Route 32: Shek Wai Kok -- MTR Olympic Station
Location: Tsuen Wan, Kwai Chung and West Kowloon
Length of Journey: 8.0 miles, 45 minutes
Following one Diamond Geezer's footsteps, I decided to take a full trip on a bus with the number equaling my age, every birthday. Unlike DG though, I am not as free in terms of taking a birthday break, so I chose the closet Sunday, which in this year was conveniently placed right before "the day".
I chose to take a Southbound trip. To be honest it'd probably be more interesting the other way round, but I was to have my gym session on that day, and I didn't want to soak myself in sweat by walking from the gym to Olympic Station.
To my surprise, the bus station in Shek Wai Kok was rather well populated, despite the route's relatively poor service. Departures of the 32 were separated exactly 25 minutes from each other, instead of the more frequent 20, or the more clock-faced 30. The departure I took was the only one of the day setting off 20 minutes after its predecessor instead of 25, but it looked like this shorter interval didn't cause less people waiting.
The bus departed dead on time, with about 20 passengers on board. It whizzed through the first few stops without many boarding, understandable as this section was through settlements where residents are descended from "real natives", such that they don't have to pay astronomical prices for housing, and are thus wealthy enough to have private transport.
Only on the arrival of Cheung Shan Estate that the bus got its second significant batch of boarders. It's on the wrong side of the Shatin-bound motorway, so we had to double back. It's not the case when this route first entered service about a year before I was born, but poor town planning (as Hong Kong has always been suffering from) led to this peculiar layout.
The next estate is Lei Muk Shue, where my late grandma lived. Buses of the 32 never enter its bus terminus (aside from a few abnormalities, I believe), despite the latter's relocation nearer to the main road 10 years ago. I believed if it was brought into the bus station its ridership would improve, as it's a somewhat faster alternative than the 36B, which connects Lei Muk Shue to South Kowloon. My theory soon found support as the 32 bus entered a more densely populated area, and people supposedly waiting for the 36B switched over swiftly. At Shek Lei Terminus, where all Upper Kwai Chung services call, even a few waiting for a 35A (which was the most frequent Kowloon-bound service) changed. I couldn't stop imagining the 32's potential.
I often found people (including myself, no less) accusing the 32 for its "slow routing", but this problem wasn't quite obvious on Sundays. The 335-hp-engined Dennis Trident climbed the slopes of the nine-decade-old Castle Peak Road rather easily (Ok it's just half-full, but still), and its Kowloon section was sparsely serviced by other buses -- the other service, numbered 42, was only slightly more frequent.
The 32 passed through two more pre-WWII buildings. After passing Sham Shui Po Police Station, we met a red minibus which rudely cut to the roadside whenever someone asked to board. It was gone by the time we reached Lui Seng Chun (since converted to a Chinese medicine clinic), but then a 265B bus "volunteered to lead our way" to Mong Kok Market complex, where a 13D bus showed us how a franchised bus driver could be as rude as one driving a red minibus.
An elderly on board suggested jumping off a stop early to avoid "a longer walk from the terminus". A man, probably her husband, protested in vain, but I felt he knew more as there was actually one more stop between their drop off point and the final destination, and the intermediate stop seemed to suit them better.
The bus finally stopped in front of the control centre of Olympic Station Bus Terminus, above which sits the HSBC Kowloon HQ. I felt the place slightly more crowded than it should be on Sundays, and I soon found out that it's (still) a HSBC memorial banknote collection day, while the pedestrian bridge to the MTR station proper was infested with Putonghua-speaking "collectors".
