Back on the mainland, we caught a night bus to Bangkok. TOP TIP: When booking a night bus, try and choose the seats with their backs to the stairs. That way, you will be able to put your seat back much further than you would be able to if someone was sat behind you. Andy and I were almost horizontal and thus slept like babies.
In the morning we arrived in Bangkok and after a near 2-hour taxi ride (courtesy of the AWFUL rush-hour traffic) we arrived back to Khaosan Road. We had booked ourselves into the Bodega in Bangkok. There was a pool, but it wasn’t as good as the one at the D&D Inn up the road. So we went there.
It was nice to be back. There were a lot of very white people around the pool. This is how I must have looked a month ago… but now I had gone from the colour of milk to that of a very milky cup of tea.
Strictly speaking, the pool is only open to D&D Inn guests, so if you want to use it, you simply have to walk through reception like you own the place. Easy.
After another day of sunbathing on the roof, we returned to one of our favourite bars from the start of our trip.
Roof Bar. It offers a decent view of Khaosan Road.
Before we first arrived in Thailand, I was told that Bangkok is the most expensive place. I was told to get out of Bangkok ASAP if you wanted to save money. So we had done. Now we were back, I was starting to realise that the advice given to me was either out of date or wildly misinformed.
BANGKOK IS CHEAP.
OK, so being back at the Roof Bar made me realise that the “cheap beer” we’d been drinking here at the start of the trip was actually pretty expensive. But bars aside, everything else is so cheap! Buckets of alcohol for 150 baht?! We’d been happy to pay DOUBLE that in the south! I bought a big bottle of Chang beer from a street vendor, and it wasn’t that much more expensive than if I’d bought it in a 7/11.
When we’d first arrived in Thailand we were too scared to leave Khaosan Road. We were still finding our traveller feet. We were wearing t-shirts and big walking boots. Now we were in vests, open shirts and flip flops. Things had changed. We had assimilated the Thai life and straying off Khaosan Road – and reaping rewards.
Bargains, bargains, bargains. Shirts for 200 baht, vests for 99 baht. Andy and I thought back to all the vests and shirts we’d bought in south Thailand, all the haggling and being happy at finding a shirt for 300 baht. FFS.
North-west of Khaosan Road is Soi Ram Butri – another road with lots of vendors on it. We wandered up here to find some food. A local called out Andy and told him he looked like Ali Baba…
We found a place called BB House – a hostel with a restaurant. We only went inside because they did Mexican food and Andy has a weakness for Mexican food. I had my first ever chimichanga and it was amazing. And a decent price! I love Bangkok.
On our way back to the hotel we found Andy’s lookalike.
Khaosan Road has a Boots just off it, and Andy found a load of deals on sun tan oils and soaps. He was literally buzzing on exiting the place. Top tip: Boots do bargains.
Anyway. On to the “balls up” aspect of this blog, featuring some pretty big balls.
That night we would be leaving Thailand on a night bus to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Our 30 days were up. The coach ticket cos us 950 baht each, or £23.45.
To go to Cambodia, you need a visa, and it’s advised you buy yourself an eVisa for $37 – which was £28.49 at the time. Buy these a few days before you enter Cambodia – it gives them time to process and approve you. I was getting pretty worried as my confirmation email hadn’t arrived yet on the day we were supposed to leave – until I realised I was looking at the wrong email account. I had been approved. No balls up here.
We were to be picked up by the coach people at 00:15 from outside McDonald’s, with the coach departing Bangkok at 01:15. So we still had time to chill out.
Obvs we went back to the D&D. Andy went for a sunset swim. Then dressed up like a monk.
Twilight fell upon our time in Thailand.
Darkness cast a shadow upon our fortunes. It would be a LONG night…
First, we had to kill some hours in the Bodega. We sat in the lobby watching Netflix. Some of the reps tried to get us involved with party games, not knowing that we’d actually already checked out and were just using the lobby as a place to sit and wait for a coach in moderate comfort.
Andy continued his holiday tradition of making friends with a cat.
I say “making friends”. That’s not true. He’s not a massive fan of felines but they seem to be attracted to him. This bastard made a right noise when I tried to sit next to her.
The hours trickled by. After what felt like an age, we went to McDonald’s.
