Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville to get a Vietnamese Visa

Posted on April 21, 2012 by alex

The bus service between Cambodia’s two largest cities – Siem Reap and Phnom Penh – is more regular than ten years ago but in many ways unchanged. Peeling seats and moody air-con on ancient Chinese buses which travel along bumpy dirt roads are still very much par for the course. The trip took four hours, short by our increasingly lengthy journey time, and was characterised by miles of flat, pastured landscape punctuated by the occasional village or political party outpost. We were just beginning to relax when the bus began to slow and rumble along a particularly rough stretch of gravel path – it turns out that the ‘paved’ road from Siem Reap to the capital isn’t actually all there (despite what people may tell you) and for about two hours we grumbled along a narrow, single-track strip of concrete flanked by mud and rocks. We now played ‘chicken’ with everything else on the road – leaving us and the rest of the passengers gasping for breath when we nearly careened into an oncoming petrol tanker which refused to give way or slow down. Eventually I came to a point of acceptance about our situation and joked that if we did end up splayed all over the road, there would be a hundred tuk-tuks arriving at a moment’s notice, waiting to drive any survivors across the border to the nearest hospital for a handful of dollars.

We only stayed for one day in Phnom Penh, as we were en-route to Sihanoukville to organise our Vietnamese visa, but we tried to take in as much as we could in the short time that we had. I immediately noticed the barbed wire covering almost every building in the older parts of the city – I couldn’t work out whether it was a gruesome reminder of the old regime or a reaction to an area plagued by theft. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, at the site of the old S-21 prison, painted a horrific picture of life under the Khmer Rouge. Converted from an old school into a ‘re-education’ camp, hundreds of men, women and children were brutally tortured and killed here – packed into small solitary brick or wooden enclosures a couple of feet wide. The orchestrator of the prison, Kang Kek Iew, nicknamed ‘Duch’, is still alive and has been sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, but it is only recently that any of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge have started to be addressed in Cambodian courts. Despite full knowledge of their actions, for years the KR were supported by the West (John Pilger amongst others have been trying to bring this to the attention of the mainstream media for years) as an alternative to the socialist influence of the liberating Vietnamese.

The city and the Cambodian people are nothing if not resilient and are steadily moving on from the past. In the centre is a huge shopping district which houses fashion stores, gadget shops, art galleries, health food stores and organic restaurants alongside the more traditional market stalls. Whole families pack onto single mopeds zooming across town, skilfully avoiding wedding and party marquees which are often just set up in the middle of the road. Most of the younger generation that we talked to seemed much more interested in making something for themselves than in dwelling on their murky past – for now they choose to leave that task to their parents.

After a long, hot day trekking around the city, we found refuge in a French-style rooftop vegetarian restaurant near our hotel. We were busy enjoying a surprisingly peppery plate of pan-fried morning glory when a group of French journalists arrived with translators in tow to interview a man who had been waiting patiently in the corner sipping a dragonfruit smoothie for the last hour. The conversation became quite intense but from what we could gather it was something to do with the upcoming elections. In this dreamlike city of smog filled haze and sumptuous sunsets, events like this start to seem quite normal as does the sound of a thousand mopeds buzzing along the streets below. It certainly has hidden depths and is well worth taking the time to explore – we are told that it has more than one rabbit hole to lose yourself in…

The following day we headed south on the bus to the small coastal town of Sihanoukville, proclaimed to be Cambodia’s best beach resort. After the short two-hour journey we arrived in a rain storm, to our surprise, which we soon came to realise is the tuk-tuk drivers’ favourite type of weather. Although our guest-house was only a short 15 minute drive away, the waiting tuk-tuk drivers (who were grinning broadly by this point) immediately tripled their prices. We managed to barter down slightly but had little option but to cave in given the intensity of the downpour. We arrived at the Geckozy guest-house soaking wet but were greeted warmly by the French owner, Lionel, and given a seat next to a well-stocked bookshelf. We asked if there was any food available to which he replied rather sadly “not any longer”. Apparently he used to run the business with his wife, who was an excellent cook, but they had recently divorced leaving him to go it alone alongside an interesting team of quirky locals with a love of leopard print who help staff the reception. After showing us to our room and giving us an excellent list of French DVDs (perfect for a rainy afternoon) he returned to tend to Geckozy’s leafy garden with a wistful sigh.

