It was an overcast day in Hong Kong as my friend Mark and I boarded a double-decker bus with no destination in mind. We just wanted to see where it went – part of what became our theme of deviating from the group’s tour itinerary.
Both decks of the bus were so packed there was barely room to stand, as we rode away and ventured into the unknown.
With each stop, the crowd gradually thinned, and all of us standing now had a place to sit.
As we traveled on, we watched the Hong Kong skyline disappear beyond the horizon. The bus continued to empty out, until Mark and I were the last remaining passengers.
At the next stop, the bus driver got off. It wasn’t like we had arrived at a depot or anything – and he never made any attempt to explain to us that this was the end of the line. He just opened the door and left. Mark and I cracked up laughing – which was our goal throughout the tour – to never leave anywhere without having had a great laugh.
It wouldn’t be our only laugh of the day.
Continuing our expedition on foot, we explored the area for hours – the only two Caucasians in a sea of Asians. We came across an open-air market. And, knowing we were so far away from where we began, we called it “the market at the end of the earth.”
Night was falling and the November chill was starting to set in. It was time to head back to the hotel. But we couldn’t find a bus or a cab, so we started to walk – which we knew was going to take an eternity considering how long we had been on that bus.
After a couple of miles, we approached a restaurant and decided to stop for dinner. We were seated, then waited…and waited…but no server approached our table. They just kept walking past us as if we weren’t there. But instead of being irritated, we laughed. After setting out on a journey to nowhere in particular, then being left on a bus with no driver, getting no table service was perfect.
Then, without ever ordering, the servers suddenly started bringing us a parade of dishes – enough dim sum for a party of five – which again elicited more laughs.
We weren’t sure what all the dishes were, but we devoured everything and left a generous tip for what turned out to be the best meal we never ordered.
Robert Keats is a screenwriter and humorist. He is currently developing a television series for Penny Marshall.