Bus is a common transportation than train in Kyoto for tourists. There are two important points to use. First of all, the direction.

A loop route has right handed and left handed rotation. If you make a mistake, even a gide book says within 10 minutes, it’ll take about a hour.

And the other one is price. There are three types of prices, fixed, fixed variable, and variable pricing. It is depends on where the route is. If you find a ticketing machine on the left side before to ride, please take it (don’t miss it). The ticket existence shows you the route is variable fixed or variable pricing. When you get off, look up the monitor besides the driver and the ticket number to pay. If there is no ticketing machine, that means the price is fixed. Well, it is easier to get one day ticket.