Day 67 - Back to where it started - Bangkok

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So up early to finish packing and have breakfast. Our taxi arrived at 9.30 to bring us the boarder between Cambodia and Thailand. It is about a 2 hour journey and thankfully we have a "safe" driver (he knew which peddle was the break, and he stayed in between the lines for most of the journey). When we got to the boarder we had to queue for about 40 minutes on the Cambodia side to be "stamped out" then walk to the Thai boarder and then queue again for about an hour at the Thai boarder , in the blistering midday heat with 20 kg backpacks on. It was not fun, G thought she was going to pass out. Eventually we get to the top of the queue, G and I already had our visas Debbie didn't and we thought she would have to pay but they never charged her we still do not know why!



Anyway after what felt like an eternity we got through the boarders and into Thailand, now we had to get to Bangkok which is a 5 hour drive away. We knew we didn't want to get the mini bus from the boarder as they squish you in like sardines. We wanted to get a government bus. So we got a tuk tuk who at 1st tried to rip us off but we got a fair price. He dropped us to a bus station but it was a bus company not the Government station so we were giving out telling him we wouldn't pay all the while the person working at the company was like yes this is the government company. Turns out the actual Government bus was a few doors down, they just blatantly lied to our face they have no shame the feckers!



So the next bus was in an hour but we had no cash, no idea how that happened. So Debbie and G went to find a cash machine and came back with ice cream! They had the cash though so booked the front seats but the ticket seller kept laughing saying you want front seats? When we got on the bus we realised why he was laughing! The front seats had like a wall in front of them so there was no leg room and we couldn't see in front of us 😞. The journey was uneventful and we were given snacks and grape juice and coffee which reminded us of getting a takeaway coffee at home.



We arrived in Bangkok at about 8.30pm and had to get the public bus to the Koh San Road. The station we were dropped at was about 45 minutes outside the city. When we got on the rickety old bus an old Thai man was asking us loads of questions being friendly and told us that the bus would be free because the people who collect the money were finished working for the night. We were like "ok!" but didn't really believe him, but it would have less then 20c anyway, so it didn't matter. There was a person on the bus who we think worked for the company but sure enough he didn't look for any money?!? And when the man who we were chatting to got of the bus he told the man working on the bus (but not collecting money) to tell us where to get off, how nice was that, and the man "working" on the bus did tell us where to get off 😊



We were staying on the road just behind the Koh San Road which was a 5 min walk from where the bus left us so it was really handy. We checked into the Veintai hotel which was nice, we had a family room which was MASSIVE it was like two rooms had a partition and everything. G once again got the double bed to herself, in "her own room". We just dropped our bags and went for a wander up the Koh San Road to see the night life, and we found Swensens Ice cream so that was dinner!



Then it was back to the hotel to figure out how we were going to get to the islands tomorrow.



Rx

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