From Lanta to Krabi (again)

Just to give you a glipse of some of the (mis)adventures when traveling from one place to another:

About 5 days ago, Corinne and I asked the guys who ran our bungalow on Ko Lanta if they could book us tickets for the night train from Trang to Bangkok for the evening of March 25, hearing that they tend to book up really fast. They said "Sure. No problem. No worries. We do everything for you". Great!

Well, the next day I asked them if they had booked our tickets yet. No one seemed to remember that I had asked yesturday, but they said "Sure. No problem. No worries." Okay.

This dance continued for a few more days, until yesterday, I asked again about our tickets and they again did not seem to remember my asking for them. They said, okay, sure, we'll call. So I sat and waited for them to call. Then they came back and said they think they had 2 tickets for us, but not sleeper, and what day was it you wanted to go?

You can well imagine that I wasn't terribly impressed at this point, although now that I've safely made it to my next destination, it's kind of funny. So I told them to cancel the tickets, as they obviously did not have a clue what I was asking for. Corinne and down the hill to the little "town" and approached one of the travel agencies. The man there phoned the train station and informed us that the tickets for the night train from Trang to Bangkok were all sold out for March 25.

Hmmm. Okay. Now what.

Well, how about a bus?

Yep, the travel agent said he could book us a night bus but it would have to be from Krabi to Bangkok, instead of from Trang. Okay, I guess we're going back to Krabi. One problem. We had already bought minibus tickets for March 23 (today) to take us from Ko Lanta to Trang. Thankfully, this was the same travel agent that we had bought the minibus tickets from, and he said he could change the tickets for no charge. Whew!

Now, previous to this whole bit, we had informed the guys at our bungalow that we would be leaving on March 23 to catch a minibus. We also asked if they could drive us to the place where we needed to catch the bus. "Sure. No worries. Okay. 11am" .... I should not have been surprized by what happened. 11am rolls around this morning, we're waiting for them to drive us to catch the bus, and they choose this time to inform us that they will not drive us because we did not book our minibus tickets through them. At this point, I was more than a little mad. Pissed off, actually. So we phoned the travel agent from "town", explained our dilemma, and asked if he could arrange a ride for us. He wasn't terribly happy about it, as we had told him the day before that our bungalow would drive us. Not to mention it was more than a little last minute. We had to leave immediately. Bless his heart, he got us a ride.

That over with, we experienced a rather exciting drive in a minivan with a driver that was an angry little man with no front teeth who was weaving in and out of traffic like a maniac in order to shave a few seconds off his commute time. And the van itself sounded a bit dodgey.

I'm happy to say that we've made it to Krabi safe and sound, having met a new friend along the way. A Danish girl, Kim, who's on the last 2 weeks of her 7 month trip to South America, Australia, and SE Asia. She's on her own, so she's sharing a room with Corinne and I at the same place we stayed at the last time we were in Krabi: the Chan Cha Lay Guest House. This place is spotless with toilets that flush. We even treated ourselves and got a room with a private bathroom. Such luxury! After our bungalow, this place feels like a 5 star hotel (not that the bungalow didn't have a rustic kind of charm)! The shower's kind of cool. It's open air (no roof), so we get to shower under the stars tonight.

We're planning on keeping a relatively low profile for our remaining 4 days in Thailand. It's gone by both quickly and slowly....but with all the personal and travel struggles, it's been an amazing experience. However, I am looking forward to heading off to Australia.

Now it's time for supper at that wonderful (and cheap!) night market.