Leaving Bangkok
Trip Start
Jun 13, 2005
1
5
52
Trip End
Jul 27, 2005
Surrathani,
Thailand
Friday, June 17, 2005
She is getting our visas for Vietnam and China, which will be ready by the time we return from the south of thailand, and we also finally commited to a date and booked train passage back from Surrathani (the hub for Ko Samui, Phuket, Phi Phi etc...) which will leave the evening of the 28th and arrive in Bangkok the morning of the 29th at 5am. We will then take a tuk tuk to our travle agents office (less than a 10 minute tuk tuk), and meet her to pick up our visas and to meet the bus which she booked for us to make passage to Cambodia. The bus is a tourist bus with air-con (it will be our first air conditioned experience, so were looking foreward to that already), it picks us up at her office at 7am, will take us through the border crossing at Poipet and arrange speedy processing of visas, then we will continue on to Sieng Rep where we will arive by nightfall, and the bus will drop us at which ever hotel, guesthouse, hostel we arrange. Sieng Riep is home of Angor Wat... the most notoriously astounding temples that exist on this planet (ive been told only 3rd in man made wonder to the great wall and the pyramids). Its great that there is finally peace in Cambodia and it can begin rebuilding, and carefully building up its tourism industry as a source of revenue. The country is probably still recovering from the effects of Pol Pot's evil, communist Khmer Rouge regime in the late 70's, who knows how long it will truly take to turn things around.
It was certainly true that making your travel arrangements once in Asia was much cheaper. ALL OF THIS, the two visas, the train tickets the ferry tickets, the bus ticket was just over a hundred dollars!!!! Flying would have been nearer a thousand, and this way we get to see all of the country... dont get me wrong, i know there will come a time when i wish i were on a plane instead, but were young... we can suck it up and appreciate traveling this way. We are currently looking into hotels and such to determine where we will stay. From Sieng Rep we can easily arrange another tourist bus through a private company to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Then once in Ho Chi Minh we can purhcase a bus ticket for 22$ US which is an open ticket with as many stops over as many days as you wish within a month all the way north to Hanoi. That is as much as we have arranged at this point... we are undecided how much time we will want in cambodia and different locations in Vietnam, so we are leaving our options open. But once in Ho Chi Minh or Hanoi we will make further travel arrangements into China, and hopefully get a chance to visit with Berryl and John.
On a slight sidenote... the crunchy pseudo hippy, trustafarian (we call them sage-monkeys in taos), aesthetic here is HYSTERICAL!!! This whole street is lined with booths and such selling everything and everytihng, my personal favorite are all of the hair weave joints where they will weave your hair with ANYTHING!! The most popular being the pre-dreaded weave, where you can actually have fake dreads weaved into your normally just out of college preppy hair... earning you insta-hippie cred. You can pick out the girls who propably shower five times a day with their aveda shampoo and are sleeping in some airconditioned hotel, and suddenly are walking around in loose fitting fold over the tummy backpacker brigade pants, long cotton satchel, lots of big shell, wooden jewelry with a fake dreaddy-WEAVE!!! Ah, posers.
Today we will hang around untill 5-ish, when we will jump on a tuk tuk to the train station, and then we catch our train to Surrathani at 7pm. It's overnight (we booked top small bunk with fan), ive started taking my anti-malarial medication as has Beth for Surrathani, though we wont need it for Ko Samui or Phuket, better safe than sorry even though its only an hour or so transit through that area, mosquitos only need a second right. We disembark in Surrathani at 640 tommorow morning and catch our ferry at around 730 (the ferry company sends a bus to pick us up from the train station). Beth got in contact with her friend Fred who has a house in Khao Iak, inbetween Surrathani and Phuket. He went to Embry Riddle im assuming for flight school with a friend of Beth's from home, Fred is American, so it will be interesting to hear his perspective on having a home in Thailand, and also in an area which was hardest hit by the tsunami's. Were also looking into doing some tsunami relief work while down south, but are waiting to hear back from the international relief organizations which i credential checked. Not sure how cheap or easy it will be to find internet in Ko Samui... but ill update as soon as possible.
