Thailand by Bicycle

Day 21: We’re in Bangkok!

[ Sally typing ]

Upon entering our Bangkok hotel room, we throw down our things, look at each other and simultaneously exclaim, “we made it!”

You didn’t think we would, but we did. We made it back to Bangkok. This means that my portion of the bike touring is over. Once Tommy finishes his conference, he’ll resume touring up North in the Chiang Mai area. But for me, it’s just a few days cruising around Bangkok then I come on home.

So what about that midnight bus to Bangkok, eh? Sounded pretty sketchy right? We roll into “downtown” Ban Krut around 10:30pm and see a deserted street with nothing but one ginormous cockroachy/zicada winged bug thing that files straight onto Tommy’s shirt, and he calmy filcks away without flinching (my hero!).

We listen to the buzzing of street lights, glance at our hand written bus tickets, wonder what the heck they say on them and wonder if we got screwed or not. Slowly, Thai folks start appearing on this block and we feel relieved. The bus is real! And it arrives on time!

The driver helps us load our gear under the side of the bus, then we point to “chakayan” aka our bicycles and he makes a “no no no” gesture. *gulp* The guy that sold us the tickets assured us we could put the bikes on the bus. Tommy tries to grease the driver but the driver does not accept, instead he motions for us to follow him. We move around to the other side of the bus and in moments, our bikes are loaded into the secondary storage area! We’re on board, bikes and all!

We board the bus and find our seats on the very back row. The locals are surprised by our presence, they’re all high school aged Thai kids who are most likely doing the red-eye bus to Bangkok for the long holiday weekend — Buddhist Lent. There’s a lot of giggling and pointing back at us. I sort of feel as though we’re on display. Actually, we were quite literally on display — for some reason the very back row is elevated about 2 feet above the rest of the bus, as though we are guests of honor.

The bus departs on time, making just a couple quick stops outside of town to fill up completely with passengers and we’re on our way. I offer Tommy my seat which actually reclines a bit since he needs to sleep for the conference which is set to begin only a couple hours after we arrive in town. I try a series of pretzel-like contortions to put my body in a comfortable enough position to sleep, and get a couple hours on and off.

This is the bounciest bus of all time, and I think the extreme bouncing is accentuated by our back-row seats. I drift to sleep, we hit a big bump, I wake up and see that several kids have fallen out of their seat into the row and are climbing back up again.

Later, I wake up and we must be outside Bangkok, as there’s just mile after mile of sprawl, mostly commercial and industrial on the side of the highway. We drop off a couple of passengers at what seem like the most random, unofficial dark corners in the middle of nowhere but soon we stop at a huge bus station and every gets off the bus. This must be Bangkok, but we’re earlier than our expected arrival time and I see nothing that says Bangkok anywhere. Finally, I spot a sign in English that says “Bangkok bus station.” I think there are 3 or 4 bus stations in Bangkok, so this is one of them, that narrows down our location a bit.

What ensues is one of our most chaotic and confusing moments on the trip. We get off the bus, onload our stuff. A lady in an official-looking vest appears with a rolling cart and loads our things onto it and has us follow her to a “taxi stand” which is actually just a vast parking lot full of taxis with no real order or system that we can decipher.

Obviously, we need a taxi that can take us, our stuff, and our 2 bikes. A cabbie jumps out of his cab and starts to load our bags into his trunk. He glances at the bikes and then just stops. He rubs his head, looking concerned. He talks to another guy. Nothing happens. We stand our for maybe the next 20 minutes, speaking English, pantomiming, saying our 3 Thai words we know, trying to communicate that the bikes need to come with us.

Various people come and go and speak Thai and we have no idea what’s going on. Tommy goes off to try and hire a larger mini-van but the drivers refuse, “no bicycle.” In the meantime, someone has bowled over our bikes with their push cart, “sorry, sorry.”

Finally, one guy with a mini van pulls up and I tap on his car and say, “this one.” He agrees to take us and our bikes — who knew this portion of the trip would be such a challenge? He bungees the bikes to his roof rack, which made me a bit nervous but we all made it there in one piece.

We’re back again at the All Seasons Siam hotel, where we started our Thailand adventure. Tommy is able to take an hour nap and then we grab breakfast together at the hotel restaurant, then he’s off to his conference.

I go back to sleep for a while. Later, I spend the day getting my bearings and re-acclimating to city life. Lots of commerce, and I sort of fatigue at being sold to — gem stores, cheap clothes, stupid trinkets. I finally find “the largest aquarium in all of South East Asia” which, if you can believe it is in the basement of one of the giant shopping malls. I’ll continue on in another post.

