White-knuckle journey to Thailand

Sunday February 9th

 

Our last shot of the Golden Banana

I take back everything I said about a relaxing trip to Koh Chang.  In parts, it was terrifying!

We were picked up after breakfast by a tuk tuk driver who took us to the bus depot.  Various tuk tuks arrived dropping off more passengers until there was a group of about 20 of us.  We all piled on to the bus and settled in for the trip to the Thailand border.  This part of the trip was very pleasant.  The bus was air conditioned and the seats were reasonably comfortable.  The scenery alternated between open countryside with rice paddies (not currently planted as it’s not growing season) and small villages with roadside stalls.  The roadsides are littered with rubbish, mostly plastic bags, which make an otherwise green and attractive place look very tatty.  John has had an upset stomach for the past few days, so he was happy to sit back and snooze.

 

Cambodian stilt house

Trimming the trees

Cambodian Bunnings

We got to the Thai border at 11.30am and then began a few hours of a pretty unpleasant border crossing.  Firstly we were all given a coloured sticker which indicated which bus we were to go on when were across the border.  We then had to line up to get our passports stamped out of Cambodia.  This is where, as expected, the Immigration officials came along and offered (for a fee) to speed up the process for us.  We politely declined their offer and lined up in the heat to take our turn.  The process is pretty slow and the heat and humidity are pretty unpleasant, but that would have all been tolerable except John was not feeling too good.

We finally got through this part of the process and then walked down the road to the Thai Immigration point -  another long wait in another long line in the heat.  John was looking a bit pale and uncomfortable, but we had no choice but to wait our turn and we finally got through.

We needed to get some money so we quickly dashed over to a nearby bank to get some Thai currency from the ATM.  The first ATM we tried had no money.  The second ATM we tried had no money.  As Thailand doesn’t use American dollars, we would have been a bit stuck as we had only US dollars, Aussie dollars, Cambodian riel and Malaysian ringgit on us.  Then a kind person pointed us in the direction of a nearby 7-11 shop with an ATM that did have money.  Hooray for 7-11!

We then hurried back to our collection point for the bus to Koh Chang.  This is where another bit of extra fund-raising takes place.  We were left in the heat to wait for the bus (saved by my little folding umbrella) and eventually we were loaded into utes and taken to a little café where everyone was encouraged to buy food and drinks.  As it was lunch time by then, I bought some fried rice and was half way through it when the mini bus arrived.  We had carefully worked out that we needed to sit on the left-hand side of the bus to be out of the sun, so John was very keen to jump straight into the bus to claim our seats.  I was very keen to eat my lunch.  He dashed off with our bags and I scoffed down the last of my food then rushed to join him.  There were three mini buses waiting, all with tinted windows so I had to run from one bus to the other until I found John.  As the journey progressed, we were very pleased that we had seats on the left.  There were 7 passengers on this bus so we had plenty of room. 

Farewell to Cambodia - the border crossing

Then began the terrifying part of the journey.  Probably due to the fact that extra time was taken at the diner, the driver had to make up time so we could make the 6.00pm ferry to Koh Chang.  It was like being in the Grand Prix.  He drove at a frightening pace, tailgated every vehicle that was in front of him and overtook in the most dangerous places, while talking on his mobile phone most of the way.  The scenery along the way, when I could open my eyes, was similar to Cambodia at first, but then became more vegetated and hilly as we got nearer to Koh Chang.

We arrived at the ferry terminal, shaken but unharmed, at 5.45pm.  We walked on to the ferry and were treated to a beautiful sunset as we made the crossing to the island.  We also met our first lady-boy – a very pretty ‘girl’ with a deep voice and big hands, serving in the on-board shop.

Sunset over Koh Chang

When we landed on Koh Chang, we piled into a ute-taxi (a ute with a bench seat down each side and room for baggage on top) with 6 other people.  We paid 100 baht (AUS $3.40) each to be driven to our hotel.  We stopped along the way at a currency exchange place as one of our fellow passengers had only US dollars on him.  I took the opportunity to change our remaining US dollars into baht as we won’t be needing the US dollars any more on this trip. 

By the time we got to the hotel counter to check in, John was ready to drop.  One of the hotel staff carried our bags and led us across the soft white sand to our beach-front room.  Although it was dark, we could see that we are in a beautiful location but we were too tired to care much by then.  John was not interested in food so I went over to the restaurant with my Kindle and sat there eating a Thai curry with a glass of wine to put the fire out, feeling just like Shirley Valentine.  Looking forward to vegging out in paradise for a few days before we take on Bangkok later in the week.

This'll do

.