We're up early and the owner woman tells us we need only travel to the bus office rather than the bus station. Cunningly, she offers us breakfast which is hard to refuse and another B120 for her. She corners a tuk-tuk (a genuine 3-wheeler) and packs us off. Tuk-tuks are barely designed for two people let alone two backpacks, two day packs, cameras, water. I travel with my feet hanging out. There's a certain charm to this form of travel, so long as you don't have to breathe the pollution and don't care too much for the rules of the road. In one case our man had repeatedly edged forward at the red lights until he was so far forward that he just joined in with the flow of traffic from our right turning right.
The bus office seems remarkably bereft of travellers which turns out to be because it [the bus] doesn't leave 'til 9, an hour an some from now. Leaving at 8:40 with a couple more passengers we still only travel to the bus station [over the road] before hanging around for almost an hour. Not a huge amount of explanation offered even if we did speak Thai. That's nothing compared to the two hour wait half an hour into the journey shortly after the smell of burning brakes and gliding to a halt at the side of the road. When you tried to look-see you were politely shooed away. Maybe the brakes had locked, maybe we'd blown a tyre, who knows. Eventually, another bus appeared and we were on our way.
Another few hours dicing with death on Thailand's roads. There are three types of vehicle on the roads: the slow moving trucks and pickups which like to move into the right hand lane [they drive on the left in Thailand] several km before any junction; cars and coaches which weave around the former and each other; and mopeds which skitter amongst the lot in a trusting to a higher force fashion. In one incident we, in a rare moment being in the inside lane, shimmied round a pickup signalling right in the right hand lane moving at half our speed that decided to move into the left at the last second. In another a moped crossed two lanes from the central reservation and turned forward in the inside lane only a couple of yards in front of a pickup which had to swerve into the soft shoulder. They don't sound much but they're close, very close.
Not a lot to say about the journey, the fields are vibrant green, the Wats brighter but the sky remains overcast. Indeed, shortly before dark, we went through a large rainstorm with plenty of lightning. After a stop at the bus company office in Bangkok who's position we couldn't ascertain we were dropped further out at the bus station after thirteen hours in the saddle. Just saying No!
to the ever present taxi touts we rounded the building (not looking particularly like the one we left a few days ago) to the "taxi meter" stand where the slightly more trustworthy taxis line up four or five abreast. The Royal Hotel
we said, having plucked the name from the Lonely Planet. A long log-jammed taxi ride later (and only B93) we arrive at a somewhat more plush hotel than expected. Indeed the B1600 the woman barks at me doesn't sound like the B1000 -- bargainable to B700 -- the book suggested. It's late, we've had enough, just do it! The food and beer in the ground floor 24 hour coffee shop is a touch steep as well. Never mind, the room's comfortable and should be a good night's rest.
Royal Hotel, Bangkok N13.75718 E100.49532 Elev. 10m Royal Hotel, Bangkok. A rotten picture, no flash?
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.