The next day, rain had given in to sunshine and I set off very early to make the short walk past countless mechanics and fruit stalls to the Vietnamese Consulate, guarded by a tired looking man in a phone booth. Inside I took a seat and watched an entire office of clerks idling in wait for their daily shipment of applications to process from the regional office in Phnom Penh. As they didn’t have much to do, ours was processed in a matter of minutes and with few bureaucratic hurdles, setting an unfairly high standard for the consulates to come (Anna wasn’t even with me and they stamped her passport with no questions asked).

Sihanoukville town has the laid back atmosphere of a beachside resort, though is far enough away from the water itself that we needed to ask directions in order to find our way to the beach. Luckily we had been warned in advance by other travellers not to expect much of the sandy stretches nearer the town which have nearly all been ruined by over-development and litter…  instead we spent most of our time walking the streets in search of a relaxed café which at first seemed to be something of an impossible task given the number of fairly grim failing businesses run by anxious expats we were passing. One such outfit was an English-style outdoor bar run by a friendly but morbidly obese Englishman who seemed very excited that some ‘English’ people had dropped by to enjoy the pool tables, English Breakfasts and bingo nights that characterise his establishment. The ‘for sale’ sign behind the bar gave more away than his smile and we later found out that his business partner wants out and back to Yorkshire.

This was all quite depressing but later that afternoon, our luck changed when we stumbled upon the wonderful Starfish Café. This became our base for the next couple of days and really felt a world away from the streets outside with its tiled veranda, shady courtyard and home made cakes. It also donates all of its profits to a local charity for disabled children and runs well-regarded local tours, making it a good place to stop by if in search of the less touristy side of Cambodia. The owners were very friendly and gave us lots of tips for where we should visit next over a lengthy afternoon tea. They had many stories and suggestions but we decided to take the short onwards path along the coast to Kampot and Kep.

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Angkor Wat

Posted on April 19, 2012 by anna

I have heard Angkor Wat spoken of as many things – ‘pineapple towers’, rubble mountain, overgrown jungle, the Tomb Raider set, magical this, spiritual that, enchanting, devastating and even ‘Disneylandish’. But none of these really prepare you for the experience itself. It’s one of those places that defies definition and this is what makes it special. I have to say that the ‘magic’ moment took a little time to arrive for me. We made the mistake of first heading for the pine cone domed beacon of Angkor Wat itself and I found myself somewhat under-whelmed. This was not the fault of the structures themselves but down to the sad fact that in attempt to feel the awe inspiring, jaw dropping sensation that everyone else seems (or at least claims) to feel, I spent most of my time trying to get away from monks talking loudly on mobile phones or from huge tour groups and their flag-waving, megaphone-wielding leaders. This felt something akin to a tomb raider attraction at a theme park and was not what I had hoped to see – although a monkey stealing one of the groups’ packed lunch, resulting in much shrieking from both sides was something of a highlight. It wasn’t until we finally escaped this complex in search of some of the smaller temples that the real magic started to weave. Soon we were among lurching towers, tilting doorways, toppled stones, jungle canopies, twisted roots, mottled bricks, spider webs, red moss, orange-robed butterflies and monks, minute bats, dragonflies, moths, swallows and …timelessness itself.

