since when does SXM have buses?

I spent the entire Monday driving between the Dutch side and French side. I was constantly stuck in terrible traffic, due to the pre-St. Martin Day frenzy - what was it all about? where were all these people suddently so eager to get to? It was a beautiful day with what rarely occurs 4 islands being visible of the South coast: Saba, St. Eustasius, St Kitts and Nevis. As much as I dislike traffic I had beautiful views to admire on my way so I was fine:)
I also noticed new buses on the roads; much higher and longer then the minivans that I used to see. Plus with an almost uniform look, the top 4/5 were white and the bottom section would be painted either purple, orange, yellow, etc. They really looked like proper public transport service buses, where inside one can stand, walk, sit in individual seats, additionally they had a regular door. I was amazed. Have they been on the roads long?

Orient Bay does not have a proper bus stop, plus it's never a destination of any of the buses, so I take them rarely as it's just very inconvenient to be standing on the side of a road with no sidewalk, praying not to get driven over by one of the maniacs, and hoping to distingush the bus minivans from just regular minivans in time to wave-stop them.

For everyone not familiar with the bus system on the island, there are no numbers or letters or names of buses, the minivans which can only be distinguished as a bus by their licence plate have a destination card placed somewhere on the front windshield. The letters are medium size, so if the minivan is going slow and your eyesight is good, you read it fairly easily, but it's still far from user friendly. They do not have a common colour, or size, are not the same make, the drivers wear their private clothes rather than a uniform. Honestly to anyone not famiar with such solutions, the local buses are not an easy thing to spot.

As the principle road on the island is basically a circle, with only a few side roads, theoretically whereever you are going you can get to by taking a bus going whatever direction, as the bus's trayectory will be some section of the circle and most likely you will have to get off anyway and take a second minivan as no bus (that I know of) does the full circle. Very confusing system whichever way you look at it. Does not give you a sense of being public, yet not really private. The prices are nowhere explained, I'm never really sure whether the bus driver cares if he gets dollars or Euros, and how come I sometimes pay 1 (usd or Euro) sometimes 2. It's a whole different concept for public transport than anything I have ever seen and I'm saying this after having taken buses in plenty of countries, each with their own rules. As diverse as the systems I saw may have been, they had something in common - I was never in doubt which vehicle was a bus.

So I was very happy to see these new uniformily looking buses on the roads. Now all I have to wait for is that they start going by Orient Bay and maybe a bus stop is created:)

great things about St. Martin

One of the greatest things about St. Martin is being so close to St. Barth. I don't mean this with any irony, I sincerely am glad living here has allowed me to do some travel in this region, which living in Europe allows much less. Of course Europeans travel to the Caribbean, but it's always so far and takes so long to get to, people most often find valid reasons for a vacation closer to the Old Continent, or at least a destination better connected, where arrival to does not mean loosing a whole day of our precious holiday. Lastly the flight cost has an impact, making vacationing to the Caribbean an idea easy to substitute by equally beautiful regions somewhere closer.

Speaking of costs, it's not just the travel that is expensive, getting a decent accommodation in the Caribbean is much more expensive then anywhere in Europe. Most densely visited destinations in Europe offer a plethora of lodging options, from B&B and aparthotels, through motels and hostels, chain hotels of all quality standards, to boutique hotels which exceed in satisfying clients' needs. All these solutions come with an adequate and expected price tag. So you know up front what you'll get for what you pay. Hostels and B&B can be very affordable , even to the student on a budget, yet they don't have to be repelling, dirty and smelly just because they cost 10 times less then a good hotel. No one will pamper you there, but you'll spend a comfortable night in warm and decent conditions. Best European hotels will charge far more, but will also offer far beyond what you need to praise them. Most importantly, there's a whole spectrum of solutions in between, which always seem to have a price tag which proportionally decreases or increases with the quality you find within.


From what I've seen so far in the Caribbean things are different. There seem to be 2 polarised ends and very little in between. The extremes are not the same as the European ones though. Here it seems a 6 (on a scale of 1 to 10) in decency hotel requires a 9 price tag. Spoiled by European standards, I'm expecting pampering for a price tag of 9; here I get just plain old OK, with some defects often on the service side.


My biggest disillusion are not the more expensive places which turn out not to exceed my needs, it's the lower end places which, personally I believe, have an approach: since you don't pay a lot you deserve to be punished with bad service haha. Long story short, lodging is much more diversified in Europe, much more adapted to the different budgets and most of all prices allow to create right expectations; stressing the fact that low prices need not mean unpleasant experience; plenty of economy solutions cut your costs without cutting your experience. I have this unsettling feeling that in the Caribbean you have a choice of either being very unhappy in a crappy place or draining your wallet, because that is the only next echelon after crappy:(
Although I only know this now, and these were not obstacles to my travelling here in the past, I believe these may be the obstacles stopping so many Europeans, knowing that value for money, they end up losing travelling so far. I don't want to repeat after everyone else, but what counts more in a time of crisis, than value for money...


