The Road to Bangkok

I don’t love Bangkok.  I am glad I went and I had fun, but I much prefer Chiang Mai!  We had a week off and the volunteers were flying out of Bangkok to Cambodia for a few days.  Tanner was going to get there sometime during that time.  The volunteers and I headed down there for a day packed with the things we thought we’d like best.  We left the school after teaching Friday.  We bought a ticket for a van down to Bangkok.  It was $10 for the 6 hour ride.  The van had 16 seats.  When we got on (with our luggage for a week of traveling) there were already 7 people on there.  With all our luggage it was pretty cramped and we were glad there were 2 empty seats.  Our joy was short lived.  At the next stop we picked up 2 more people and a dog! Yes.  A dog.  I don’t care for dogs and may have said “Tell me that dog is not getting on.”  He did.   We were on our way (we thought).  We ended up making another stop.  We were confused seeing as all the seats were taken and the aisles were filled with our luggage. I don’t speak Thai, so I don’t know what was said, but after about 10 minutes of speaking another girl got on the van.  “HOW?” you may be asking.  Well the soldier passenger volunteered to sit in the aisle on a plastic stool so the new girl could ride in his seat. 

Before it got crowded

I don’t know who make the plastic stool (stools actually—it was one staked on the other) but they did a terrible job!  The luggage got stacked 4 suitcases high behind him in the aisle.  He was right next to me and there were two guys on his other side.  There were more shoulders than there was space for so we took turns sitting normally and leaning forwards.  Any time the van slowed down the stools would make cracking sounds like they were breaking and the soldier would have to brace himself and stand up a little.   After 2 hours of that we stopped for a bathroom break and decided to leave the plastic seats and make a ‘bed’ out of the luggage.  It was bad, but not AS bad as it had been.  The next 4 hours passed as I dozed a little, listened to music, and listened to “The Book Thief” on my phone.  A little past midnight we were dropped off on the side of the road in a big, new city.  We caught a taxi to our hotel.  I had desperately hoped that Tanner would be in Thailand by then so I had booked a separate room from the shared rood the girls got in the hostel.   He was still in the states so I had a lovely private room to myself.  

We didn’t spend much time there as we arrived around 1 am and were set to head out early the next morning.  The next morning just after 6am our private van arrived at the hostel.  We went to the floating market, Rose Garden, Grand Palace, Wat Arun, and the Reclining Buddha.  More on those adventures to come!