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Sifting through Arts Cafés in Siem Reap

Posted on April 17, 2012 by anna

We had originally planned to spend our first day exploring the ruins of Angkor Wat but found ourselves completely exhausted after the long day of travel from Bangkok. Instead we rested in the comfortable hammocks of the Khmer family-owned Golden Temple Villa and later made a little excursion to the local market. There is a large central market that houses many of the same kinds of stalls that you find at Chatuchak, but if interested in jewellery, it is a particularly good place to look out for Amber and Turquoise items. There is also a well-lit Night Market across the river but this is largely a tourist-orientated set-up, sporting stalls with t-shirts of the various Wats and products making light of horrific events in Cambodia’s history. In Siem Reap, tasteless tourist outfits (the aptly named ‘Pub Street’ has many of these) sit comfortably alongside more understated operations which are often tucked away in its side alleys but are well worth seeking out.  It is not difficult to notice that Siem Reap, like Phnom Penh, is home to a burgeoning arts scene attracting photographers (who rave about its ‘special light quality’), painters, musicians, cinematographers, writers and more. Given the atrocities that Cambodia has endured in recent history (the explosive relics of which continue to create devastation today), it would be all too easy to view the increasing popularity of the ‘arts scene’ as an attempt to respond to or come to terms with these horrors but having looked around many of the galleries, it is clear that artists and their works are moving beyond the realms of the Peace Art Project Cambodia and into the revival and redefinition of the country. One of our favourite discoveries was The Art Deli, which aims to make art accessible both in terms of price and display choice – the emphasis being on up-and-coming artists and giving art a place in daily life. The downstairs ‘space’ was being rejuvenated while we were there but the upstairs was playing host to an interesting photographic exhibition called Innermost. The arts scene continues to thrive thanks to the increasing number of local and foreign creatives who have fallen under its spell, braving floods during the monsoon season and blazing, dusty heat in the summer to set up home, gallery space and events across the city. Some worth seeking out are Theam’s House, Alliance Art Cafe (which is also now home to boutique accommodation) and the arts lounge at the Hotel de la Paix. Given the proximity of the photogenic Angkor Wat complex, it may seem only logical that the city now plays host to a free to attend, annual International film festival, which had a distinctly environmental focus this year with screenings of films such as Bag It, Dirt, Fjord, Gasland and Climate Refugees. Information about the film festival and all other cultural goings on can be found in the English-language ‘zine Siem Reader which also spotlights locally-inspired writing, painting, drawing and photography.

While the blossoming of arts in Cambodia is having a positive impact among many in the community, it is estimated that over half of the people in Siem Reap province still survive on less than 45 cents per day. Schools, technical and vocational training centres, healthcare and more general support still remain unavailable to those unable to pay. Some funding has come in for language schools from foreign companies and local organisations, though children are still supposed to buy their own books. There was one school at the end of our lane where we worryingly noticed that children were being taught how to say ‘We love KFC’  and ‘I want a hamburger’ (we hope that company sponsorship had nothing to do with this but we won’t hold our breath). Given that tourism is a fast-growing industry in Cambodia, studying English can help lead to stability and a future career in the sector. Good local organisations such as Concert (CONnecting Communities, Environment and Responsible Tourism) are helping to fund some very good local schemes as well as showing tourists how they can most effectively help out. Sadly, children begging and pickpocketing on the street are still common sights in the city. Many children have been taught to pickpocket by predatory crime gangs and are made to line the streets into the late evening looking for tourists to hug/handbag grab, while watchful adults pretend to admonish those who are obvious enough to get caught. The ‘milk for money’ scam is also big in Siem Reap. Women clutching tiny babies wander the streets and gather outside supermarkets begging for milk. This is a scam run by one of the local businesses where tourists are tricked into paying ten times the price for a particular brand of tinned milk at a particular shop which the women will give back to the shop as soon as the tourist has disappeared in return for a share in the profits. These women, like the children, are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and are basically just pawns in someone else’s larger game. This is why organisations such as Concert are playing such an important role in the battle against the darker effects of tourism. After witnessing the effects of poverty, mine field explosions and environmental degradation first hand, many people feel a real need to do something to help but it is often difficult to know how to go about this in the most effective way. Concert, who have an office in Siem Reap, have lots of ideas on the subject – though using your own initiative can be good too and a couple of travellers we met were teaching a local ten year old girl, who worked in her parents’ shop every day for 12 hours a day, how to swim in their hotel’s pool.  She had never been in a swimming pool before and her excitement really was infectious – even the hotel managers got involved by providing lunch and taking photographs that the girl could take home to show her family. Angkor Wat aside, I suddenly knew why so many people are drawn back to Cambodia time and time again.