Waiting nervously for a midnight bus to Bangkok…

[Tommy]

We’ve just got done screwed, the night train I was planning on catching to Bangkok to arrive on time for my research conference tomorrow morning has been sold out this being a couple days after Buddhist lent, a major holliday in Thailand with lots of people travelling. Sally and I are currently waiting for a midnight bus to Bangkok as we kill some time blogging and checking email at an interenet shop. For those of you who don’t know, The reason I have been fortunate enough to visit Thailand is because I, and my research mentor Dr. Brian Perry, convinced (fennagled) the Society for Study of Evolution to pay for an airline ticket to present my thesis research at the International Conference on Fungal Evolution in PathumThani (outside Bangkok). I will have to be in conference mode in less than twelve hours where I will be introduced to people as “Thomas,” and am looking forward to five hours of sleep in a bus (more on this below). I sure hope that shady travel agency in town comes through with a bus that arrives before 7AM tomorrow morning. Wish me luck, It’s all part of the adventure.

It’s been a while since my last blog, so maybe a recap is in order. My last dispatch was from before Khao Sak National Park, where we were hoping to stay in a “treehouse.” Well friends, the term treehouse was a bit optomistic, as our “Tree Top River Hut” was actually a shambly shack on concrete stilts with a perpetually clogged toilet. We did however, find a random treehouse in the woods on the side of the highway (see photo from last week). After some hiking, swimming and hanging out in the woods, we had a tough couple of days riding through the interieor mountians of the ismuth which Sally does a great job describing. Some of my favorite highlights from those couple of days ( just so you don’t get the idea that it was all bad) in no particular order:

Hanging out with the naughty hood rat kids in the bus shelter during the mighty dounpour. Yes these little 10-12 YO brats were totally talking shit in thai and smoking cigarettes trying to act super bad ass, but they were freakin hilarious.

Giant frogs on the highway after the downpour.

Saffron clad monk hitching a ride on the back of a speeding scooter on the Mountian Highway.

Giant spire-like mountains full of caves and stalactites lining the road.

Wandering into a Buddhist temple festival in a small town in the mountains. We stopped at this lively festival for some food and discovered that it was a temple festival or fundraiser of something. There was a booth with monks chanting prayers over a microphone and a PA. When the monk on the PA saw us in the crowd with our bikes he immidiately hollers “Hallo!” “Welcome!” into the microphone. (They don’t get many foreigners in these parts) Then he says something in the mic in Thai of which we only recognize “farang” and the entire town turns collectively around to greet us in Thai. We ended up lighting insence for an offering and making a cash donation to the temple with everyone staring at us, all the while with the monks in the booth cracking up. Afterwards I’m handed a mortarboard and invited to fill in some of the masonry in the part of the temple under construction. I guess it is a great honor to help with the manual labor of temple construction. I clumsily fill in a spot where the workmen instruct me to with everyone staring and laughing at the goofy farang. Good times.

Getting to places where the road signs stop having English on them.

After all that we finally made it to Surat Thani to the overnight ferry where the story left off last time. By the way, my Thai “hello” must be getting pretty good because people are begining to answer me in a rapid string of Thai after I greet them, to which I smile, shug and say “no Thai.”

After almost a week in Koh Tao, I am certified as a night diver, and only two more dives away from earning my advanced open water diver certification. Wo hoo.

Day 20: Ban Krut aka What Does it Take?

[ Sally typing ]

People often ask me, “Sally, what does it take to do a bike tour like this?” I love this question because it offers me the opportunity to talk about how great I am, and how lame they are.

Actually, no one has ever asked me this question, but if they did, I would probably tell them that flexibility is the most important attribute a touring cyclist can have. Not endurance, or any of that crap. You just need to be adaptable, roll with the punches, you know?

Take today for example. Things started swimmingly. We arose after the best night of sleep that we’ve had in close to a week. We stayed at Rachavadee Resort in Ban Krut, throwing down a whopping 2800 baht (about $85 USD) — normally our absolute max is 1000 baht (about $30 USD). This place was so plush! Nice linens, soap included, and TOILET PAPER FOR FREEEEEEE!!!!  :)  No stanky fish smell, no lingering humidity. The only bummer was some mosquitoes in the room but that was easily remedied by some citronella incense.

We got up, showered in the super fancy semi-outdoor shower. Had a nice buffet breakfast and ordered a massage. Two ladies came and we got simultaneous massages to start our day (this is only massage #2 and we’re at the 3 week mark in Thailand). After our massage, we used their wifi for a bit and then packed up and were ready to move on out, starting our ride North to Khiri Khan where we had planned to catch the train to Bangkok tonight, arriving at 5am tomorrow morning. Around 7am tomorrow, Tommy has to catch a shuttle from our hotel in Bangkok to his conference — the whole reason we’re in Thailand in the first place.

Then…rain. Heavy rain. Lots of it. We wait for it to pass, it lets up a bit, so we ride. About, I dunno…3 km. Then more rain rain rain. We sit, have lunch, wait and wait. We’re bored and bummy over the rain. Do we try to ride the 40 miles to Khiri Khan without really knowing how the weather will be (at times it’s really coming down)? Or do we change plans and instead catch a train to Bangkok here in Ban Krut. Ban Krut is also on the north-bound train line, but there’s only one train that stops in this little town, the same train that we would be catching an hour later up north in Khiri Khan.

