Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. – Francis Bacon
Saturday, December 21, 2013 (DAYS 656 & 657)
Waking up to my iPhone alarm buzzing at 7am, there is a slight breeze in the air and I’m preparing for yet another very long overnight travel day. Never knowing when the next meal may be I’ve given myself two-hours before the 9am boat departure and begin with a brekkie of coffee and a pancake with chocolate and bananas. Yes, I am the model of health. As I’m packing up Mama Piang comes over to let me know that Papa (her husband) and four other guys are waiting on me to depart 15-minutes earlier than expected, and has set the precedence for the journey back to Thailand. I make my way down the narrow steep path to the boat hoping that I don’t slip, as I am loaded down with both backpacks. The long tail boat ride to the mainland town of Ban Nakasang takes about 12-minutes and from here it is a short walk to the outdoor bus terminal where I learn that the bus for Pakse won’t be departing until 12pm. Looking at my watch, the only time I wear it is on travel days, I realize that I have almost three-hours to kill. It’s times such as these that I wish there were Wi-Fi, but no such luck. There wasn’t even an outlet to charge my iPod for the long journey.
Waking up to my iPhone alarm buzzing at 7am, there is a slight breeze in the air and I’m preparing for yet another very long overnight travel day. Never knowing when the next meal may be I’ve given myself two-hours before the 9am boat departure and begin with a brekkie of coffee and a pancake with chocolate and bananas. Yes, I am the model of health. As I’m packing up Mama Piang comes over to let me know that Papa (her husband) and four other guys are waiting on me to depart 15-minutes earlier than expected, and has set the precedence for the journey back to Thailand. I make my way down the narrow steep path to the boat hoping that I don’t slip, as I am loaded down with both backpacks. The long tail boat ride to the mainland town of Ban Nakasang takes about 12-minutes and from here it is a short walk to the outdoor bus terminal where I learn that the bus for Pakse won’t be departing until 12pm. Looking at my watch, the only time I wear it is on travel days, I realize that I have almost three-hours to kill. It’s times such as these that I wish there were Wi-Fi, but no such luck. There wasn’t even an outlet to charge my iPod for the long journey.
Surprisingly, the bus is on schedule and arrives at 12pm for the three-hour trip to Pakse. Thinking that I would have another waiting period before the next bus, I’m told that the minibus heading to the border is leaving right away and after a brief toilet stop, I’m one of the last two people to squeeze my way in to the backseat. The ride is relatively short to the border, just under an hour, where we cross overland at Chong Mek. Grouping together, there are about seven of us, as we successfully manage to retrieve our exit stamp from Laos along with a 10,000₭N ($1.24) overtime fee, which is administered on weekends and if crossing during lunch or midday. The stretch of dirt road between the borders is about 1km before reaching the Thai immigration and customs, and reminds me of the border crossing between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Prior to a few months ago, as an American passport holder, the allotted days on a tourist visa for Thailand was 30-days if you arrived by air and was reduced to 15-days overland, but I heard from several people that this has changed for Americans, Canadians, Kiwis, and a few other European countries, but unfortunately not for Australians. The restriction on tourist visas as well as high border fees (averaging $30-$40) has been one of my big qualms traveling South East Asia (SEA) in comparison to Central America. There are a handful of countries that allow for 90-days, but they are more expensive overall.
Once our group had received our entry stamps for Thailand we were driven in a tuk tuk to the bus terminal, where our overnight bus departed at 6pm and was scheduled to arrive in Bangkok at 6am, which I figured would be closer to 7am or later. Just after 4:15am, the lights on the bus came on and the driver came through yelling at all of the backpackers, “Bangkok Bangkok get off bus.” Completely disoriented, several of us looked at our watches and couldn’t believe the time. After gathering our bags I paired up with Bart from Hollland and Evan from Canada where we shared a taxi in to the city. Originally the horde of taxi drivers were surrounding all of the backpackers and began with the price of 600THB and over time was lowered to 400THB, which we all knew was extremely inflated and we demanded a metered taxi. Thankfully at the bus terminal near Mo Chit, where we currently were, there is an area for the metered taxis and we ended up paying 150THB ($4.57) for all three of us to the Khao San Road area.
After walking from guesthouse to guesthouse where each one was full, we finally found Happy House around 5:45am that had vacancies with an inflated price of 400THB ($12.19) for a private room. I figured that this was a decent deal since we were allowed to check in right away and I would have the room for the entire day to catch up on sleep and do some hand washing before my next big leg of travel from Bangkok to the island of Koh Tao. Not having eaten a proper meal in almost 24-hours, after checking in Bart and I headed to Burger King for a Whopper feast with fries. Returning to the Happy House, I felt the need to shower but couldn’t muster the energy. As soon as I hit the bed I was out.
In hindsight, I could have stayed an extra day on Don Det in Laos, but since it seemed that it was the beginning of the enormous holiday travel migration from everyone I spoke as they were heading to either the islands in Thailand or Cambodia, I didn’t want to risk the possibility of any type of travel delays–no vacancy on buses or trains or worse having the bus break down in the middle of nowhere due to mechanical problems–I’m glad to have broken up the long journey before heading to Surat Thani and the island of Koh Tao. So, to recap from Don Det to Bangkok: I traveled more than 950km (590 miles) on a boat, tuk tuk, three buses (including the long overnight bus), and was traveling for close to 22-hours in total, at the cost of 265,000₭N ($33).
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