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A Window to the Wetlands: Thailand to Cambodia by Train and Tuk-Tuk

Posted on April 16, 2012 by anna

The train from Bangkok to the Thai border town of Aranyaprathet leaves Hualamphong station every morning at 5.55am. At 4.50am we left our hostel to make the short walk to the station. The city streets were already bustling with newspaper deliveries and families of sellers congregating on the pavement, unwrapping the bundles from their string packaging and reading snippets of the day’s news. We made it to the station in plenty of time and managed to get two tickets no problem – the train is third class only, the journey being just six hours, and there’s no need to book in advance. In the ticket queue we noticed a few other backpackers and we talked to a couple called Sarah and Guy, also heading to Siem Reap, who we agreed to navigate the border and share transport with in order to make the crossing as smooth as possible. We boarded the train and found a couple of seats – it was basic but clean and the especially welcome news was that the windows open, providing both beautiful, unadulterated views and a refreshing breeze. The train left bang on time and as we slowly made our way out of Bangkok, we passed huts and houses that clustered along both sides of the railway track, so close that you could see right into bedrooms and kitchens. These houses were made out of corrugated iron, old cardboard advertising signs and anything else that seems to have come to hand and it felt odd to be able to see such intimate details from the window of a train. It was still dark outside but as we continued to move along the track, we could smell the sizzling of breakfasts waft through the shacks and see the warm glow of fires and grills, huddled around by various family members in the half-light.

Dawn rose as we reached the edges of the suburbs and the city became illuminated with a smoggy haze. At a crossing I noticed a smartly dressed police officer trying to lure a cat off the tracks with a sucking noise while people scurried past him and each other on foot and moped trying to get to work. It was a relief to leave the franticness of the city behind and it wasn’t long before we were in open, breathable countryside – among lush green pastures farmed by one or two early risers. A few stations along, the train began to fill up with local traders carrying bananas, rice packaged in banana leaves and other breakfast delicacies, which seemed to go down well with the other passengers. As we ate some mango slices we had just bought from one of the sellers, the landscape outside began to subtly shift from grazing land into paddy fields which in turn gave way to rivers, stilted housing and large areas of wetland. What we hadn’t read about this train journey from anywhere before is that it provides an absolutely fantastic opportunity to spot wetland birds. The train snaked alongside small canals of water for almost three hours, passing entire fields filled with white ibis, tall statue-like herons, small water rails, kingfishers and countless other wetland inhabitants. For bird watchers and nature lovers this train journey would be worth taking for the wildlife alone (especially as the tickets cost a total of £1.50 each).

The six hours passed quickly and we both managed to have a small sleep before arriving at Aranyaprathet. By now, the sun was gradually climbing the sky and the heat was intensifying, so it was a relief that we met up with Sarah and Guy and tackled the tuk-tuk negotiating together (the actual border point is a short drive from the station). To avoid unnecessary hassle and scamming, we had got e-visas online a few days before, which is well worth doing as without them, tuk-tuk drivers will attempt to drive you to visa points before the border which are all basically scams. Our tuk-tuk driver did attempt this but we were able to present him with our e-visa and demanded to be taken straight to the border, which he reluctantly accepted. The Aranyaprathet/Poipet border crossing has improved massively in recent years, though the government on the Cambodian side have now set up transport schemes for tourists which make it very difficult to get anything apart from government-approved transport to Siem Reap (and is obviously set at inflated tourist prices). We had printed and read a fantastic guide, written by a local who crosses the border often, which explains all the workings of the border crossing and points out the pitfalls. You can find it at Tales of Asia. The border crossing itself was fairly painless. First we were stamped out of Thailand, and then had to walk across a dusty road in between the two checkpoints in order to reach the Cambodian immigration office. This is a major transport hub between the two countries and we saw families pulling heavily laden wagons and sacks, along side trucks full of live pigs squealing in the heat. We had to walk behind the truck all across the border which was difficult to watch.

