£1 trip to Elvis city? It’s now or never...
THE bus shelter looks as if it is about to fall down, and its three benches are chained together and padlocked. We’re outside a petrol station on the outskirts of Little Rock, Arkansas.
Waiting here is the downside to the astonishing bargain of my Megabus trip to Elvis Presley’s home city of Memphis: 137 miles for $1.50 – about £1. Yes, $1.50.
Bus travel is booming in the US. Greyhound celebrates its 100th birthday in 2014, but Megabus is biting at its heels, winning 30million passengers since its launch in 2006.
Selling long-distance tickets for next to nothing has made the company famous. Book well ahead and you can get these $1.50 tickets, although there are just a few per trip. On my route, buying a ticket one week ahead can still cost only $6 or $7 – but leave it until the last minute and you might pay ten times that amount.
Megabus economises by not renting city bus station slots. So here we are, a motley crew in this polluted wasteland, awaiting our bargain trip.
Alongside me is Lorraine, who is taking her two small grandchildren first to Memphis, then Chicago, then Milwaukee. They’re moving house, because
‘there ain’t nuthin’ here’. An old man paces silently, and his T-shirt bears the slogan ‘Sarcasm is just another free service I offer’.
Our blue double-decker arrives. Driver Toni bosses us fiercely about our excessive luggage. When it’s all squeezed in, we’re allowed to board, and we head for Interstate 40.
Inside, the Megabus is modern, bright and clean. A young man with a spider tattoo and a faux-Amish beard is on his mobile phone: ‘I’m sittin’ up here with a table in front of me, mah phone plugged in and it’s real comfortable, like some kinda Noo York City tour bus.’ This is just one leg of his long journey to New Jersey for an aunt’s funeral.
Across from him is Mac, 77, a retired Memphis firefighter who knew Elvis’s bodyguard, Red West. Once a big Cadillac pulled up alongside him at traffic lights and Red shouted: ‘Hi, Mac!’ Then Elvis popped his head up from the rear seat and yelled ‘Hi, Mac!’ as they pulled away.
‘He didn’t know me,’ says Mac. ‘That’s just how Elvis was.’
We drive along the highway and dusk comes 60 miles from Memphis. Soon we’re racing through West Memphis, which is in Arkansas, divided from its Tennessee neighbour by the great Mississippi. We cross a bridge lit by giant fairy lights. The dark water is fringed by the lights of luxurious riverside houses.
When we pull into Memphis there’s a buzz. This is a real city. Our luggage is piled on to the pavement before we can disembark. Then I catch the $1 trolley-bus down Main Street to Union Avenue, walk with my suitcase to the famous Peabody Hotel and check in. Can any guest have arrived here so cheaply?
For information on Megabus, visit megabus.com. To book the Peabody Hotel, go to peabody memphis.com. Michael Gray pioneered critical writing on Bob Dylan’s work and this autumn offers two Dylan Discussion Weekends at his home in France. For details visit michaelgray.net.