 Li Qing tries to understand possibly the most expensive local bus service in the world. Local buses play an important role in foreigners’ daily lives in Oulu area. But when you are living quite far away from the palm-sized city centre, taking the right bus at the right time from the right bus stop is not exactly a piece of cake! I’m a foreigner who’s been living one and half years in Kempele, which is a town 11km away from Oulu. During this period I have tried to catch bus seven times to Oulu but missed it five times. To make things worse, I missed the same bus three times in a single day! So to avoid my “ bus tragedy”, there are a few things everyone needs to know about buses in the countryside around Oulu.
I had already been living in Kempele about three months when I first tried to use the bus. I had been wondering how Finnish people could recognize the right bus stop. The bus stops here in my area are just iron bars with yellow signs with buses on. There aren’t any bus numbers or direction signs on them at all! This was something really new to me! In my hometown, all the bus stops have detailed information, so I never need to worry where to catch my bus. But here I did worry about it! To find out where to take your bus, you can first check it through the Internet.
Oulu local bus company Koskilinjat’s English website is http://www.koskilinjat.fi/in_english/. The good news for foreigners who have just come to Finland is that it has an English version but the bad news is that the important bus timetable is in Finnish only! So for the newcomers you either can call local Finns for help or try to figure out the timetable yourself. If you choose to ask Finns for help, then do not feel disappointed to get answer like “Sorry, I know nothing about the local buses!” Finns prefer to use private cars since most have driving licenses. One Finnish friend told me it was because taking buses in Finland is extremely expensive and that the bus service here was pretty poor! After my own experience, I couldn’t agree more with him! And the Oulu local bus company Koskilinjat even prepared a New Year gift for their customers: 2.7€ starting price since 1.1.2007, 10cents more than before, and probably the most expensive local bus ticket in the world! Maybe it is time for me to get a Finnish Driving license.
Or if you choose to understand the Finnish bus timetable yourself, then you’d better be patient. Until now, I still couldn’t fully understand the timetable of the bus that is running between my home and Oulu city centre. I can easily solve the most difficult Sudoku in the newspaper but to figure out my bus time is a mission impossible! Because the bus bringing me to Oulu consists of two different-route buses but with the same bus number. Only one of the two buses can take me home. So it happened to me once when I finally get on bus, then the bus driver told me in an impatient voice “You have to wait the next bus XX!” On the other hand, my bus runs once or twice per hour at different times in the morning, afternoon and evening. And the timetable still differs from working days, Saturdays and Sundays. So before I knew this, I used to wait for the bus on Saturday at working days’ timetable with freezing 40mins.
If you are a person like me that never understands the complicated Finnish bus timetable, then you could also try this website: http://www.linjakas.fi/oulu/fi/. This is a website which helps you search for buses by entering locations and times. It has both English and Finnish versions and provides detailed information. It shows you the estimated start time from your nearest bus stop, so you have no need to take the map and timetable booklet to estimate any more when the bus is coming. It also shows the route map from your home to the nearest bus stop, so it’s clear where to catch your bus. To my surprise, such a useful link can only be found on Koskilinjat’s Finnish website, so it took me a long time before discovering it. Although this website makes it much easier to find out the right bus, you still cannot 100% trust it when you are living in the rural area. Because the bus can be late or even not to come at all. The time when I missed the bus three times in a day at the right times according to the timetable, I called the Koskilinjat company and asked for an explanation.
“Well, I think our bus probably has broken down on the way to your place,” they said.
If you’ve got a meeting, interview or other important things, I suggest trying other transportation. If unfortunately bus is the only choice, then you’d better come prepared. Hope you’ll not have so bad luck and miss it three times!
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