B1 Speaking Preperation

1. Describe a time you travelled by public transport.

I would like to talk about a journey that I took last year between Hanoi and HaiPhong. I’ve made the
same journey many times, but I’ll never forget this particular time because something happened that I
wasn’t expecting.
It was a Sunday morning and I was due in Hanoi that afternoon. There was no traffic at all as I drove
in to Manchester, and I was expecting a nice, peaceful trip on a half-empty train. But my first surprise
came when I tried to print my prepaid ticket at one of the ticket machines: there wasn’t a reserved
seat number on my ticket, which meant that I would have to find an available seat. I was still
wondering about this when I heard loud voices and singing coming from the main station concourse.
Suddenly I realised what was happening - I was going to be on a train full of football fans travelling
to a big match!
Luckily I managed to find a seat before the train filled up. However, the noisy fans made sure that I
couldn’t concentrate on any work; I couldn’t even read the newspaper without being interrupted by
laughter, singing and football stories. In the end, I just sat and relaxed with a cup of coffee, watching
and listening to the excited fans.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad journey; I love travelling by train and at least I had a comfortable seat so
that I could sit back and relax for a couple of hours. I would have preferred a quieter trip, but the
football fans were all friendly and good-natured, so I can’t really complain. Even so, I made sure that
I avoided them on the way home later that day!