26,000 for a taxi? No problem. Gary D'Amato helps Russian skiers who jumped on wrong bus

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – After finishing my last story Friday night, I boarded a nearly empty bus at the Main Press Center for the 40-minute ride back to the Gangneung Media Village, where I’m staying.

I took a seat in the front row and almost immediately nodded off. The bus couldn’t have gone a mile when it lurched to a stop for three guys who flagged it down. They piled in, sat in the other three seats in the front row and carried on an animated conversation in Russian.

So much for sleeping.

About 10 minutes later, one of them apparently didn’t recognize the route, so he leaned over and asked the bus driver, “Athletes Village?” No, the driver said, Media Village.

They were Russian athletes. Freestyle skiers. And they were on the wrong bus.

One of them looked at me. “How long?” he asked.

I told him it would be about 30 minutes before we got to the Media Village. The Russians looked very nervous. They didn’t speak much English. I told them I’d help.

When we got to the Media Village, I walked with them to an information desk and asked how they could get to the Athletes Village. They would have to retrace their steps, get back on the TM26 bus, take it back to the Main Press Center and transfer to the TM27 bus, which would take them to the Athletes Village.

It was 9 p.m. and it was going to be two hours, minimum, before they got to their rooms.

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“Do you have money for taxi?” I asked.

None of them had Korean won.

I asked a volunteer how much a cab ride to the Athletes Village would cost.

“Oh, no, it’s too expensive,” she said. “About 26,000 won.”

Too expensive? That’s about $20 U.S.

I flashed back to the 1998 Nagano Games, when a travel agent sent now-retired Journal Sentinel columnist Dale Hofmann and me to the wrong city in Japan and two young university students were kind enough to give us enough yen to get us on a train to Tokyo.

It was time to pay it forward. I took 30,000 won out of my wallet and after some mild protesting, the Russians accepted it. They were unbelievably grateful and shook my hand with great gusto.

Hey, it’s the best 30,000 won I ever spent.