There's a Reason Why Bus Travel is the Cheapest!

We want to pass off a little piece of advice to other fellow travellers.....never book a bus ticket to a destination before you have accomodation. Sounds obvious, but when the trip is cheap you might get excited and just book....which unfortunately is what we did. We booked a bus ticket to take us from Belgium to London. Turned out though, that it was not only a long weekend there, but also they were holding a big Jazz fest. It is impossible to find a room during an event like that at the last minute. So our only choice was to travel somewhere different. We start with an email to Euro lines.....who then tell us we have to contact the Belgium office directly. We go to a shop and buy a phone card, of course with instructions in Dutch. We tried to make the call to Eurosline from the nearest payphone but the credit was gone in seconds. .....we used the wrong international number. We buy another phone card, and try once more with the correct number to the same avail. 10 Euros gone out the window with no result and still a useless bus ticket! Time goes by and we eventually learn from the locals at the hostel that pay phones are not worth anyone's money, the only affordable why to make a phone call in Europe is a mobile, which of course we didn't have. At this point it looks like we are taking a trip into Belgium just to catch a bus.
So we move on to the next city, hoping someone there might be able to help us, keeping an open mind, and trying to stay relaxed while at the beach. Lucky for us the lady in Rotterdam Eurolines just phoned the company for us (something the staff in Amsterdam Euro lines were not willing to do for us). With in five minutes our bus was changed, and with only a 25% loss b/c it took us 5 days to get in touch with the company.....meaning a change penalty:(
With that taken care of we load our stuff onto our bus in Rotterdam, to realize not one of could sit together, the bus stopped in Amsterdam first and the bus was almost full. Both of us ended up sitting beside two big guys, that thought it was totally okay to take up 2 seats, and even with obvious hints at the crowded space, didn't budge. It took Scott throwing his own leg over the beast of a man for him to keep to his own side.
Now on to the real story.......our bus driver. He gave us dirty looks and refused to load our bags until last. Turns out later that he assumed we may have drugs (i guess since we look like dirty backpackers?). This man refered to himself as Indiana Jones.....heres why.
We are on the bus for about 20 mins when all of a sudden, somewhere in a small town, our bus came to a complete hault.....jolting everyone forward. Unsure of whats happened we all look outside the bus to see Indiana Jones himself chasing after 3 teenagers into a park. Not minutes later 3 men from the bus run out to help. Still not sure what has happened, we are stuck in the middle of the street in tim buck two, with no idea where the bus driver was or what exactly his mission was. Yes, its true.....our bus was egged. The driver and his helpers came back with only one of the kids......the poor sucker, and had called the cops. He was arrested and we were on our way, of course losing out on our only break on an 8hour overnight ride.
Because our bus started in amsterdam our bus was stopped at customs in 3 different locations. All 3 times we were required to unload all of our belongings and Scott was searched everytime, causing us to miss our first ferry to the UK. Too bad it was the quiet guy in the back of the bus that was arrested in France for carrying a bag of drugs. Indiana Jones isn't so good with his intuition!
At 730am (1.5 hours late) we finally arrived in rainy cold London.