A Day in Bangkok

I arrived to Bangkok at 6am after a 12 hour journey on the night train.  My flight the next day was very early in the morning so I decided to stay at a hotel close to the airport.  Since the airport is about 45 minutes from downtown Bangkok the hotel suggested that I store my luggage at the “left luggage” area of the train station and explore the city by day and head to the hotel in the evening.   Bangkok has a great underground and above ground rail system so I was excited to explore Bangkok cheaply and happy that I would not have to deal with the hassle of carrying my 2 backpacks around with me. 

I found the luggage storage area in a dirty little corner of the Bangkok Train Station.  It was going to cost me about $2.50 to store my bags for the entire day so I filled out some paperwork, paid the guy, and he attached luggage tags to my bags and took them into the room behind him already stacked with backpacker bags and suitcases. 

I spent most of the day exploring Bangkok and in the evening headed back to the train station to grab my bags and hop into a taxi.  One thing that I have learned about taxi drivers in this region is that most often they have no idea where they are going.  I’ve learned to always make sure to have a phone number for the hotel so that they can call when they get lost.  It’s almost useless to have an address unless it’s in their language since most don’t read English.  Sure enough, the taxi guy thinks he knows where he’s going but ends up getting lost.  I convince him to call the hotel and he goes to call and realizes that his cell phone battery has just died.  We find a payphone, he calls the hotel, and finally after many tries, we find the place.  I do admit this one was a bit tricky.

At the hotel I’m deciding what to bring on my 2-week trip to Vietnam and what I will leave at the hotel (they too have baggage storage for a small fee).  I’d rather not drag around my large backpack since I really don’t need much for Vietnam and I hear that theft is a problem there. 

Vietnam loves the $USD and in fact many things are quoted in both their local currency the “Dong” and the $USD.  I still had $3.00 that came with me when I left the US and thought that I would bring that with me and finally spend it.  I looked high and low for it but could not find it.  The more I thought about it, I was also missing my cell phone and charger.   Then it hit me… the people at the train station’s luggage storage had gone through my bags and taken a few things.  Lesson learned.  Lucky for me I had all my valuables on me except for the cell phone which I still had not used since leaving the US so maybe it wasn’t that valuable to me.  In addition to the $3.00 USD they also took a few bills I had of Malaysian money but left the bill I had of Burma money.  Obviously Burma money is worthless.    

Travels to Bangkok

After 2 months of living on Koh Samui I have finally said goodbye.  Sad to leave the new friends I have made during my month long obsession with yoga but ready to move on.  

My favorite yoga teacher "Mon"

From Koh Samui I needed to get to Bangkok in order to catch my flight to Vietnam.  Since Bangkok is about 450 miles from Koh Samui I could have made it easy and flown (1 hour) but decided that the reason I travel is to have adventures so I opted to take the night train (12 hours).

I had pre-arranged this trip meaning that just like my last venture to the mainland a minibus picked me up from my apartment and dropped me off at the Koh Samui ferry pier.  At the pier I was told to board one of the many waiting greyhound buses.  A bit confused, we drove to another part of Koh Samui and boarded another ferry.  Turned out that the greyhound bus traveled on the ferry as well and then once on the mainland continued on for another hour to drop us off at the train or bus station.

Beach next to ferry pier

Greyhound bus boarding ferry

I knew that I was different than most other passengers on board since I had been given a special sticker to wear on my shirt that said “train” in both English and Thai.  No one else seemed to have this.  After about an hour on the greyhound, the bus helper approached me and since his English was very hard to interpret I assumed he was asking if I was going to the train station.  I showed him my train ticket and he said to get off the bus with these 2 other passengers. 

Left at this random spot alongside the main road we are told to wait.  Unsure of what we were waiting for 10 minutes goes by before a songthaew (a type of Thai taxi) pulls up tells us to hop in the back of his songthaew.   He drives us to some random house and tells us that the bus will leave at 7:30pm and the guy at the house will take us to the station.  I then realized that I was not suppose to get off the greyhound bus and needed to get myself to the train station.  Luckily I still had a few hours until the train left.  I tried to explain my situation to both the songthaew driver and the guy at the house and they both asked to see my ticket.  Since I had no other ticket, I showed them my train ticket.  They took it and explained that they would make sure I got there.  Next thing I know the songthaew guy is driving away with my train ticket (thinking it’s some other kind of ticket he needs in  order to get paid for ride he gave us) and I’m starting to freak out a little because without that ticket I can’t board the train and that ticket was worth about $25 (a lot of money here).

Praise the cell phone!  The other guy calls the songthaew guy on his cell phone and he comes right back, gives me my ticket, and tells me to get into the back of his songthaew.  I’m thinking he’s going to drop me off at the train station but oh no.  He drives until he spots a local bus heading to the train station and flags the bus down.  He motions quickly for me to get out and hop in the bus.  All this happens so quickly that I have no idea what is happening – I just do as I am told.  The only thing that comforts me is that on the front window of the local bus I see the words “Train Station” in English so at least I know where we’re headed. 

The bus (with mirrors and oscillating fans on the ceiling) stops at every little place and being the time worrier that I am, I start to wonder if we’ll make it to the train station in time.  We make it with 30 minutes to spare.  Perfect timing!