'Poipet' by MsNina on Flickr

If you don’t have an e-visa you can still buy a visa at the border, though the queues can be very long. Once you’ve got your visa and filled in a health card you can get stamped into Cambodia, which was very quick and efficient (they even take fingerprints) once you reach the office. Once you are on the other side, you are swiftly shepherded onto a bus which takes you to a transport centre where all the government-approved transport options are waiting for you. We have heard that people have still managed to get into Poipet to make their own arrangements for travel, but the guys hanging outside the immigration office make this very difficult for tourists. It is worth trying to get to Poipet to at least eat before your onwards travel as the food at the transport hub is both overpriced and terrible. They will also insist that you must buy some Cambodian riel or dollars at the exchange, but whatever they say, you are not obliged to do this. All their transport prices are in dollars, the de facto currency of Cambodia, so it is worth taking at least $50 with you across the border. We shared one of their cabs which came to $45 which we split between the four of us. There have been reports of some taxis dropping passengers outside Siem Reap if they had been paid upfront but our taxi driver was pretty good and took us to our hotel (the Golden Temple Villa) after asking someone for directions in the town.

The journey from Poipet to Siem Reap takes about three hours but thankfully the road has been much improved (from dirt track to a single gravelly road). It didn’t take long to fully realise how different Cambodia is from its richer Thai neighbour. Buffalo and horse drawn carts were as numerous as cars and chickens and ducks pecked in the dust along most of the roadside. The houses were mainly stilted and wooden with haystacks and cows dotted around front yards. It may be what the Thais term as a more ‘simple existence’ but I couldn’t help but find it beautiful after a week in Bangkok. Cambodia is still a relatively rural country, the most built up towns being Phnom Penh (the capital) and Siem Reap (which is the accommodation hub for those visiting Angkor Wat). The latter is where we were headed and despite being perhaps the most touristy town in Cambodia there are still many delightful pockets of it left to explore, as we were to find out…

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Moths, Monks and Prickly Heat in Bangkok

Posted on April 15, 2012 by anna

Our first impressions of Bangkok were of a strange, hedonistic city combining old-world markets, beautiful temples, seedy strip clubs and slum-like houses with manic motorbikes, gigantic shopping centres, banks and LCD screens. The heat was intense on the first day we arrived and a dust-like cloud of pollution hung in the air, causing the skin on my arms and hands to come out in a bumpy red rash. My hypochondriac-fuelled reaction was to conclude that I’d been bitten by bed bugs from the bus or had caught some infectious skin disease from using the blanket, so I ran into a pharmacy waving my hands at a startled looking woman who then calmly reached into a glass cabinet behind her and produced an ointment from the shelf which said ‘prickly heat’ on the label. So this was my first real taste of the tropical heat…

Luckily the rash died down that evening and the next day brought torrential rain, which seemed to clear the air a little. After it had rained itself out, we paid an obligatory visit to the Khao San Road, walking once up and down its insanely crowded street and nebulous side alleys, where people brandished cardboard signs in our faces advertising tailors, foot masseurs and other, more sinister operations. Old women sold lucky frogs (wooden frog-shaped Güilo instruments which actually do sound like frogs) while others peddled catapults launching sycamore-seed-like lights which glow brightly when launched high into the air.

Feeling hungry, we decided to end the day somewhere a little quieter to unwind after the craziness of the KSR and so decided to try out a vegetarian restaurant called Ethos, which my sister Katie had told me about (see the Food section for more details). After filling up on organic chocolate cake and trying some of their home-made Tempeh and Kombacha (apparently some kind of wonder detoxification tonic) and chilling out on their comfy cushions under paper lanterns and brightly-coloured flowers, we felt relaxed enough to face some of the visa preparations we had to do for the next day.

