Bangkok, Thailand

Last night we were collected from the hotel and taken to Krabi bus station, where we waited an hour before boarding a coach. We were fairly tightly packed but for our 550 baht each to go from Krabi to Bangkok I hadn’t expected much else. The toilet on board was tiny and had no light, which seems a common feature of Asian busses, so for future reference always travel with a pocket torch!

Three hours later the bus pulled in at a little place with palm trees and a ‘cafe’. We thought it was just a toilet stop, but our luggage was being taken off the coach and everyone got out. Nobody knew what was going on or why we had been dropped here, but we had to go over to a desk and write down our names for Bangkok. Eventually we managed to get out of one of the drivers that we were going on a ‘big coach’. All of a sudden there was shouting of ‘quick’, ‘Bangkok’ and ‘coach one’ but for some reason that coach wasn’t for us and we were allocated on the next one.

We found a Canadian couple to talk to and waited for about an hour, in this swamp like, coconut plantation, surrounded by bull frogs and moths the size of birds. Eventually our coach did turn up, and it was more spacious with aircon, comfy seats and blankets. I was slightly concerned and puzzeled that for such a nice coach there were no toilets on board and we had ten hours ahead of us! However as it happened the coach made three stops at various service stations for us to get out, buy food or use the toilets, so that was a relief! I just found it difficult with the lack of communication from the drivers, that we didn’t know what was going on or whether we would have to sit on the coach for the entire journey and if so I shouldn’t drink any water, and after we did stop I wondered if we would stop again. However I managed to get some sleep and it was fairly comfortable - just a bit cold!

We arrived in Bangkok at six am, despite all the delays. The difficult bit was finding a taxi driver that would use the meter to take us for a short journey to the train station. The taxi drivers in Bangkok can be such idiots, as we said Hua Lamphong station, and the driver asked where we were going after, and we said the airport this afternoon and he seemed genuinely puzzeled as to why we wanted the train station if we were going to the airport, so we walked off and had similar experiences with a few more drivers, until finding one who would use the meter and take us where we wanted to go. We did have to tell him we were going to take the train to Chiang Mai, which he seemed happy with, as if our journey had to make sense, rather than us deciding where we wanted to go. The train was slightly delayed but we’re here now, having checked in with an hour or so before our flight.