Local bus heading to train station

There were several options for seats when it came to booking on the night train.  The cheapest I could have booked was a “hard seat” in a non-air conditioned cabin (meaning it was basically a wooden seat and open windows) and from there the prices went up as you increased the comfort level.  I ended up booking a “soft sleeper” in an air-conditioned cabin (meaning the padded seats folded down into comfortable beds with curtains separating you from the rest of the train).   Most of the passengers were tourists heading up to Bangkok and it was quite easy to sleep most of the 12 hour trip.

Night train to Bangkok

12 more days… and then goodbye Thailand!

My tourist visa expired yesterday and instead of leaving the county once again to get another 15 or 30 days I was under the impression that the Koh Samui Immigration office could grant me an extension of 2 weeks.  The only catch being that you pay them the equivalent of $60 but that’s so much cheaper than having to leave the country and come back.  So late last week I had passport photos taken, made copies of my passport and departure card (all requirements for a visa extension), and headed on my scooter (on the hour long drive) over to the other side of the island to the immigration office.

When I entered the tiny office there were probably 20+ people waiting to get visa extensions.  Every seat in the place was taken.  I filled out the paperwork and when it asked for how long of an extension I would like I put 12 days.  The woman looked at me and said “no”, she was only going to give me a 7 day extension.  She then proceeded to tell me that in addition to the $60 USD fee I would also have to pay the “overstay” fine of $16 USD/day for the remaining 5 days for when my visa would be expired.  I quickly added all this up in my head and realized that paying $140 USD to stay in Thailand for an additional 12 days was completely outrageous and decided that there had to be a better solution. 

Frustrated, I left the immigration office without getting an extension and headed to the nearest travel agency to find out what other options there were.  I  find out there are regularly scheduled “Visa Runs” where a minibus picks you up and drives you to the border with either Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, or Burma.  All of this for $60 USD, the original fee for a visa extension.

Since my visa expired on Monday luckily there was a trip to Burma (aka Myanmar) planned for that day.  A minibus full with tourists picked me up at 5am and headed over to Na Thon on the other side of the island to hop on the ferry crossing over to the mainland.  The ferry was almost the size of a small freighter and is also a very popular way for people to get their cars onto the mainland as there were probably 50 cars onboard.  The ride took 1 ½ hours and once we were on the mainland in Don Sak another minibus was waiting to drive us across Thailand to Burma.  


To get from Don Sak to Ranong, the Thailand city on the border with Burma took us 4 hours in the minibus.  Border town Ranong is a dirty place right along the river and you could tell that the only reason tourists come to this place was to do exactly what I was doing “a visa run”.  I counted at least 100 tourists during the time I was there.

It was a very chaotic and sketchy process with people everywhere and I am so happy that I did this with a group of people and not on my own.  Just to orient you a little, Ranong is on the western side of Thailand and is separated from Burma by a river/bay that flows out to the Andaman Sea. 

Thailand Immigration Office

First we had to wait in line to get an exit stamp from Thailand Immigration.  We were required to pay $10 USD or 500 Thailand Baht (and if you know the exchange rate, by paying in Thai Baht you are actually paying more like $15 – but unfortunately I don’t carry $USD) to some random guy working the docks who I thought was trying to scam us for the boat ride but later found out that $10 USD is what a visa from Burma costs (and why they want you to pay in USD and not Thai Baht).  

Longtail boats waiting to take passengers to Burma

Once everyone had their exit stamps we were herded like cattle onto this small boat that would take us to Kawthoung on the Burma side to get an entry stamp simultaneously with an exit stamp.

  

Typical boat heading to Burma 

Luckily we were on a boat that had a roof but on most boats there is no shade and it’s very common to see passengers with umbrellas, shading themselves from the HOT sun.  There were so many people on our boat (50 maybe) that at times I thought we were going to take on water and must admit that I was a little scared for my life.  But after about 10 minutes we arrived safely on Burma land. 

 Burma from the boat

Getting off the boat and onto the dock we were immediately surrounded by millions of teenage boys asking if we wanted to buy cigarettes and alcohol, among other things.  I guess these goods are not taxed in Burma so it’s cheaper to get them there and bring them back to Thailand.   They were excited to hear that I was from “America” and they told me stories about Michael Jordan being from there.  We then arrived at the Burma Immigration office, which was nothing more than a small room with a desk.  The guy from the boat handed the Burma officials a large stack of our passports and just like an assembly line one guy started stamping all passports while another guy would call each person up to the desk, take your picture, and give you your passport back.  

Burma immigration officials stamping passports

A bit sketchy but I have to admit very efficient since all 50 people were back on the boat within 20 minutes.  Several of the teenage boys were waiting to escort me back to the boat and gave me what they called “a souvenir”, a 20 Burma Kyat bill (equivalent to $3 USD) and asked me to give them “a souvenir” of Thai Baht.  Not sure what the scam was here since that is quite a bit of money for them to be giving out.

 20 Kyats - Burma Money

After all this chaos, we were herded back onto the small boat and head back to Ranong to get our Thailand entry stamp allowing us all to stay a little bit longer in Thailand, before having to do this all over again.  Back on the minibus we headed for Don Sak to catch the ferry leaving at 6pm, it was currently 2pm – with a 4 hour drive ahead of us.  The last 45 minutes of the drive the minibus driver started driving really fast and I knew he was trying to get us to the ferry in time and luckily we arrived with 10 minutes to spare since I think that was the last ferry for the day to Koh Samui.  

Sunset from Ferry