. According to the law, the maximum speed this bus was allowed to travel was 80km/hour, and at any speed above this the meter would start flashing and beeping loudly. It only took a few seconds for our meter to beep, and once it did, it never stopped.
This ride was a full sensory experience! I had the smell of burning engine and tires so strong I could taste it, the contrast of the lugubrious bus interior lit only by flashing red numbers with the brilliant neon lights of Kowloon flying past my window, the sound of a punished and tired vehicle trying to scream out warnings of its impending death over the high pitched beep of the speed alarm accompanied by the occasional chorus of screeching tires, and the G forces sliding me across the slippery plastic seat as the bus sped around corners with autocross intensity. I was scared! My heart was beating wildly and my sticky hands were shaking. I closed my eyes and tried to relax myself by pretending that I was on a rollercoaster, but it didn’t help.
Finally, on an empty back road near the gold coast, the bus came to a sudden stop at a red light. For the first time in about 20 minutes I could breathe! I looked around expecting to see a bus full of shaking and terrified eyes glimmering in the dark, but was met with one of the most bizarre sights I have ever seen. Everybody else had fallen asleep! Even my girlfriend had dozed off on my shoulder! How could people be scared of roller coasters but not of this minibus? Unlike a roller coaster, I was convinced that this bus ride was actually going to kill me! There were no bars or straps fastening me safely to my seat, instead pipes positioned specifically to destroy me. No attempts to adhere to safety rules had been made, and the mechanical condition of the vehicle had been clearly neglected.
But for now I felt safe and relaxed, breathing heavily at this red light. Then, from out of nowhere, a second minibus came to a sudden halt in the neighboring lane. Instead of waving a friendly hello to his fellow minibus operator, our driver glanced over with a scowl on his face. The other driver turned to face us and unleashed one of the most impressive scowls I’d ever witnessed. I guess having fantastic control over your forehead and eyebrows must also be requirements for minibus drivers.
At this point I had a stunning realization. This was not the end of my rollercoaster ride. It was the apex! Right now I was dangling over that big drop getting ready to fall. Whichever minibus was in the front would be the one to pick up the passengers ahead, and both drivers knew this! Suddenly our driver snapped his head forward to face the winding road ahead of us, grinded the minibus into 1st gear, and started accelerating as hard as he could before the light even had a chance to turn green. We jumped ahead off the line, but the other bus was close behind. Our driver ran 1st gear until the entire vehicle was shaking then quickly mashed the gear lever into second. When I looked to the right past my still sleeping girlfriend the other minibus was right next to us! No matter how hard our driver pushed they were neck and neck! Neither bus could pull away! This was no longer a drag race; it was a game of chicken! The busses just kept accelerating, our speed meter beeping loudly as the numbers crept higher and higher. Even around turns the busses just kept pushing harder, with speeds climbing well into the triple digits and tires screaming around turns as passengers sleepy heads bobbed back and forth.
Finally, the other driver decided he would rather miss the next few passengers than crash his minibus and plummet off the steep cliff beside us into the ocean, and abruptly slowed down. We had won! I felt an overwhelming sense of excitement and victory and almost started cheering, but quickly remember that everybody around me was still asleep.
A few minutes later we finally arrived in Tuen Mun and I exited the minibus as quickly as I could, still shaking. Before both of my feet could hit the ground the minibus was accelerating violently away from me. No roller coaster could have ever prepared me for the sheer terror of this ride. It really is one of the most exhilarating experiences in the world. Why would anybody pay to go to an amusement park or for bungee jumping and gambling in Macau when they could ride a red minibus for a fraction of the cost?
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