Borders and Riding in Cars with Russians
Sometimes when you are on the road, traveling for a long
time you hit a wall.
I hit the wall in Thailand.
A tuk-tuk brought me to a back-packer guesthouse in Siem Riep, Cambodia. It was early enough for me to be barely awake and also miserable, but it was already hot and humid enough for me to be drenched in sweat.
Further, the place was jammed and there was really no room for myself or my two rolling-luggages, backpack, or camera bag and I basically just stood red and wet in the middle of everything like I was totally fine.
At some point a big old bus came rolling up and we were carted on. A girl around my age, who happened to be quite large, sat in front of me until the driver made a big fuss about her size and made her sit on the tiny, fold-out seat at the front to the bus.
The bus went to the Thai border. Here we were let out at the most grueling border crossing I have experienced thus far in my life.
To begin with, the bus dropped us off in a cluster-fuck of traffic. All around were trucks, freights, cars, motorcycles laden with all manner of luggage and goods. Once past all of that, we had to stand in line at a check point. While waiting and sweating profusely, I exchanged a few hundred US dollars and the bulk of my remaining Korean Won into Thai Baht. It was sad to part with the won.
Once through the checkpoint, I had to drag my luggage somewhere close to half a mile, over curbs, broken sidewalks, through groups of people and chickens (seriously) to the other side. It was a sort of no-mans-land, I guess. Here, I waited in line again, this time with sweat pouring into my eyes as I passed into Thailand.
Once my passport was stamped I was pointed through some doors, hollered at to walk straight and take a left, hollered at again that I went the wrong way, and hollered at again to find the right bus. The bus company tasked with getting me from Cambodia to my randomly chosen destination of Pattaya, Thailand, apparently ran
several routes.
So, I sat or stood and perspirated for a time underneath theawning of a little market. Some people tried to eat ice cream before it fell onto their shirt. A guy with long hair was talking about doing a work camp, I thought about chiming in about my camps but remembered that it was too hot and I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anybody.
We waited an hour or so. Vans came, picked up the right people, and were then bouncing on the dirt road to such places as Bangkok or Phuket. I fell into conversation with the large girl from the first bus. For the sake of not calling her “the large girl” I will call her Mary, for no reason. I do not remember her real name.
She told me that she was returning to Pattaya from vacation, that she was staying there for a couple of months trying to soak up the experience, and that I should shadow her until we arrived. So I did.
When our van finally arrived the driver and his little buddy were dismayed when they saw my rolling luggage.
They argued amongst themselves and then started shouting my way.
“This is too much!”
I stared at them and said something like “uhh ok.” I was wondering what the hell they expected me to do about it, and besides nobody ever mentioned an official baggage limit of the “White Rape Van Travel Bus Company” when they told me I must pay.
Here we go again, I thought.
He then quoted me 90 baht, around $3. Mary said he was ripping me off but after getting taken for a $50 cab ride in Vietnam (twice) “ripping off” can become a relative term. So, we loaded into the van, a fuss was made of the size of Mary, and we were off.
In the van was a Russian couple, Mary, and myself. Mary made a comment about how nice it was that the van wasn’t crowded, then immediately after karma punished us all for something.
We spoke for a while, not really noticing that the van would occasionally stop at a corner or a checkpoint and somebody new would hop in. Mary was essentially on vacation. She had a friend who owned property in Pattaya and had set her up with a place to stay for a few months. As for what she did in real life, I don’t know. She said she was going to try and rotate between life in small town USA and Pattaya.
The Russians were on holiday for a few months and were, like me, almost at the end of the road: they had a handful of days in Pattaya and then were heading back. Somebody made a crack about the American having a lot of baggage for a vacation and I felt it necessary to inform them that I had been living in Korea for a year and had
been unable to send as much home via cargo ship as I had hoped. I felt vindicated.
The bus could seat 11 comfortably. By the time we passed through the last armed checkpoint near the border, there were 15 people jammed in on top of the luggage. I was cut off from conversation and basically jammed into the window.
The air conditioner basically became pointless.
It took us a long time to get where we were going and while the tropical trees and landscapes of Thailand were nice to watch, the general crappiness of the van became too much to handle.
After a few hours we were let out at a gas station where I met a ladyboy and ate a kind of cheese pastry and bought a water. Then, the Russians, Mary, and I waited with anxiety for the van to come
and pick us up and worried if maybe it had left us.
It didn’t, and hours later we finally arrived in Pattaya.
The sun was sinking and that nervous feeling I get when I get to a place with no plan whatsoever was put to ease by Mary offering to get the Russians and myself to the main drag so as to find cheap lodgings.
My baggage became an issue again. In Korea there are taxis, Vietnam: taxis, Cambodia: tuk-tuks; in Thailand there are dudes driving pickups with a couple of benches in the bed. They wanted to charge us extra and Mary did not want any of that nonsense.
I did, but I was tired and hungry enough to where I was starting to lose grip on what was really going on. So, Mary called up her friend and soon I found myself flying through town in the back of a pickup with a couple of Russians sitting on cardboard boxes.