HOURS FROM BOSTON to New York: four, exactly.

Cost: $15, cash.

Near-death experiences: three (including one swerve that nearly had us kissing the iron shoulder of I-91).

Over the past year, the Chinatown shuttle — better known as the Fung Wah bus — that travels between Chinatowns in Boston and New York has moved from tightly held travel secret to kitschy common knowledge. Most recently, a writer for the New York Times recounted a one-day round-trip she took on the Fung Wah to satisfy a craving for an Anna’s Burrito. Cheaper than any of the other bus services, a round-trip on the Fung Wah (Chinese for "like a wind blowing") is, at the very least, a bargain worth scoping.

Ever on the search for travel values, I had to experience the Fung Wah for myself. Before leaving, I solicited all the information I could from a friend who’s taken the Fung Wah a few times. "Oh, yeah," he smirked, "they stop on the side of the road and pick people up."

The side of the road? "Yeah, the shoulder of the highway, the end of an off ramp. There were people just waiting there."

I nodded. Okay, that must just be the Fung Wah way. He continued: "The last time I took the Fung Wah, an older Chinese woman was throwing up almost the whole way down."

Oh, jeez.

Vomiting, hitchhikers, um, well ... bring it on, I guess. On a recent Tuesday morning, at 7:30 a.m., I made my way to Chinatown, my bag packed with ample reading material and a pair of ear plugs in case I happened to sit next to the Nauseated Fung Wah Passenger.

I had been told by a stern woman on the phone to go to Crown Royal Bakery, at 68 Beach Street, to buy my ticket. Walking down Beach Street, I saw a large coach with NEW YORK written on it. "Fung Wah?" I asked two people standing outside.

"No!" They definitely were not Fung Wah. They’d been around longer than Fung Wah, I learned in no uncertain terms. Apparently, I’d stumbled upon an angered, lesser-known competitor of the more-famous Fung Wah. It was Travel Pack (www.travelpackusa.com, 617-388-8222), another Chinatown shuttle. Same price, same time, same route.

Perhaps another time. As I continued on, I stepped across freshly plucked feathers and smelled the pungent odor of chicken death. Pigeons flapped wildly past still-shuttered stores, and I was joined only by the occasional cigarette-puffing moped rider.

Inside the Crown Royal Bakery, a woman was sitting behind a makeshift card table. The shop was in full morning whir. I paid her $15 in cash, and she brusquely waved me outside to the shuttle bus, a small 25-seater.

I claimed a seat at the front, and was joined by a young, white, professional woman, who sat across from me. There was a stale scent that seemed like a mixture of airplane aroma and, well, the fumes of sanitation efforts to mask the smell of vomit. Eight Asian passengers claimed seats scattered around. A driver eventually climbed in, started the bus, shouted into a walkie-talkie, and put on some soft Chinese pop music, to which he started humming enthusiastically.

At the stroke of 8 a.m., he threw the bus into drive and we were off, soon hitting the Mass Pike. The driver gained musical gumption, cranking up the pop and harmonizing in fourths. The other passengers, chatting loudly in Chinese, seemed unfazed. I, meanwhile, reached frantically for my ear plugs.

We sped down to New York, taking the fast route — Mass Pike, I-84, I-91, then I-95 — the speedometer rarely dipping below 75 miles per hour. We careened around trucks and tailgated smaller vehicles before overtaking them, our driver shaking his head in irritation.

An hour in, my front-seat companion, who had downed a super-size travel mug of coffee, asked the driver if we could pull over. "There’s a McDonald’s," she said, leaning up. "Can we stop?"

He pretended not to understand, as we sped by. "Forty minutes. Forty minutes," he offered. She crossed her legs tightly, sitting back with a humph. Forty minutes later, we rolled into a rest area in Wallingford, Connecticut. "Five minutes," the driver instructed. "Wash, soap, five minutes."

Four minutes later, he was revving the engine. We piled back in, and we were off, the same Chinese-pop CD blaring.

By noon on the dot, we were deposited right across the Manhattan Bridge, at 139 Canal Street. The doors opened, the sun was shining.

We were alive.

The Fung Wah shuttle bus leaves Boston and New York 10 times daily. In Boston, from Crown Royal Bakery, at 68 Beach Street, (617) 338-8885; in New York, from 139 Canal Street, (212) 925-8889. Travel Pack, at www.travelpackusa.com, does too!