don't catch a bus in thailand

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Rule #1 when travelling in Thailand: never NEVER EVER catch a bus from one city to another. No matter what they tell you. I've made this mistake twice now.

The first time was a couple of years ago when I came on my own, and organised to get a 'joint ticket' from Koh Samui to Bangkok. This involved getting a 2 hour ferry trip from Koh Samui back to the mainland, and a 12 hour overnight bus trip to Bangkok. This would have been okay if the trip hadn't turned into a 20 hour trip. And the air-conditioning unit didn't break down at the beginning of the journey. And I wasn't sitting directly below the dripping unit on the back seat for 20 hours. And the one toilet hadn't broken down. And sewerage wasn't leaking backwards towards my seat. And loud karate movies didn't start randomly playing on the TV screen just when the lack of oxygen and overwhelming stench of human faeces had caused us to pass out.

I vowed never to take a long trip on a bus in Asia again.

So, I thought that a 4.5 hour trip from Phuket to Koh Samui for Aaron and I wouldn't be too much of a hassle. How wrong I was. Everything was fine until we reached Suratthani, where we had to 'confirm our joint ticket' and waited for 2 hours in a sweaty hot middle-of-nowhere bus station for another bus. Which took us to another bus station where they had to 're-confirm our joint ticket'. We then went to the ferry station where they had to 'again re-confirm our ticket' and waited a further 2 hours, before taking off, realising we'd forgotten a whole bus load of people and head to the ferry pier. The journey took almost 12 hours, almost 3 times what we were promised. Even though it would have cost 5 times more, it would have been better to pay the price and get to our destination in a quarter of the travel time and a tenth of the grief caused.

The problem with Thailand is that whilst tourism is one of their largest stimulants of local economy, to some tour operators it means that they find ways to rip tourists off. The point of making us wait at all these stations and to 'confirm our tickets' 3 times was so we would get hungry and thirsty and buy the food and cold beverages that happened to be at these stations in the middle of nowhere. Many taxi drivers will make promises of driving you to 'nice place, nice shopping' and then drive you to an opal/gem store where they get a commission for bringing you there. When you go out for meals and there are no prices listed, there is a price for the local Thais and a price for 'farang' (the Thai word for 'foreigner') - so unless you ask them 'tao rai khap' (meaning 'how much?') and have a sound knowledge of Thai numbers...then you'd better bring extra cash for dinner.

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Comments

[Emma]

That sucks man. It would be scary not knowing and being ripped off. Reminds me of Suva which I hated. And they just forced you to go to places you didnt want to.

[Jodie]

Bugs and Buses
Jian I can't believe you took a bus again!! After you were so adamant that you would never be fooled again. Aaron I think you should still eat an insect and then display its carcass for all the other insects to remember who is boss....jian! xoxo

[amy]

oh dear.... i think i will need a trusty asian with me when i next go travelling, jiannypants!!! xoxo

[pat]

its super lucky that your asian jian and therefore can speak asian so you guys don't get ripped off!