I will do my best to start from where I left you... more than 2 months ago, tan, happy, and in a Utopian state of mind. I had just returned to Bangkok from Cambodia and had plenty of time to sink in to the "land of smiles", the island way. After one more day in Bangkok we hopped on to an overnight bus going to Phuket in the south of Thailand. From there, we were going to the islands of Koh Phi Phi and Koh Lanta, for some serious R&R.
We arived at the bus station where a super friendly lady helped us get tickets to Phuket. She spoke fluent English and slipped us her business card saying that if we had "any trouble in Thailand to give her a call" I think she was some sort of lawyer. Either way, we chose to take the "regular bus" instead of the VIP bus and to travel with the locals. This proved to be an experience.
As in Korea, the bus was decked out. It had bright red curtains, crazy lights, and a laminated, psychedelic, red and yellow ceiling. We found ourselves in the very last row of the bus. I thought this would be a great place, due to the convienient shelf behind us. We could put our extra blankets and pillows that we were given so we could have more space. But as soon as I started getting situated, Jared told me that the "shelf" was the bus attendants bed. Yes, the little Thai lady who was giving us a bottle of water and some cookies for the 14 hour bus ride was going to lay down and sleep directly under my reclined seat. hmm...
So, the bus started as bus rides do, with a cramped, bumpy rhythm. Luckily, I was able to fall asleep only to wake up at "the rest stop". Jared had mentioned earlier that the farther we go south, the more Muslim the population gets. This didn't phaze me. But, when I awoke to look out the window, my cloudy eyes looked upon a sea of traditionally dressed Muslim men. An uneasy feeling swept across my body, and we decided to at least get out of the bus to use the bathroom.
As we stepped down from the bus, we stepped into a twilight zone of intense stares. Most of these people had never seen a white person before, and with all of the propaganda going on in the Muslim world, we were not sure how they viewed us. We were not off the bus for more than 3 minutes when a couple of men stepped up to us and began to speak. They introduced themselves, asked where we were from (which we obviously said Canada), and wanted to shake our hands. The older of the two did all of the talking and was shaking the whole time. Then, he reached his quivering hand out to shake mine. I tried my hardest to seem cool, calm, and collected and quickly headed towards the bathroom. The rest stop had at least 700 very traditionally dressed Muslim men and a handful of woman. I was lucky to be wearing long sleeves otherwise I wouldn't have gotten off the bus. We found the bathroom and as quickly as possible and tried to return to our seats on the bus. The only problem was, is that the bus moved. We frantically ran around the massive parking lot trying to decider which identical bus we belonged to. This was the LAST spot we wanted to stay the night.
We found our seats, and after many more hours, of tossing and turning in our narrow seats,we arived in Phuket. We walked for a while, deciding if we wanted to spend the night there, and agreed upon just going directly to the island of Koh Phi Phi. So, we boarded a boat, and by 10am we were on the most famous of all the Thai islands.
We arived at the bus station where a super friendly lady helped us get tickets to Phuket. She spoke fluent English and slipped us her business card saying that if we had "any trouble in Thailand to give her a call" I think she was some sort of lawyer. Either way, we chose to take the "regular bus" instead of the VIP bus and to travel with the locals. This proved to be an experience.
As in Korea, the bus was decked out. It had bright red curtains, crazy lights, and a laminated, psychedelic, red and yellow ceiling. We found ourselves in the very last row of the bus. I thought this would be a great place, due to the convienient shelf behind us. We could put our extra blankets and pillows that we were given so we could have more space. But as soon as I started getting situated, Jared told me that the "shelf" was the bus attendants bed. Yes, the little Thai lady who was giving us a bottle of water and some cookies for the 14 hour bus ride was going to lay down and sleep directly under my reclined seat. hmm...
So, the bus started as bus rides do, with a cramped, bumpy rhythm. Luckily, I was able to fall asleep only to wake up at "the rest stop". Jared had mentioned earlier that the farther we go south, the more Muslim the population gets. This didn't phaze me. But, when I awoke to look out the window, my cloudy eyes looked upon a sea of traditionally dressed Muslim men. An uneasy feeling swept across my body, and we decided to at least get out of the bus to use the bathroom.
As we stepped down from the bus, we stepped into a twilight zone of intense stares. Most of these people had never seen a white person before, and with all of the propaganda going on in the Muslim world, we were not sure how they viewed us. We were not off the bus for more than 3 minutes when a couple of men stepped up to us and began to speak. They introduced themselves, asked where we were from (which we obviously said Canada), and wanted to shake our hands. The older of the two did all of the talking and was shaking the whole time. Then, he reached his quivering hand out to shake mine. I tried my hardest to seem cool, calm, and collected and quickly headed towards the bathroom. The rest stop had at least 700 very traditionally dressed Muslim men and a handful of woman. I was lucky to be wearing long sleeves otherwise I wouldn't have gotten off the bus. We found the bathroom and as quickly as possible and tried to return to our seats on the bus. The only problem was, is that the bus moved. We frantically ran around the massive parking lot trying to decider which identical bus we belonged to. This was the LAST spot we wanted to stay the night.
We found our seats, and after many more hours, of tossing and turning in our narrow seats,we arived in Phuket. We walked for a while, deciding if we wanted to spend the night there, and agreed upon just going directly to the island of Koh Phi Phi. So, we boarded a boat, and by 10am we were on the most famous of all the Thai islands.
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