Forget Amtrak. When I went to Philly to see Radiohead, it was my first trip on the Chinatown Bus. Now I’m a believer. So clean (personal garbage bags!). Mad cheap (um, twelve bucks?!). Inspiring. And though all I can do is post, Brooklyn duo Project Jenny, Project Jan have done me one better: They wrote a song about it! Like to hear it? Here it goes.
Now, that ain’t just a perfectly suited laugh anthem for your NJ Turnpike treks; they’re comin’ with knowledge. “Ni Ho Ma is what you say when you get on the Chinatown Bus.” Ingratiation like that will get you a $2 discount. I shit you not!
If you like what you hear, grab a ton of the band’s MP3s here. (I suggest “Negative;” hilarious laptop dancehall about losing the negatives to the sort of pics your girl doesn’t want you losing the negatives for. If you follow.) And the kids can work a room.
The Chinatown Bus runs to D.C. and Beantown too. Far as I can tell, it’s all good. If you’ve got a story, post it.
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Can’t beat $20 to DC or Boston ($35 roundtrip), but you should know the rumor is that many of these buses are way older than you might think and are not up to date with their licenses and safety regulations. I’ve also heard some of the drivers don’t have licenses, which isn’t suprising considering that many of them don’t speak any english. There is another company called Washington Delux that is supposedly way more up to speed and safe. I read an article on all this somewhere, so it must be true.
http://www.changingtrax.com – music changes lives
dude, william is right. being in a NYC-DC relationship for 3 years now I can tell you the chinatown bus is not as cool as it seems the first few times. they lie, cheat, break down, smell, are totally unreliable at times and they’ll convenienly pretend to not speak english in times of trouble. I have learned the hard way lol
Now every other weekend I just on either the deluxe mentioned above or one of the non-chinatown companies
They are cheap and sometimes don’t catch on fire.
I’ve been on it twice now. It’s been smelly both times, but not smelly enough to stop me from taking it again. Seriously for the money it can’t be beat. Funny song
Yeah, I took it once from NY to Boston. It was smelly and full of loud kids. There wasn’t enough space for me (I’m 6’4″). All of which is par for the course when taking the bus. But with the Chinatown service, the bus was very late to come and the sidewalk was FULL of very irate people…about 3 busses worth, which they weren’t prepared for. Then because of traffic I ended up 4 hours(!) late on a trip from NYC to Boston. The nice thing was it was so cheap, I ate the money for the return fare and just bought a train ticket instead. I too have heard the buses aren’t up to code, but figured it was a rumor started by Greyhound.
My one experiment on a Chinatown bus ended with me and 3 other people walking along the NJ turnpike, 5 miles outside of the city trying to find a ride back in. Bad News Bears, people.
Washington Post did a story on them earlier this year and mentioned that the busses had a history of safety and mechanical problems, plus overbooking and other inconveniences.
sometimes there are live chickens on them.
Took it once from the Bean to NYC and enjoyed it. HOWEVER, I have seen a Fung Wah in flames not once, but TWICE on the Mass Pike.
My last experience on the Lucky Star was alright. Plus you get to go to Roy Rogers.
i saw a chinatown bus driver abandon a guy at the crappy rest stop we peed at. he got on, counted everyone, said, “We miss one. I guess he no want to go to Boston.” then, he closed the door.
still love ‘em, though.
my worst china town bus experience, the whole bus smelled like rotten fruit and dirty diapers, the AC was broken, and we got stuck in horrible traffic making the 3 1/2 hour trip more like 6 and a half hours. There wasn’t one, but three babies on the bus, and an obnoxious girl talking on her cell phone most of the way in front of me.
Greyhound is way better. If you buy your ticket online, its the same price as the china town bus, its much cleaner and it leaves from the Port Authority terminal.
I’ve taken it a bunch of times between Boston and NYC, and never had any problems.
One of my friends takes it a lot, so she’s had plenty of bad experiences. On one trip, the bus stopped at a rest stop and the driver completely disappeared. They had to wait for another bus to show up. Bizarre.
Ugh, I went on this bus down to DC and there was NO AC the whole way down. It was one of the worst experiences I have ever had..
I’d rather chew on tinfoil then go on another one..
ugh.
krist
http://www.thepunkguy.com
We paid my friend $20 to jerk off in the bathroom on the Chinatown bus. On the way back to NY the next day, he threw up twice.
Took it from Boston to NYC and back. Uneventful on the way, but on the way back we stopped at Roy Rogers near New Haven and found out (eventually, and via gossip among passengers with no real communication from drivers) that the brakes on our bus were totally gone and we were waiting there for a new bus. 4 hours (!!!!) later, we got back on and finished the ride. Not sure I’d go that way again.
There’s a bishop allen song called chinatown bus as well, good song.
Evidently the Jew Bus is where it’s at: http://www.vamoosebus.com/ Same price as the Chinatown.
philebrity has been jocking the chinatown bus for days:
http://www.philebrity.com/index.php?s=benny%27s+world&submit=Search
i took the chinatown bus from boston to NYC. fairly uneventful. it was nice. clean. and cheap. i think that roy rogers near new haven gets the bulk of its business from that bus.
I’ve heard about the Fung Wah on fire on the Mass Pike, too. My only BOS-NY bus problem actually happened on a Peter Pan, when the old woman sitting behind me retched into a shopping bag for four hours. And I had forgotten my iPod. On the way out, she left the bag on the floor and someone kicked it over.
