Maine Bus Tour with Paradise Vacations

"What are two of the most famous universities based here in Boston?" asked Fun Da Ho**
�"Harvard!", replied some of the passengers.�
"What's the other one?", continued Fun Da Ho, and then answering his own question, "It's Yale".�
"YALE???", exclaimed at least ten voices in unison. "No, MIT!!!".�

It was the latest in the string of laughable miscues by FDH on this three day journey to Maine. Yes, Maine. Why the bus was headed to Boston was a mystery to me, as nowhere in the itinerary was it mentioned that Beantown would be a stop on the way back to NYC. Not that I minded, it proved to be a pleasant surprise - I had fond memories of the city, despite the humiliation doled out by the Red Sox to the hated Yankees. Back to FDH, poor him - he was just trying his best to make up for the boo boos during the first two days and to quell the mutiny of the rabble rousing passengers. A passenger rebellion on a bus tour? Unthinkable...well, here was how it all started.�

As my company was generous enough to award us hardly-working zombies (also called employees) a reprieve from a daily grind in the form of a 4-day weekend, my friend J. and I, due to our laziness in planning the logistics of a road trip, decided to join this 3days/2nights Chinatown bus tour to Maine offered by Paradise Vacations (http://www.paradisetour.us)- he swore by the agency, heaping all manner of praises on them - hitting Portland (which was charming, especially the lighthouse), Bangor (somewhat industrial, the parts around the hotel anyway), and best of all, Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park (superb views from the peak of Cadillac Mountain). As you can see from the pics I was much pre-occupied in devouring these tasty crustaceans for which Maine has a well-deserved reputation.�

Anyway, I digress. Most of our tour mates had a beef with the inept tour director, the above mentioned FDH and rude bus driver (whom I thought looked either drunk or high most of the time). Among other things, we constantly kept getting lost and had to ask for directions at gas stations (when questioned, FDH would flat out lie and claim the driver went it to buy ziggies), got billeted in smoking rooms (unspeakable) at the Holiday Inn, were not provided the supposedly "included" continental breakfast (Mickey D's saved the day), were assembled and ready to go by the appointed time but the driver was nowhere to be found, and kept getting dragged to crappy Chinese buffet places.�

But all these were trivial compared to the almost non-existent (and if it did, bordering on the abysmal) English commentary provided for FDH for non-Chinese language speakers - it spurred me to volunteer my translation services to this poor Filipino family of seven, who were eternally grateful (Didn't bother to mention that I was an alumnus of GCHS, a school with shaky Mandarin instruction and where the students' main preoccupation was thinking up nicknames for their teachers). In all, the trip provided loads of comic relief. Fortunately J. and I were seated near the back, as every time FDH explained some details we patiently waited for the English version, and as�more often that not it was not provided, we would laugh our�heads off and then try to come up with coherent and somewhat accurate translations to the befuddled Filipinos.�

Eventually, this youngish Taiwanese couple organized an forum during the second night which J. and I merrily attended. The passengers took this opportunity to air all their grievances to the beleaguered FDH and SHT***, harsh words were spoken and things were in danger of degenerating into a shouting match (a sarcastic comment from yours truly would've lit the flames, sadly I refrained from speaking or else it could've been a much much more interesting story). At the end of the session, FDH and SHT were chastened and promised to do a much better job on the last day.�

In all it was quite a memorable short holiday. Perhaps somewhat fitting that we generated our own Independence Day fireworks, a much better show indeed than the annual fireworks display on the East River which I tired of viewing after thirty seconds of standing by my bedroom window.

**his real name is Tony - while at Acadia National Park, he mentioned that "now I go to look at Fun Da Ho" - to which J. and I looked at each other and were like "WTF is Fun Da Ho???" - eventually by looking at the park map and waiting till we got there, we figured out that he was referring to "Thunder Hole"!!!�

***Spiky Haired trainee - we noticed this guy always at FDH's side but who played no apparent role in the tour - found out later he was a company trainee sent to observe and learn the ropes of running a tour - boy, what a hands-on lesson he got in appeasing cranky passengers.