Buses a source of pride and joy for two obsessed teenagers

CAN YOU IMAGINE riding on a bus for a whole afternoon, doing nothing but listening to the sweet symphony of the engine and leaves brushing against the windows?

To William Chan Wing-ha, 13, and his best friend, Ho Wing-wah, 17, this is bus bliss. The two teenagers are obsessed with buses. Since Wing-wah is much taller than Wing-ha, their friends call them 'double-decker' and 'single-decker' respectively.

'Once, we had nothing to do after Sunday school at church, so we decided to take a bus ride. We took a total of seven buses in one afternoon!' says a proud Wing-ha, a student at Carmel Holy Word Secondary School.

Their journey started off with their favourite bus, 72X, at noon. The six-hour ride was clearly memorable to Wing-ha, as he described the routes and stops from Tai Po, via Ho Man Tin, So Uk, Cheung Kwai O, Sai Kung, Diamond Hill and back home to Tai Po. They had fun trying out different buses and comparing engine speed and performance.

'I love buses. Sometimes when I sit down, I close my eyes and I am enveloped by the feeling of comfort a bus gives me. It seems to me that I am communicating with the vehicle,' says Wing-ha. He says he developed an affection for buses early on.

'My family moved to Tai Po when I was one year old. At the time, Tai Po was still a new town and the only public transport was the bus.'

To Wing-ha, the number 72X bus means more than comfort and convenience - it symbolises his childhood. 'My mother and I visit my grandfather regularly in Ho Man Tin and we usually take the 72X. It became my favourite bus and, eventually, buses became indispensable to my life!'