Early the next day we caught a cab to the Chinese Embassy, to find a big notice saying that it would be closed for the next seven days (Chinese New Year strikes again). The Vietnamese Embassy was similarly shut for Tết festival, so it looked like Bangkok, reportedly the best and easiest place to procure visas of all kinds, was not going to offer any help with ours. After conducting a fair bit of online research, we found out that our next best bet was to try the Cambodian town of Sihanoukville for the Vietnamese visa and Ho Chi Minh City for the Chinese. Recent success stories had been reported on Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree forum for both so that fixed our onward journey plans a little.

We still had five days left to spend in Bangkok, and with nothing specific planned we arranged to meet one of my sister’s friends, Charlie, who was out here teaching English. We fixed a time for Saturday night and decided to visit some attractions in the meantime. We began with the house of the famous American silk merchant (and former CIA agent), Jim Thompson, who has held a particular interest for us since we learned about his mysterious disappearance in the Cameron Highlands in the 1967. After a tour around Mr Thompson’s elegantly furnished villa, we decided to spend the afternoon at the temple and teaching complex of Wat Pho. It was only upon visiting this magnificent place, with its many gilded Buddha statues, smouldering pots of incense and orange-robed monks taking exams or serenely wandering its lofty halls, that we began to experience the spiritual side of Asia that so many travellers bang on about. The temple complex is huge and you can easily spend a whole day there exploring its many courtyards and crevices which house everything from a Thai massage training school (it is the birthplace of Thai Massage) to teaching halls for Buddhist monks and it was also historically important as a centre where people would come to copy texts written in sanscrit from stone tablets to take back to their villages. It was easy to while away the hours ducking in and out of the almost Gaudí-esque ornate statues and pyramid-shaped Chedis. We ended with a quick visit to the giant statue of the Reclining Buddha, which peers down serenely upon the many tiny people gazing up at it, open-mouthed with awe at the statue’s polished appearance, towering size and mother-of-pearl-encrusted feet.

A few days in, we were feeling rested and stuffed full of pineapple and banana-filled pancakes, so we reluctantly left the Lamphu Tree for a cheaper hostel closer to Hualamphong station, in preparation for our early-morning 6-hour train journey to the Cambodian border in a day’s time. As it was a Saturday, we had just enough time to dump our things before heading to the famous Chatuchak Weekend Market, where the best bargains in Bangkok (and possibly the whole of South East Asia) are to be found. The market is huge and is split into wings dedicated to everything from pottery to bath products and even, sadly, exotic animals (Charlie told us that she’d seen sloths for sale there in the past). Before entering the fray, it’s best to know what you’re after and to prioritise what you do and don’t want, to see as it’s impossible to cover the whole market in a day. Helpfully, there are entire websites dedicated to mapping it out, and we found Asia Travel Tips particularly useful, which not only has a map but also includes a guide to haggling. In most cases, expect to pay at least 30% lower than their initial offer, but it’s best to start your opening bid below the 50% mark to get the best deal, and don’t wear expensive-looking jewellery or clothes or the traders will immediately jack up their prices. We also found that making an effort to speak the prices and some phrases in Thai allowed us to banter a bit more with the traders. We didn’t have any particular aims, but we enjoyed wandering around the various colourful stalls, and we came away with a Chinese-style tea pot, two pairs of linen ‘Aladdin’ trousers, silk pillowcases, table runners and wooden wall carvings, which was just about all we could fit in our backpacks. There is not much in the world you can’t find at Chatuchak, if you know where to look…

That evening we met up with Charlie and her friend Ben, who took us first to an Irish pub, for the only Guinness we had had since leaving home six months ago, and then to a local Thai eatery to sample the delights of Sangsom rum (which tastes like whisky) and cheap but delicious Thai food. It was really great to spend an evening with people who had some links to back home, as well as finding out all about the ups and downs of living in Bangkok as an expat. Bangkok, as anyone who has visited it for a while will tell you, begins to wear you down little by little until you know it’s time to move on, which Charlie said she had begun to feel. The rest of the evening passed in a hazy blur, but we did wake up in the morning with some hand-crafted bracelets and an interesting picture of the taxi we took home (at least we think it was a taxi). It seems that the sleazy underbelly of Bangkok with its Soi Cowboy street, drug peddlers and brothels is never that far away as the prominently displayed ‘No Bad Guy’ sign in the Cozy Bangkok hostel we were now staying in reminded us…