We dilly dally long enough (Tommy’s not been feeling great the last few days) and our window of opportunity passes. It’s still raining and by now it’s 4pm, less than 3 hrs of daylight and still bad weather to try and make the trek. We resign ourselves to the option of staying here in town and catching the train here without doing any more serious riding.

So once the rain eases up a bit, we ride into town (which is just a little strip of a block or two of little vendors’ stands). We go to the train station and sit there for 30 minutes or so, no one is in the ticket booth. I walk around to the side and get the guy’s attention through another window, he’s chilling back there in front of a fan in a wife beater. He comes to the front kiosk and tells us that there’s standing room only, the train is full. Do we want to buy tickets to stand on a train for 6 hours? Hmm. No.

What now? Flexibility people! This is what I’m talking about! We roll down the block to a little shop and buy the last 2 tickets on an 11pm bus to Bangkok. The very back row. Which means: no reclining, and we’re sitting next to the dreaded bus bathroom. Should be about a 5 hour ride, but I’ve heard all sorts of stories about travelling Thailand by bus, so we’ll see what happens. Hopefully we’ll arrive in Bangkok around 4am, in time for Tommy to clean up, eat, and get to his mushroom conference.

So originally, we were supposed to ride the final 40 romantic beachside miles of our glorious bike tour. Arrive at Khiri Khan station in time to board the train and sleep in our air-conditioned sleeper car which would comfortably whisk us to Bangkok in the Dramamine-induced blink of an eye. Instead, we will sit erect, smelling the stink of a full bus’s worth of bathroom usage, for a minimum of 5 hours on …a bus. I’m totally not a bus fan and we have avoided them until now. But I will be open minded, I will be flexible.

Peace and bike grease.

Summary Catch-Up Post

This was originally a private post for Tommy and I to refer to as we did catch-up blog posts, but we decided to just publish it. Some of it is so truncated it might not make sense at all, but hopefully we can do full blown posts about these days later on.

Day 12 - Arrived in Koh Tao by boat, first day of Scuba class, first diving at Japanese Garden. Checked into Save Bungalows during lunch break. Watched PADI training videos afterwards. Bam Bam for dinner. Met Schporty the cat.

Day 13 - Second day of Scuba class. Breakfast at Bam Bam. Classroom stuff in morning. Took skills reviews. Quick lunch break. Out on boat for some diving. Cafe del Sol for dinner, some blog uploads. Studying until late (tired!) back at Save Bungalow.

Day 14 - 3rd day of Scuba class, classroom first, took final tests. Then diving. Graduated! Got dinner & drinks with Ivana at all you can eat do it yourself BBQ place until late.

Day 15 - Schporty is attacked by ants in the morning. Sally all sick and pukie, lays in room most of day. Ventures out to get chips and Gatorade. Tommy goes out for 2 fun dives, dinner at Cafe Pla with homies afterwards - Michael, Jan, Timo.

Day 16 - Sally still kinda sick, Tommy pukes, is also sick. Tommy does partial Advanced Dive class and Night Dive, Sally waits for Tommy at beachside bar. Tommy takes his skills test. Dinner together at Cafe del Sol.

Day 17 - coffee at Dive Shop chilled with homies for a while, breakfast at Cafe del Sol, bought boat tickets, packed up slowly, late checkout. leave Koh Tao on ferry. Sitting up top, big storm, down below 2 dumb movies Dragonball Z and The Tuxedo, arrive in Chumpon. Cool open taxi truck ride with bikes to Chumpon train station. Train from Chumpon to Bang Saphan Noi. Got 3rd class seats in very back, train agent comes and gets us, has him follow us to front of moving train and sit in official agent/police car just behind cargo car for our ride. Praying mantis flies in window into Sally’s shirt. Riding at night in creepy lady boy subculture area. Local drunk kids make lude gestures at us from a roadside bar. One hotel ladyboy turns us away. Next hotel ladyboy finds the sleeping owner and we get a room.

Day 18 - Ride just a little bit, get stuck in rain. Tommy’s not feeling great and not eating much. Stop at a cute family run bungalow place and stay there for the night. Wish we found this place the night before.

Day 19 - Ride for a while, not totally oriented on the map, ride through cool areas, beachside. Wait for rain to pass for hours at little bay where Thai tourists hang at the beach. Finally ride on and find a cute bungalow in Ban Krut before sunset. Nice dinner, cool outdoor bathroom! Watch dumb Thai TV which sucks until we find MXC — awesome in any language!!

Day 20 - Best night of sleep since before Save Bungalow and the fish sauce bathroom. Breakfast, wifi uploads, couples massage in the room, checkout after Noon. Starts raining exactly when we’re about to ride. Wait for it to pass. Get a few km down the road, then downpour starts and rain continues for hours while we sit bored at a roadside open air restaurant trying to decide what to do.