On a rooftop garden watching fireworks
Trip Start
Oct 11, 2002
1
5
20
Trip End
Nov 04, 2002
Krabi,
Thailand
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
It was interesting talking to them and listen to them speak amongst each other. They were all interested in knowing where we were headed. A Western man came over and from their comments I gathered that he owns a bungalow, has a car and wife and is a rich man. The others were trying to get him to play cards and bet with them. They were even trying to lend him money to bet with!
The Western man asked why someone had drums in the back of their ute. Apparently there was to be a wedding soon and they made some jokes about getting married. One of the guys said "Marry Western woman" and looked in Nicole and my direction, at which I just smiled. The same guy also said to us "Come to Krabi with you!" to which I laughed and he laughed also.
Finally the bus arrived and we packed onto the bus. The conductor was very nice and I sat next to a small child wearing a Pikachu watch. He turned out to be the conductor's son and the conductor picked him up and hugged him close - pointing and smiling at me while I waved to the boy.
We passed lots of beautiful scenery and drove almost crazily down and around the hills with the horn tooting loudly. One thing I have worked out is that the horn has many purposes in Thailand - announcing the bus's presence to a slow moving vehicle, saying hello to friends and announcing arrival at a bus stop. If there is no movement from the bus stop then the bus will continue at a flat out speed.
We arrived at Takua Pa and got off to catch another bus to Krabi but were told to get back on the bus and change at Khok Lhoi. The conductor had to check this with the ticket seller and then we were on the bus again with a 40 minute wait in Takua Pa before the bus left again.
Again the time passed so quickly as the scenery was so beautiful and different to anything I had seen before. If the scenery got a bit monotonous there was always other passengers on the bus to observe. We saw our first elephants on the side of the road which was exciting. I let out an involuntary `oh!' and turned frantically to point it out to Nicole, glimpsing out of the corner of my eye some of the other passengers turning around to see who was excited at seeing a couple of old elephants working by the road.
We made a stop to drop off the conductor's wife and child. They were going to visit a grandmother who lived in a beautiful house on a hill in the corner of a bend. She was dressed immaculately and looked quite well off. The conductor carried his son up the hill and kissed him before handing him to his grandmother while his wife trailed behind him.
The conductor was thin with his hair cut short around the edges and longer on top. He wore a faded and worn navy blue shirt which was frayed on the collar. A couple of badges were pinned to the front. He wore black red-tab Levi's with frayed pockets. He carried his wallet in his back right pocket where he put the larger denomination notes. He carried the smaller notes in his shirt pocket and coins and tickets in a silver cylindrical container which he would sometimes stick in his back left pocket. He had blue rubber thongs on his feet.
He would stand at the back of the bus surveying things in an almost, but not quite, cocky manner. A couple of girls got on and he smiled to a guy in the seat in front of us with a sly, observant aside. As the bus began to fill he would point new passengers to seats or vacate seats for them. He would help people with their bags and swing off the bottom step and rail as the bus moved away from the bus stop.
The bus began to fill with people all dressed in white. It wasn't until we reached a town that was filled with people in white with red stamps on their shirts or on their foreheads that we realised that this was the Vegetarian Festival, celebrated by Chinese Thais.
From that point on, the bus was crammed with people and everywhere we passed there were many markets and festival activities going on.
We got off at Khok Lhoi and walked down a street pointed out by the conductor as he swung off the step of the bus as it pulled back onto the road. Less than half a block down the dirt lane was the unlikely looking bus station where we purchased our tickets to Krabi. They cost 82B each and we were expecting an ordinary bus but when it arrived it was an aircon. Our bags were stowed under the bus and I wish I had taken my daypack and jumper on the bus with me as it got chilly when the sun went down. The bus had a female conductor who wore stockings and white heels with butterflies on them. The bus also had a video which played karaoke and showed a movie with English and Chinese subtitles.
When we got off the bus at Krabi a taxi driver came up to us with a map and told us and a German couple that he would take us to Krabi (5km) for 30B each. Nicole and I were happy with this but the German girl would only pay 10B so they didn't come with us in the songthaew and stayed arguing on the footpath. We ended up only being charged 25B each.
There was lots of hustle and bustle and a roadblock so we turned around to go a different way. Firecrackers and fireworks were going off and people dressed in white roamed all over town. We went a back way past utes filled with people in white and drums.
We got to KR Mansion Guesthouse quite quickly and paid for two nights accommodation totalling 450B for both of us which included a 10% discount for the off season. They had a nice restaurant, Tamarind, which was showing A Beautiful Mind.
After dinner we went up to the Roof Top Beer Garden to watch the fireworks and look out over the town.