We began to feel it was time to leave Bangkok ourselves, which we would have done the next morning had we not been nursing terrible hangovers and had Alex not succumbed to a stomach disagreement (he thinks from eating too many chillies). It was clear we were going nowhere far that day, so we decided to make the most of the situation by visiting the dentist to get Alex’s tooth cap fixed (a relic of an old sports injury from school, which had managed to dislodge itself conveniently on the cargo ship). After all, what better cure for a hangover than anaesthesia? We called around and found a dentist who could see Alex today in the centre of Bangkok (as opposed to one of the side alley operations). The street that the surgery was on turned out to be full of other dentists and plastic surgeons. While Alex was being worked on, I sat in the downstairs waiting room where Mona Lisa Smile was being shown on the TV – it was the first film I’d seen since Australia. As more people piled into the waiting room, I soon realised that we weren’t the only Brits paying the dentist a visit. I spoke to a few people from Manchester and Liverpool who said that they had flown to Bangkok specifically to have dental work done. It’s so much cheaper there for cosmetic dentistry that it’s worth the price of the plane ticket, apparently, and you get to enjoy ‘a little holiday once the anaesthesia’s worn off’!

Alex soon came out re-capped but feeling comfortably numb, so we returned to our brightly painted hostel (another of those in the increasingly popular art boutique brigade) in an attempt to pack so that we could actually make it out to the border the next day before our visas expired. We quickly popped into the local 7-Eleven to get some supplies for the train and I somehow wasn’t surprised to meet an orange robed monk speaking loudly on his mobile phone by the crisps (a bit of a different from those we’d seen earlier at Wat Pho). The air outside was smoggy and the roads manic, but I couldn’t help but feel the seductive charm of this strange, conflicting city.

Back at the hostel, I went to wash the day’s grime off only to find the bathroom sinks were all full of dying moths. The overhead lights must have made the sinks look like giant moons to them, simultaneously turning them into moth death magnets. As soon as the insects touched down, their paper-like wings absorbed the water droplets and pinned them to the bowl. Trying to free them was useless, and I just stood there and watched as the guy from the room next door emerged and efficiently flushed them all down the plughole before gelling his hair in the mirror. It might have been the end of the hangover fragility, but I was once again ready to leave Bangkok.

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Trang to Bangkok by Bus

Posted on April 12, 2012 by anna

We arrived at Hat Yao Pier after a fairly stuffy three-hour journey on the ferry from Koh Lipe. Our ferry ticket had included a transfer to Trang and we were a bit bemused to find a 12-seater minibus waiting just for us. This was the plushest transport we’d seen for a while, complete with TV, air-conditioning and drinks holders, so we weren’t quite sure whether this was meant for us (our phrasebook didn’t help us out much here) but with no-one else around it meant that we either had to get on or sleep on the pier. So we climbed aboard and after hurtling through the Thai countryside as fast as the bus’s suspension would allow, we arrived in Trang and headed to KK Travel, which we’d been tipped off about in Koh Lipe. The office was small but homely and was staffed by two smiling women, with lots of tired-looking travellers occupying the seats. When we asked about the possibility of getting on the overnight train to Bangkok, their smiles widened into laughs which signalled we had no chance. An American expat happened to wander into the office at that time and bluntly translated their cackles, telling us that most trains from Singapore and Malaysia up to Bangkok had been booked for weeks ahead because it was Chinese New Year (which we had forgotten all about) and our only hope of getting to Bangkok would be on a local bus, which he said with a wince.

