NigG,
Like you, I feel I was a bit (in my case) too "
PR" over the "no bus".
Let's not be mealy-mouthed:
In my day no
Sahib or
Memsahib would be seen dead in a bus - except when it was the only transport available (as in my ride into the mountains from 'Pindi to Srinagar for a spot of ski-ing in Kashmir).
A
Sahib would be in a (man powered) Rickshaw, or a Tonga, or a taxi (in Calcutta, always an open bodied American tourer of the thirties, driven by a homicidal Sikh).
Or, of course, on a horse !
Danny.