It was a humid night. We sat on the street outside, watching the revellers of Khaosan Road walk by. We were probably the only people there without substances in their bodies, excluding (some of) the vendors. We were left unbothered however – only a handful of vendors tried to sell us anything. One market woman got annoyed with us for sitting in front of the stall she was trying to dismantle. She said “excuse me” but with an exasperated expression on her face. Her son’s look was apologetic. Cow.
1am was approaching and I was starting to get worried. We were the only people there waiting for a bus, and no reps had appeared. Andy was double and triple checking that we were absolutely, definitely, 100% in the right place. But still, nobody came looking for us.
I asked a street food chef next to us if I could borrow his phone to ring the bus company. He told me to wait 10 minutes. I asked another guy if I could borrow his phone and he looked at me with suspicion and pretended not to understand me. It’s amazing how quickly these peeps stop wanting to help you when they realise you’re not buying anything.
1am. Nothing.
01:05. Nothing.
01:10. Departure time. Nothing. Either we’d missed the bus or it was running incredibly late.
Andy got the ticket up on his phone for the millionth time. We were in the right place, right time…
BALLS UP #1
Wrong date. Andy had booked us in for the 4th of March, but we had now crept into the 5th of March. We were 24 hours late for our bus. I got up, walked to a vendor and bought a big bottle of Chang.
We returned to the Bodega to sneak some Wi-Fi. Andy frantically searched for another coach. We had to leave Thailand on March 5th to avoid overstaying, which meant we HAD to find space on an early coach out of Bangkok – other coaches left in the evening and wouldn’t get us out of the country in time.
THANKFULLY, Andy booked us in for 7:45am. The price had gone up to 2500 baht. We had 6 hours to wait in Bangkok without a bed. The legends at Bodega said we were allowed to wait in the lobby, which meant we could charge our phones, use the Wi-Fi and maybe nap. The downside was we were getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.
We sat for hours watching the return of drunken Bodegans. We witnessed a window being smashed and a guy trying to sneak his lady friend back into the hostel. I didn’t sleep.
5am came and at last we could go for a McDonald’s breakfast.
I was knackered. Look at that mess there, he looks rough as shit. My sausage and egg McMuffin was delicious – my cup of tea was absolutely vile. Andy and I sat in a sleepy silence, when suddenly I hear
“I’VE DONE IT AGAIN!”
BALLS UP #2
4 hours prior, when tiredly rushing to find us a coach, Andy had booked us two seats on a coach to Siem Reap… in 10 days time.
I looked upon Andy with his head in his hands. I’d never seen him looking so dejected. I could only internally laugh at the situation. Was this real life? The cost of us leaving Thailand was really mounting up.
Andy managed to get online and emailed the travel company, to plead with them to let us change the date. We marched around to the Giant Ibis travel company’s shop and sat in the doorway, waiting for someone to open it and hopefully help us.
Andy let out a great cheer of joy and relief when an email came back. We had seats on today’s bus to Cambodia. Now not full of nervous worry, tiredness suddenly hit me like a car and I found myself dozing in a doorway like a homeless man. That was until a VERY drunk Thai man in a rainbow jacket approached us, chatting some absolute shit. He tried to make us drink his whiskey, and continually shook our hands. I was gonna be pretty pissed off if this guy ended up giving me coronavirus.
The Giant Ibis people arrived and we were allowed to go and sit on the bus early. It was a really good bus with phone charge ports, Wi-Fi and comfy reclining chairs with acres of leg space. And, it was half empty when we set off – which meant a quiet place to go to sleep. Tbf, we had been awake for nearly 22 hours – we’d have slept in a nightclub.
During our nap, the rep came to us to check our passports and make sure we had visas.
BALLS UP #3
This time it was my bad.
In Thailand, Brits can enter the country for 30 days without a visa. I had calculated our day of departure as 30 days after our day of arrival… But I had forgotten to INCLUDE the day of arrival. Today was Day 31. We had overstayed and would be fined 500 baht each.
The rep showed me my passport, and the stamp that told me on which day my permitted stay would end. I argued in vain, before slumping in my chair and going to sleep.
In all, our journey to Cambodia cost us £190.26, when it should have cost £51.94 each. We had essentially both lost a week of food and lodgings. One comforting thought was that fellow travellers had told us Cambodia was cheaper than Thailand. This better be worth it…
#VidOnTour 