Trying our luck, we turned to the office ladies who were composing themselves and we asked in very bad Thai about the possibility of booking onto a bus, that day. One of them raised her eyebrows and picked up the telephone. After five or six phone calls involving lots of rapid speech, we were told “Yes, there is a bus… you will be VIP” (but what she meant was, you will pay VIP prices). Not wanting to be stranded in Trang, we took her up on her offer, after which the American chuckled and said, “The buses aren’t that bad”. I asked him what he was doing in Trang, to which he responded “Oh, I’m waiting for the train“, after which I quickly started to lose my sense of humour. We were told to come back a few hours later when someone would accompany us to the bus station, so we sat in a local café for a few hours, checking emails and calming/cooling down with a beer and an iced chocolate alongside a French man who was also waiting for the train (which he had sensibly booked in advance).

At about 5pm a Thai student turned up, and said that she would take us to the bus station and wait with us until the bus arrived. When we asked why, she said, “You know, it’s safer”… By this point we were beginning to really wonder about this bus. At the bus station itself, we were noticeably the only Westerners present (until a couple of German girls arrived later to catch a local bus) but most people either smiled or ignored us, and we didn’t feel uncomfortable at all. Our bus driver eventually turned up looking like an East Village hipster (white crocodile shoes, skinny jeans, tight band t-shirt and a little waistcoat and shades) and more scarily like he should have been in school rather than driving double-deckers cross-country. He motioned in the direction of the upstairs of a bus whose windows were stuffed full of cuddly toys (we wondered how he’d have any space to see the road). We said goodbye to the Thai student (whose English was much better than our phrasebook Thai) and boarded the bus. The downstairs was full of parcels and post so we climbed upstairs as we had been motioned to and were pleasantly surprised to find comfortable, spacious seats complete with a bottle of water, a custard pie and a pillow to make the 13-hour journey more bearable. Our fellow passengers were very helpful, showing us where to put our luggage, where the blankets were etc. so perhaps the American had been winding us up after all.

As dusk began to set in, we passed hundreds of rubber trees and could see rows and rows of little taps fitted to the bases of their bark with buckets underneath. Later we stopped to pick up a couple more passengers outside a sunset market where the last of the day’s wares were being flogged. Pirates Of The Caribbean dubbed in Thai was our entertainment for the evening, as well as the repetitive soundtrack of some irritatingly catchy Thai pop songs. At 9pm we paused at a local service station, our last stop before Bangkok, where we had a quick wash before getting ready for bed. My iPod provided an eerie soundtrack to the nightly goings on outside as I tried but failed to get to sleep. Around 1am, we passed a prison-like lorry which was crammed full of people looking out from between bars. Other trucks with wooden slats drove by, and I could see figures playing card-games at drinking tables through the light-filled cracks – the first of many portable gambling dens we were to see. I finally got to sleep and was woken a few hours later when the bus abruptly stopped in a long line of three-lane traffic – at this point I knew we were in Bangkok.

Still bleary-eyed when we left the bus, we stupidly managed to get into the only taxi which wasn’t a taxi at all but an opportunist who couldn’t actually read or write Thai. We only found this out ten minutes into the drive when she swiftly pulled over and dragged me by the elbow out of the car and into the dimly lit house of one of her friends who she motioned to read the map and directions I had in my hands. Quite a frightening experience at 6am in a strange city but she did finally lead us back to the car, where she promptly upped the price and would only agree to take us further if we paid her three times what we had first agreed. I had heard about all sorts of scams in Bangkok but I didn’t expect to be subject to one quite so quickly. Not wanting to get dragged into any more strange houses for perhaps a more sinister purpose, we reluctantly agreed to pay and felt relieved when she dropped us off on the small bridge which arched over the quiet canal-side hotel we had booked at the recommendation of a friend. Even though it was only 6.30 am, breakfast was being laid out and we were brought cups of coffee and pancakes which tasted incredible after our early morning adventure. A couple of other travellers arrived just after we’d sat down and said they’d just come off the train we couldn’t get on, which they’d caught last night from the next stop along from Trang. It was so packed, they hadn’t slept at all which made me think of the comfy bus and its cuddly toy obsessed hipster driver with a new level of fondness.

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