Erin: The worst part about long-term travel is getting from place to place, especially since Seth and I are trying to travel overland as much as possible instead of taking airplanes. Generally, these days involve totally disrupting our sleeping habits and reducing food and water intake to the absolute bare minimum to avoid doing the pee pee dance (or worse!) in your seat until the driver decides that he wants to take a smoke break several hours down the road. Here’s a little story about our most recent trip from Tonsai to Bangkok and how Paula saved the day…
Towards the end of our stay in Tonsai, Seth and I started discussing how we would make our way to Cambodia, the next stop on our itinerary. Based on the research we had done, we knew that we could either take a train or a bus, and that either would pass right through Bangkok, so we decided to spend a few days there. The train would have been our most comfortable option as it left late in the evening and if you reserved a sleeping berth you could basically just wake up in Bangkok. Unfortunately, the travel agents in Tonsai told us that the sleeping berths were booked for several days and our only option was to take an overnight bus.
Several companies offered us tickets for 500-600 baht (approximately $16-19) for the 12 hour ride, but we learned from many travelers that the reason those tickets are so cheap is because the cost of the ticket is “subsidized” by thieves on the bus (working with the companies) who root through passengers’ belongings when everyone is asleep. Every single person we talked to who had been on one of these “tourist” buses knew of several people on their bus who found out later they had been robbed. We consider ourselves fairly savvy travelers and thought that we could avoid these problems by keeping our small bags with us and all our valuables hidden on our bodies, but we just couldn’t get comfortable with the idea of knowingly supporting the scam and such dishonest business practices. We also didn’t think we’d get much sleep that night constantly having to be hyper-aware of all our stuff.
Our alternative was to independently make our way to the government bus station in Krabi and book bus tickets there. Once we arrived, we surveyed our options and concluded that the only way we’d get much rest at all was to take a VIP bus (wider seats that recline further, with pillows and blankets, a toilet onboard, snacks, etc.) It was slightly out of our budget, but then I remembered my good friend Paula’s birthday offer to cover an upgrade of our choice. So here’s a big thank you to you, Paula, for the sleep we were able to get that night! As I promised, we took pictures of ourselves thoroughly enjoying the VIP amenities (most importantly, the comfy seat I am modeling above): bottled water, pepsi, mung bean cakes, onboard toilet (use your imagination on that one…on second thought, dont!) pirated movies, and a moist towelette to refresh yourself when you roll in to Bangkok at 3:30 am, the time of the morning which we have lovingly come to describe as “ass o’clock”.
We then split a cab with another guy to the heart of the backpacker area, Khao San Road. There, we learned that if we wanted to check into a hostel right away, we would have to pay for a full night’s accomodation just to get a few more hours of rest. If we waited until 6 am, we would only have to pay for one night’s stay and get the room until check out time the following morning. Now, the fact that we chose to wait until 6 am and save the cash probably sounds completely ridiculous to most of you reading along right now, but I assure you that in our backpacker minds it made total sense. We walked around for a while looking for a place that had availability, and then stalled some more by having a few juices at a cafe, then I camped out with our bags and Seth went to look at a few more places. He found a good deal for us and promptly at 6 am, we checked in and went back to sleep.
Our next adventure is crossing the border into Cambodia, which we’ll attempt to do tomorrow. It’s another 12+ hour adventure, but this time I’m actually nervous about it rather than just thinking about enduring it. Again, there’s a cheap tourist bus that sounds too good to be true and involves several scams: overpaying for your Cambodian visa, being “sold” to a hostel in Siem Reap for the night, and delaying the journey so long that you arrive there late at night and are intimidated into staying at the place that paid to have you delivered to their doorstep regardless of what other reservations you might have made. The independent travel alternative (what we’re attempting) is really not much better and involves fending off a multitude of people who try to cheat you on prices for various forms of transport, pickpocket you, and ask for bribes to process your visa. One you cross into Cambodia, your onward travel choices to Siem Reap include such enticing options as being squished into a pickup truck for several hours or paying a large sum of money to the taxi mafia to be squished into a Toyota Camry share taxi, all along a road that’s in pretty poor condition. There’s an incredible website that details the journey step by step, complete with diagrams and all! We certainly are thankful for travelers who have shared their experiences about these sorts of things. I’m sure we’ll be just fine, but I will certainly breathe a sigh of relief when we check into a hostel in Siem Reap tomorrow night.
