No fish on my bus!

Maori dancers
(Illustration only. They weren't on the bus.)

After traveling in Asia for months, taking local transport in all shapes and forms, fighting my way on buses with local people and all their luggage and chickens, I didn't expect to encounter something similar in a developed country such as New Zealand. True, the locals here don't travel with their chickens - because they travel with their fish.

New Zealand is a very clean country. The buses are clean. They don't allow hot food or ice cream on buses. On my trip from Taupo to Wellington, the bus driver repeated these rules over the loudspeaker, to make sure we all understood that hot food such as burgers or fries is not allowed because it would cause the bus to acquire a smell that wouldn't go away. He didn't recite any rules about transporting chickens or fish.

At one of the stops, a group of local Maori women got off the bus. I watched them through the window, unloading their bags and boxes and stuff. I noticed that one of them carried a white styrofoam container. I briefly wondered what might be in the container. Organ transplants?

I didn't have to wonder for long. The bus driver started yelling nervously:

"No fish on my bus! The next time I won't allow you to board my bus. No fish on my bus!"

But there was nothing he could do as the woman was already getting off the bus with her fish in the styrofoam container. Apparently she managed to sneak onto the bus with it without anyone noticing. And I have to say that the container was closed tightly enough because there wasn't any smell of fish on the bus at all.

Travel is still full of surprises.