As it was my first bus trip to NY, I kinda felt like hayseed Axl in ‘Welcome to the Jungle.’
okay guys, don’t be retarded. all busses suck… have you ever been on a bus and enjoyed it?
i’ve taken it a few times. it’s not bad when you’re poor. my favorite time was when there were like 30000 people waiting for one bus and i had to throw punches to get on my bus. hell, i had to get to nyc. i made it in one piece. no worries. sorry if i broke your nose.
like someone else said, greyhound now has cheap tickets to compete with the chinatown bus. i’d rather fly.
The first time I rode on the Lucky Star bus, the driver drove down a private road to avoid traffic. It turned out to be a dead end, and had to k-turn in a driveway to get out. While doing this, he broke huge branches of someone’s tree, and a person from one of the houses came out and stated yelling at him, although he continued to drive on. On that same trip, someone threw up, and the smell coming from the vomit was one of the worst I had ever experienced. However, every other time I’ve taken the bus it has been a fair trip, and really for the price there isn’t too much to complain about… I did hear that the different bus companies in Chinatown are rivals, and that they have gone as far as attacking eachother.
Belvedere: You paid someone to make the bus less pleasant for others????
I’m trying to figure out how to get from NYC to 30th street station in Philly. My friend goes to fordham (bronx campus) so I need a cheap and fast route to go visit. What do you guys think the best way would be?
I’ve taken the Chinatown bus about 6 or so times from Baltimore to NYC and Boston. It has always been the cheapest way to travel for me, because I never buy tickets in advance. I am able to show up about 20 minutes before a bus, and go. I was even able to do this during memorial day Weekend.
Besides the smell; barely an AC; and a few disgruntled displaced late passengers, I have not had any real problems with the bus.
The Chinatown bus is an unique experience to be had in America. You will not find many mass transportation services with such loose structure. This is one of the reasons that I like riding the bus. You never know what to expect.
I’ve taken the Chinatown Bus from NY to DC and from DC to Philly more times than I care to think about. Here’s the bad stuff that’s happened as a result, to me personally:
Most recently (after which I swore off Chinatown buses forever), my bus broke down at the Maryland House (a half an hour outside of Baltimore, I swear they should have just put it in neutral and let me take Amtrack for $6 to get back to DC), and I made my boyfriend’s best friend come get me. Three hours later. And everyone else had to wait for a new bus to come.
That was the worst, but I’ve had other bad experiences-
At least twice, the air conditioning and ventilation in general has broken, so that you literally could not breathe on the bus. Once this was in the summer, so it was unbearably hot (plus I was next to the bathroom). Once it was in the winter, so it still sucked but not as much.
Everyone ALWAYS talks on the phone. Once, there was a girl next to me who literally described her entire life’s story (where she went to college, then where she transferred to, then who her ex-boyfriend was, then who she cheated on him with) for the entire 5 1/2 hours it took to get home.
There’s ALWAYS really bad traffic. No matter what time I leave, it always takes at least two hours more than it’s supposed to. Which really isn’t the bus driver’s fault, considering they drive WAY over the speed limit.
This has happened to close friends of mine:
My best friend’s bus broke down, and she had to wait FOUR HOURS until a new bus came. They were on the side of 95, and there was nothing she could do but wait.
Another friend of mine had to CROSS THE HIGHWAY to get to the new bus. On foot. Ridiculous.
I would take Grayhound any day. Actually, I’ve given up on the whole thing and refuse to take anything but Amtrack, so I never go anywhere anymore. It’s a huge shame that a train subsidized by the government costs hundreds of dollars (and it isn’t based on operating costs or distance- a guy I met paid 30 dollars less to go from Paoli, PA to NYC, and Paoli is half an hour outside of Philly in the opposite direction). There is no easy, safe and affordable way to get between Boston, NYC, Philly and DC, so people that are young who can’t afford it are forced to take unsafe, dangerous transportation. Sad.
It just so happens that I just purchased a ticket for the Lucky Star Bus, and that I’ve also started counting in my blessings.
I have heard of the terrible experiences, similar, if not replicas, to what is posted above, but through third person accounts. It took this blog to really put things in perspective.
Ok, so the bus is crap. This is what most people can come to agree on, but honestly, for $15 what else can you ask for? It’s almost a miracle they don’t bring out a U-Haul truck & ask us all ticket holders to step in.
Given the service is crap, why not just simply enjoy the small pleasantries on the bus? You could be walking your way back to NY, or in my case be forced into a confined space with already strained relations between the parents. Worse comes to worse, I’ll sit next to a sketchy being on my right, and I’ll ask him about his adventures. It’s all to be taken in perspective.
That being said, I’m couting in all the times my parents have wished me well, and hope they don’t need to come into usage tomorrow. If they do, by god, I hope it spares me the 4 extra hours others have endured.
I have taken the Travel Pack, Fung Wah, and Lucky Star nearly 100 times between Boston and New York and other than traffic, there has never been a problem (knock on dirty window glass). I think perhaps when tickets were $10 and both companies were operating at a loss in a price war the service suffered. However, lately (especially on the lucky star) there have been very few problems and the service been better than what you pay for.
-M DiZ
We’ve taken Fung Wah many times and have found it to be clean, fast (aside from major traffic that affected everyone on the road), easy, and safe. The only complaint was our most recent trip. They always book multiple busfuls and hire outside companies to provide extra buses, and this time while we got a nice fancy bus, the driver, an older white American (only mentioning this to counter the drivers-don’t-speak-English comments above) talked on his cellphone – handheld, so he had only one hand on the wheel – for long stretches. I think that explained his trouble staying in his lane.
I’m sure that wouldn’t have happened on Greyhound/Peter Pan, etc., but on the other hand, I’m just as sure I wouldn’t have gotten to my destination any faster or more reliably, I would have spent far more money, and the Chinatown stop is much more convenient for me than Port Authority.