Russian Nightmares
Not strictly public transport ... but ... went on a holiday to Cyprus a few years back and my mate and I decided to do the wee, two day, three night cruise to Israel and Egypt. Depart Cyprus night one, cruise to Egypt, wake and have the day in Cairo/Giza, cruise to Israel that night, wake and have the day in the holy land (buy cheese) back to the boat and cruise overnight back to Cyprus. If you can, do it! Well worth it.

You can pay shed loads for it and get a view, or you can, like us, pay pennies and get a tiny room near the engines. Sink you couldn't wash both balls in at the same time, storage enough for one shoe and fold down bunks that had inches of cleance space from either person above you or the roof.

Me and my mate didn't care ... we drank up on deck until the sun started to come up then stumbled a mile back down into the bowels of the ship to lie down for a few hours. We were sharing a room back on Cyprus so were fairly comfortable with each other, and it was only for two nights.

Not so for the guy we met on deck on the third night.

In fact, we met loads of people on the third night. The Cruise was mainly populated by older people, but as the bars closed all over the ship, there was a larger and larger group of young people gathering together in the search for booze. We made it to the last bar just as it was closing but managed to get a few armfuls of wine and beer bottles to drink al fresco. By about 2 or 3am the deck was populated by two Scottish blokes (us) two girls from Israel (pals, one Arab, one Muslim), some German girls, a HUGE Russian guy (more of him in a moment), a few Asians from the West and South East of the continent, the ubiquitous Oz bloke, a few randoms we never identified ... and it was fecking fantastic. A veritable United Nations, all happily drinking with each other, putting the world to rights and trying to get off with each other. Brilliant night.

Anyway, back at the point. One of the folk there was a guy from Liverpool who was joining in as much as he could, but was quiet plainly exhausted. He'd turned up on his own as his mates didn't fancy the trip, and had been assigned a bunk mate. He was in the same financial bracket as us, so ended up sharing his tiny bunk room with the aforementioned HUGE Russian guy.

He hadn't slept for the two previous nights and told us why ...

The HUGE Russian bloke had turned up in the room about midnight, just as our pal was bedding down. He was about 25, and 6 foot square, a scary combination of fat and muscle ... probably couldn't run after you for very far, but you were fucked if he caught you. On the other hand, he was sweetness and light, very quietly spoken, with a very gentle manner. When he came in, the Liverpool guy had to get out of bed to let him manouver into his, but was very apologetic and polite ... even offering one or two little vodka shots as nightcaps from his hip flask.

After a bit of kerfuffle, both were bedded down and the lights were off ... the guy from Liverpool slipped into a gentle doze. All was well.

Then around 4 in the morning the Russian guy started having a nightmare. A. NIGHTMARE.

I've woken up in some unfamiliar places before, but imagine, just imagine, waking up in a tiny space with an enormous bloke inches below your head screaming at a big imaginary scary monster. In Russian. In the dark. Then the arms started flailing.

The Liverpool guy shat himself. He didn't know what to do ... there was no way out of the bunk without standing on a part of this guy, who was now dreaming about having Godzilla in a headlock and shouting about it at the top of his voice. He stayed put, and fortunately Godzilla died not long after, making the Russain snore loudly in triumph.

Our pal didn't get back to sleep again that night.

The second night he stayed up drinking as long as he could and as he got to his room door, he heard the fight starting again ... he went back up and stayed on deck that night. It gets cold out there!

By the third night he'd given up and was trying to sleep with his rucksack tied to his leg and all his spare clothing around his body. Shame he'd camped out next to us as we cheered everytime he managed fall asleep.

It's not the size but what you do with the enormous bastard that counts.
( Cheeses of Nazareth Where's Captain Kirk? www.whereiskirk.com, Thu 5 Jun 2008, 0:12, Reply)