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Published: November 15th 2008
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eating a nice meal on a peir on ko samet Hello jay’s blog subscription time again, well we have traveled a lot of miles since my last blog in battambang as I am now in Bangkok waiting for a train tonight to take me into Laos.
I will start with the border crossing into Thailand which was one of the hardest days traveling so far, we decided to get a shared taxi from battambang as it was cheaper than the bus and their where no buses that crossed the border we wanted to cross. The reason we choose this border because it looked the most logical way on the map in terms of getting to our next destination of ko samet, we where a bit confused on how a (shared taxi) worked, did we have to find people to share with us? Will the price just go up if no one is going to where we are? Anyway the hotel manager said everything is fine it’s 9 dollars as we agreed, the car showed up which was a normal 4 door car and it already had 5 Cambodian people in it. Me and Mika where squashed into the car to make it seven and then and extra Cambodian person got
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me having a beer on my basic beach bungalow into the car to make it 8 people in the car, please take out some time from reading this to think of 8 people in a normal sized car and how that works, to add to the craziness their was a reason buses don’t take this route and that because it’s too bumpy! So here I was in a car with 7 other people driving down the most bumpiest road in the world for 4 hours, at the start me and mika where just larfing hysterically at this ludicrous situation we where in. But after two hours the larfing stopped and the journey with everything involved started to take its toll, so many times I wanted to scream “please let me out just for 5 minuets please” I just put my ipod on and tried to pretend I was somewhere else. Being in a car with 8 people going to a border made me feel like a refugee except at least I had an ipod, we reached the border and we thought at least the worst is over but we where wrong.
We got to the border and we where rejected a visa because apparently you need a flight
ticket out of Thailand to cross this border, I nearly asked the Thai lady to end my life their and then because the thought of going back to battambang in a (shared taxi) was to much. She suggested we get motorbikes to a border up north by motorbikes she means a guy on a motorbike will give us a ride, this ride through the villages of Cambodia took 2 hours on a bumpier road on the back of a motorbike. During the ride I notice young kids looking at me as if I was a alien the bike guy said to me that kids 6 and younger would have probably not seen a white guy before it was really strange the way they looked at me with complete astonishment. We finally reached the border on a bike ride that that seemed to last forever.
We got to the border and come to realize that by buying a “bus ticket” the lady meant bribe, because we had to pay the guy on the border then pay for our bus ticket. We got completely done with the bus ticket as well, but there is nothing you can do we are
in the middle of nowhere and it’s either don’t pay and stay here or pay and leave or get mad at them and you don’t get on the bus.
Anyway two buses later and a bit of help from a nice lady in a café where we ate lunch and we reached our destination and we where on ko samet the next day. The whole trip was worth it once we reached ko samet as it is a picture perfect island with crystal clear water and white sand a truly beautiful place. I didn’t take many photos because I was just relaxing and chilling out on the perfect beach each day, we stayed in a old fashioned basic bungalow which was a 30 second walk from the beach it was perfect.
After some good chill out time on ko samet we headed to Pttaya, we only stayed their for two nights because the place is a bit crazy and a bit dingy. It’s a place where old man meats young Thai girl is the norm in Pattaya and no joke I have nether seen so many bars in all my life and every one of them is a go
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me on the day me and mika went on a walk round ko samet go bar. Some streets are worse than others in terms of hassle but literally that’s all there is in pattaya, some streets we would walk down and me and mika would get surrounded by girls grabbing us trying to drag us in their bar screeching hello I love you Like I was David Beckham it’s crazy. Pattaya is also well known for the lady boy and we decided to go to a lady boy cabaret which was a bit of money but good fun, my favorite bit was when they done a rendition of dream girls. They are also all in the streets some are blatantly obvious but others honestly just look like women, one came up to mika and said something can’t remember what but it’s voice was so deep it was hilarious. On the train to Bangkok halfway through the journey two lady boys came and sat next to us, it was okay though they just spoke to us normally like anyone would asking us where we are from where we are going. They gave me and mika a present in the form of a boiled egg for some random reason it had something to do with a
religious offering,
I just accepted it because we didn’t want to offend them plus they where bigger than us.
I wouldn’t go back to pattaya again but it was worth the going their to sample the surreal ness of the place.
Hopefully no problems crossing the border to Laos we are going across the main border to Vientiane by train. Looking forward to tubing, type (tubing in Laos) or (tubing in the vang vieng) on youtube to get an idea of what it is if you don’t know if not I will probably tell you all about it on my next blog.
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