As per usual we were late packing up and
getting out of the hotel so didn’t even get to have our free breakfast. We were
picked up in a tuk tuk and taken to a shop/travel office to wait for the bus.
Chris and Holly eventually arrived 15 minutes later, which was a relief as we
were getting concerned they’d been taken somewhere else or not picked up.
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| Khao San Road |
After standing around for 20 minutes or so
we were lead around the corner to where the buses were waiting for us. There
was a bit of a scramble for the first one, and also the second but we made it
on board and got the back row to ourselves. Well, almost to ourselves –
apparently in their spare time the bus company breeds mosquitos and it just so
happened that the nursery was our seat. Literally dozens of the little fuckers
emerged and set upon us so the first 10 minutes of the ride was spent swatting
madly.
It should only take about two and a half
hours to reach the Cambodia/Thai border at Poipet – but the bus kept stopping
at horrible rest stops every hour so that we could spend our money at their
friends/relatives shops. We got there after 4 hours, and were dumped from the
bus into a car park with no instruction as to what to do. We all grabbed our
backpacks and marched towards what looked like Cambodian immigration to get
stamped out. There were a few surly looking men with guns, but on the whole it
wasn’t long before we were trudging through no-mans-land towards the Thai side.
We had been pretty direct in heading to the
border crossing, having heard it sometimes took hours to queue and make it
over. When we got to the back of the queue it seemed to be moving fairly
quickly – but then it stopped moving at all. We waited and waited, inching
along. Sometimes in searing heat, then unbearable humidity and finally heavy
rain. It took three hours to make it
inside the building – and another 30 minutes to make the front of the queue.
Foolishly we’d picked the counter being run by a guy obsessed with Muay Thai Boxing
which was being shown on the TV screens. He wasn’t acknowledging anyone as they
approached, he took their passports without breaking his gaze on the TV and
subsequently took twice as long as the others to stamp people through.
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| BKK Telecoms |
We all made it through – but had no idea
where to go. They had given us stickers to wear on our clothes, so when we
trudged down the street in the rain on the other side a guy shouted us down and
gave us a number. We then got taken to a minivan, piled inside and we were off…
straight to ANOTHER rest stop. By this point the four of us were all pretty
pissed off and had had enough of the whole ordeal. Loads of people were getting
food and drinks and generally holding the whole process up – so when they
offered us the next minivan ahead of the queue we leapt inside with no remorse.
The guy, unsurprisingly, drove like he was
on the run from the police. Luckily we were on the back seat so couldn’t always
see what was happening but when I did look he was generally doing 120km/hr in
the rain weaving in and out of traffic three lanes at a time. We had to stop
every hour to fill up his LPG which was a welcome relief, and when we were
eventually kicked out on Khoa San Road at 8pm a full 12 hours after leaving our
guest house that morning it was a relief to say the least. THEN we had to
actually get to our hotel! We were all at the same place which helped, but no
taxi drivers wanted to go there – and when they did they would only quote a
flat fare which was at least double what it would cost on the meter. Eventually
we found a guy who would do it and he got us there in no time at all – and it
was half the price.
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| Thai Ronald |
We finally had some good luck in that our
hotel was really nice – had good quick wifi and a giant comfy bed. After a
brief burger and beers downstairs in their restaurant we were all dragged
ourselves to bed. We had had a bet the previous night as to whether the bus
ride (which we booked) or the hotel (which they found) would be worse, safe to
say they won rather convincingly!
The next day we dragged out our hotel room
until the last minute, left our baggage there and ventured out into the heat of
Bangkok. First we had to navigate the metro system, which turned out to be
amazingly easy – then we picked up our train tickets for that night. After the
horrendous trip the day before, we opted for a first class cabin, even though
it was twice the price of second class, but we felt like we deserved it.
Getting the train tickets was also
remarkably easy (compared with Vietnam where no one seemed to speak English) –
so we were left with about three hours to kill before heading back to the hotel
to farewell the kids and use the free wifi before getting onto our train around
8pm. We managed to get a taxi (again, after much hard work – nowhere else in
the world have we had to beg with taxi drivers so much to take us somewhere!)
to take us back to Khoa San Road. It’s backpacker party central by night, but
we figured it might be a little tamer and bearable during the day and worth a
look around – especially considering we’d already decided Bangkok wasn’t our
cup of tea.
The strip is lined with bars, cafes and
souvenir shops – and there were market stalls spilling out into the streets,
blocking traffic. Whist we were there a police convoy came down the street and
all the sellers packed everything up in a wave of activity as they passed –
then put it all right back again! It seemed like a fairly pointless exercise on
both sides. We checked out a few of the tat peddlers stalls and liked a few
things – but everything was sooooo expensive compared to other markets we’d
seen, and no one was particularly interested in haggling with us – usually the
old walking away trick always works but here they didn’t seem to care and let
you go.
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| Errr, more KSR - we only took 4 pictures in Bangkok! |
On the way back down all of the hawkers
were out in force and every other step they were grabbing your hand trying to
sell you a cheap suit, cheap tattoo or cheap tour of Bangkok (via a suit
factory or three). At one point a fortune teller grabbed me, he had a huge
beard and told me I was going to have a good month and that I had a warm face –
but I’d have to pay him to find out exactly what was in store so we strolled
on, had some food (we caved and had a KFC – it was DELICIOUS and we weren’t at
all guilty) then battled the traffic back to the hotel.
After a farewell coffee with Chris and
Holly we waved them off as they got the train to the airport – hung around
downloading some entertainment for the train and generally enjoying not being
in the humidity for a while.
We caught the metro to the main train
station again, and eventually found our carriage. It was quite obvious that
neither of us travel first class on the train usually as we walked straight
past the carriage (which was obviously nearest the entrance) and then got really
hot and annoyed for 10 minutes as we walked the length of the train and back
for no reason.
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| Cosy! |
Our cabin was fairly quaint – the advantage
of first class is that you don’t have to share with anyone. There is a sofa
when you arrive, which they then fold into bunk beds once you are underway –
complete with fresh sheets, a blanket and pillows! It was MUCH comfier and more
private than the sleeper we caught from Hanoi to Hue, and didn’t cost that much
more. We grabbed some beers and snacks from the platform as we were leaving and
settled in for the night.
Unfortunately the mood was slightly ruined
by our neighbours who kept having sex and playing Whitney Houston from a laptop
with really tinny speakers. We put on a movie to drown them out, but they
turned it up! We caved and used our headphones in the end – but come midnight
when we’d finished and were ready for sleep it was still going on. You could
hear the guy snoring too, so it seemed it would continue all night so I got up
and banged on the door until he woke up and turned it down.
Despite the beds being comfier and the
tracks being a bit smoother – we still struggled to get to sleep. Every half an
hour or so a new rattle would start from either inside our cabin, next doors or
outside and wake you up – or you would go round a corner and the blood rushes
to your head/feet.
It was probably 2am by the time we both
went under – in the morning we’d be near the Thai-Laos border, another day,
another country, another adventure…
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