The not so glamourous side of traveling

Written last Friday, Oct. 30th en route to Koh Phi Phi:

Well Thailand has been a trip thus far... We have been going from one mode of transportation to another since thursday and are so close to getting to 'the little bungalow on the beach' we can taste it. Actually, all we can taste right now are fumes from the boat we are on as we wait to embark on our 2 hour ride over to Ko Phi Phi from Phuket... But we are getting warmer!

I got into Bangkok just fine- just minor annoyances after a night of no sleep, but no big complications along the way. Took the complimentary ride over to our hotel and waited for Andy to arrive. Couldn't sleep, was unable to find anything on TV (Asian TV is just straight bizarre!), so did some yoga in our air conditioned room and connected to the frustratingly slow wifi and tried to relax. The guy at the front desk asked me if I would like to go on the ride over to pick up Andy, so woke up after a short nap and jumped into the van around 11:15pm. As I was waiting for him, got told by the hotel employee: 'your friend, he's already at the hotel'. Alright. So ask the gentleman if he will take me back and he tells me yes, when I pay him 150 baht for the ride. He explains that since Andy is not going to be taking the van, I now have to pay. At this point, it's midnight, I don't have my wallet, I am so tired and frustrated from this day that I am now in tears at the airport while Andy is waiting for me at the hotel. He explains that if I wait till he gets a customer, I won't have to pay. Fine, how long till you get customer? I don't know, maybe 45 minutes?? Yep, and I'm just full out in tears and at my wits end by this point. I tell him I will pay when we get back and that I just desperately want to get to the hotel. He sees how upset I am and tells me to wait for 5 minutes and shows back up in 10 with a customer so I don't have to pay.

Finally get back to Andy waiting in the lobby and the deskboy (the one who assured me that I wouldnt have to pay to go pick Andy up) tells me I owe 300 baht now- 150 each way. I am livid at this point but end up coughing up 150. Before bed, Andy and I discuss our adventerous travel days (poor Andy had quite the trip from Guangzhou to Bangkok on Egypt air- an airline you should all avoid at all cost!) and agree that despite the troubles, it's worth the fact that we are finally here and together. We discuss plans for the next day and Andy infoms me that he bought us two plane tickets to Phuket to save us an entire day on the bus or train which is what we were originally planning. Amazing, this boy!

Sleep in, eat our compilmentary breakfast of eggs, hard toast, ham, a mini hot dog, fake jam and tang and hang out until noon- check out time. Ride to the airport, go to the one and only food court in the domestic terminal, and eat our meal of a whopper and French fries and a red curry dish. Wait for our flight, and finally board. Wait on the runway for about 45 mins for reasons not explained to us and were finally on our way. Get to Phuket and have no plan of where to go. We had heard some stuff about Patong and south of there in Karon and Kata so decide to just head south. Get harrassed by a few taxies and settle for a shuttle for 150 baht each. Here was a first for me though: The shuttle pulled into a travel agency about 5 minutes into the ride and told us all to get out as travel agents lead us in and start asking us questions about where we are going? do we have rooms? How much we looking to spend? We make up a story about staying with friends and get the hell outta there after refusing a few more offers for tours and hotels. Get back on 30 mins later and finally reach Patong about 45 mins after that. Quickly decide we want nothing to do with Patong and ask them to drop us further south towards Karon and/or Kata. Takes about 3 people, 20 mins, and a few phone calls back to the travel agency to get this translated but we are pretty sure they know what we are trying to accomplish.

We get dropped off a half an hour later in Karon no where close to the guesthouse we asked him to drop us at and have to give him another hundred baht for the extra distance. Now what? Walk around for a bit, try to find a couple places listed in our Lonely Planet- which isn't working- so start pricing the first places we come up to. Finally settle on a place above a bar called Calypso that has air con and a decent room with a kareoke set up downstairs. Bargin for 400 baht and 2 free beers, sit down in our room, cheers eachother and decompress. This is love- being able to make it through a frustratingly long and roundabout day of travel and sit there, talk about what we hated about, cheers eachother,


and laugh it off.

Finish our beers, go out to check out the scene and get some grub. Walk over to the night market which is just by the beach and stroll along to just people watch. God, there is amazing people watching here! The market has two aisles- one that is all little restaraunts and street vendors selling great looking food; the other that is split between Ed Harvey and fake Gucci bags being sold for dirt cheap, and carnival games. Awesome. Found a place where we wanted to eat and sat down at an empty table between a few old (real old!) expats taking their young (real young!) Thai girls out to dinner- this should be interesting. Eat some delicious panang curry and shared a big, sweaty Chang beer and walk back towards our guesthouse. Picked up some strange looking fruit from the fruit lady and went to a bar to further our 'people making bad decisions' people-watching and for another Chang. Get back to our classy homestay and take some sleeping pills (as there was a pretty funny looking Asian guy with a gray mullet singing John Denver in the bar below us) and pass out.

Woke up this morning, seeked out some wifi, got a nice breakfast, checked out the beach for a bit and then packed up our stuff. Checked out- where they tried to tell us that we owed them for the beers last night (umm, no)- and catch the bus- basically the back of a truck with benches on either side- to Phuket town. Get off when they yell 'bus done!' and, convienently, where taxi drivers are lined up for us. Talk down one guy for a ride to the marina, get there and pay for two open round trips to Ko Phi Phi and wait for our boat. Now we are here: Choking on fumes and so beyond ready for a secluded beach, a bugalow and some time doing absolutely nothing... So close!