The world’s longest bus journey: the regular service between London and Calcutta, India
Sometimes, getting the bus can be a right pain in the arse. Sure, it’s convenient and cost-effective, but everybody’s been in a situation where they’d rather be anywhere else than cooped up in a stifling, sweltering, unruly mass of humanity, making regular stops along the way while they travel.
Spare a thought for the brave passengers who ventured on the longest journey of them all, then, which departed from Calcutta in India before finally reaching its destination on the other side of the world in London. It sounds nuts, but the service was so popular that it ran for almost 20 years between 1957 and 1976.
Obviously, the idea of getting on a bus in India with England marking the finish line is a horrendous prospect that sounds among the worst fates that can ever be inflicted upon a traveller, but it wasn’t as if the ticket-holders were shepherded aboard before the driver put pedal to metal and refused to so much as open the door before reaching the country’s capital.
Yes, it was a journey of around 10,000 miles to go one-way, but by all accounts, it sounded like the bus ride of a lifetime. After leaving Calcutta, the route would follow the so-called ‘hippie trail’ that was popularised by wanderers during the height of the counterculture years, weaving its way through nations and continents before letting passengers disembark in ‘The Big Smoke’.
It was a mammoth undertaking at 50 days each way, but there were at least individual bunks provided for those undertaking the global trek, as well as fans to prevent the bus from becoming a sweat-soaked sardine can, reading facilities to occupy those who didn’t feel like staring out of the window, and even a kitchen area for when the sandwich supply began to run perilously dry.
Along the way, the bus would snake its way through England, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, with regular detours and stops made so that passengers could check out such famous tourist destinations as the Taj Mahal and the Khyber Pass, not to mention layoffs in Tehran, Salzburg, Kabul, Istanbul, and Vienna for the sole purpose of retail therapy.
It was surprisingly affordable, too, and even when adjusted for inflation it cost less to travel from India to London by bus in 50 days than it would to spend two weeks at a swanky all-inclusive resort. In its first year of operations in 1957, the price was a measly £85, which had increased to £145 by 1973.
It sounds like a bargain, and it probably is, all things considered, when those fees equate to well under £2,500 in modern currency. How much would it set someone back to spend more than a month and a half venturing all across the world and taking in the sights these days? No idea, but a damn sight more than two and a half grand most likely.