Long introduction behind me, I'll move to what I wanted this post to be about. I just needed to get those hotel uneasy feelings off my chest, although the topic has not been exhausted;)

One of the greatest things about living on St. Martin was discovering St. Barth. The island amazed me. Having so much in common with St. Martin in terms of nature (although substantially more differentiated in elevation) it shocked me with how different a feeling it gave me.


The orderliness we were greeted by, the kindness of the taxi driver, the cleanliness of his car. I could not believe my eyes. I once heard that the sophistication and development of a society can be judged by how it deals with prostitution; those first 15 minutes driving through St. Barth made me think, you can judge a society on how clean are their dumpsters. Driving culture and just regular people street politeness impressed us immensely. I was having a dissonance thinking, this could not be the Caribbean and at the same time feeling, but this IS the Caribbean, the paradise on earth I visualised before ever setting foot in the region haha.




We know it can't be perfect. Not all that shines is gold, plus we know the downside of small, orderly and beautiful corners of this world, after all, Monaco was like that as well:) Yet the great impression the island made on us has not worn off yet. I'll gladly travel more in the region and I'll come with an open mind to all places, but something tells me I might not find a second St Barth reality anywhere close. If anyone planning a trip is reading this and is hesitant if to include SBH in the their trip, trust me, there's nothing like it, especially if American style resorts are not your thing and if you like to get out and discover true island living, rather than sipping an invented-for-the-sake-of-tourists-cocktail in a freezing over air-conditioned casino full of people in white sneakers, go to St. Barth!
Living in Europe we'd likely decide to visit St. Barth only maybe after kids were university age;) Without direct flights, or without any big plane landing there at all, I'd probably see getting there too much hassle, especially if I'd know a bit of the Caribbean already and expect all of it to be pretty similar, I just wouldn't put the extra effort. Living in St. Martin, made it an easy and obvious destination. We got to see a different side of the Caribbean, not a cleaned up resort area for the tourist, but a a whole beautiful island, clean for everyone who lives there or comes to visit. aaa...

[all pictures from St. Barth]

who's the villain

Not everything in life needs to be antagonistic and about "them" against "us". But it often is so. And it does not take a dual nationality island as St Martin, French vs. the Dutch Antillean, whites against the blacks, locals against the residents/tourists, etc, etc. But I guess the island offers plenty of opportunity.
Before I arrived to the island I was given an example of what's a typical island life situation I might not be used to. The example was a traffic jam caused by two local drivers, who going in opposite direction, stop in the middle of the road, roll down their windows, start chatting inconsiderate of the people behind each of them. This perhaps would not be so bad if the other waiting drivers would have extra lanes, or at least a space on the side of the road through which they could over take the 2 friends who decided to catch up on lost time. St Martin does not have 2 lane roads (with maybe two exceptions I can recall), and to the side of the road there's often a cliff, a building, high rocks, etc. Overtaking is possible in very limited occasions; never has it occurred to me for it to be possible when 2 cars stop to chat.
I may be biased in my view, but so far the only times I've experienced being blocked like this, it was due to locals. This fit perfectly with what I was told prior to coming. I tried not to get stressed over it. After all, you can be in a traffic jam for so many reasons, in so many places, the cause of it is usually irrelevant, the outcome, that you arrive late, is equally bothersome.

Nevertheless, I couldn't help thinking, how much such driving habits derive from a broader lack of civic consciousness. Naturally, I don't believe that the island is the only place touched by this deficiency; I have lived in too many places to think that mutually courteous behaviour is perfectly developed in more developed countries. Bad manners, driving culture included, are pretty much uniformly spread geographically. Nations differ in the bad manners they master in. It is usually our set of values taken from a particular upbringing that makes us praise more the civic consciousness of one place, turning a blind eye to the 'bad manners' we are more inclined to forgive, and demonise other places for their lack of respect for habits we need so much to feel comfortable and at home.
I'm pretty neutral on driving culture, as long as it is not a culture conducive to more danger on the road, I'm ok with different drivers pursuing their own ways.

The other day something happened which changed my focus on the topic though. We were in a taxi, a french license plate, with a driver who was fluent in French, but I wouldn't put a 1000 USD on that he considered himself French, whichever way he seemed to be a local. We needed to stop because of the above described 'friendly chat' blocking the road. It was in a predominantly French-of-the-Métropole residential area. After stopping, my instinct told me one of the 2 cars would budge, to let us pass. To my surprise neither did. We waited a moment longer, the driver being very well educated did not use the horn until a significant while had passed, allowing for both cars ahead to realise we were there waiting. Must I spell out the 2 interacting men, where white French men? I realised how much biased I have been to this moment.
Our driver honked, yet kept his cool, never showing any impatience. The two men continued to chat regardless:) This is the moment when our driver said the magic words: it is always the French, the French are like this, they just don't care...
It made me laugh. Who would have thought that the locals thought it was the French who brought this habit to the island and claim that the French are the practitioners;)

So who is the villain? Was it the locals teaching the newly arrived French how to loosen up their trained for centuries good manners? or was it the nonchalant French who showed the locals it's ok not to care how our actions impact others?:)