It was a long haul back up to Bangkok. First a ferry from Koh Phi Phi,
then a minibus to Surat Thani, and then nine-hour bus ride back to the capital.
We decided not to take the train, I guess because Chris hadn't slept well on
the way down. We settled into our coach, a comfy one complete with
blankets, and did the best to get some rest. A few hours in, my knees started
to ache, yet another sign that I'm getting too old for this kind of travel. When
the bus pulled over for a pit stop at 2 a.m., I stumbled out to stretch my
legs. At the stop we were provided with really bad bathrooms (for a price), and
food that I wouldn't eat unless I wanted to be pooing in an hour or two (and I
didn't). The pit stop was crammed with travelers like us, only everyone seemed
wide awake and unaware that it was 2 o'clock in the morning. Chris and I
climbed back to the top of our double decker bus and tried to find the most
comfortable position to sleep in.
We were awoken at 6 in the morning. The sun had barely come up. Dropped on a
busy street (yes there was traffic even that early), we were told that Khao San
Road was just around the corner. Taxis were available, and I was tempted to
take one (“just around the corner” is vastly open to interpretation in these
parts). Many from our bus seemed confused and climbed into taxis, but Chris and
I walked with our packs, and after about ten minutes we came to familiar
territory. We were back in Backpacker's Paradise.
Remembering the cheaper guesthouses away from KSR, we headed to the back
alleys. No one was about this time of the morning and it was good to walk
without motorbikes zipping past us. We came across a room with air conditioning
for a very good price. This was luxury for us, even if we had to climb some
very steep steps up to our floor. We remained in our room for a good deal of
our stay in Bangkok.
There was a book shop next to our guesthouse. Prices were quite high, at least
I thought so, for books. But if we were going to tackle China, we had to get a
guidebook. It cost us £10. I decided to make good use of it and spent the rest
of that Sunday studying it. With my notepad out, I planned our itinerary. I
worked out train times, prices, side trips, dates and where we would be at any
certain time. I had given myself a headache from flipping pages and comparing
notes. But at least I felt prepared. We were paying the Chinese embassy a visit
in the morning.
The Chinese Embassy
We arose early, as we read that we should be to the embassy by 9 a.m. They were
only accepting applications between 9 and 11:30 and we weren't taking any
chances, lest we miss that window. Our plan was to take the express boat to the
train station, and take the Rapid Transit System from there. We allowed
ourselves about two hours.
Something was amiss as we walked towards the pier. Nobody was about. Usually
hawkers approached us left and right, but the streets seemed eerily quiet. When
we got down to the boat dock, nobody was selling tickets and nobody was waiting
around. We should have put 2 and 2 together at that point, but we pressed on,
anxious to get to the embassy. We found ourselves a taxi, something we really
didn't want to do, as we were watching our money. The whole thing made us
nervous.
The RTS to our stop was pretty straight forward, but once we got off we didn't
know where to go. Chris only had an address, and addresses are incredibly hard
to find in Bangkok. We walked down a street in an unfamiliar part of the city. Hardly
anyone was about. We passed by a giant mall, but it looked closed. Was the
whole city sleeping in today?
It was getting hotter, and both of us were getting more irritable as we checked
for street signs. Finally Chris said that he had found the street, but wasn't
100% sure. It seemed to fit, as we weren't supposed to be walking for more than
ten minutes. Down the street we found nothing. We were getting a bit frantic as
the time was edging closer to 9:00. Chris then announced that we had the wrong
street and we had to retrace our steps. Back on the main street, the
temperature was climbing and we were gettting more and more confused and
panicky. Why did this have to be so goddamn hard?
We came to the next street sign and it bore no resemblence to the one we
wanted. Chris then said we'd go back to the street we were on before and have
another look. I wanted to kill someone at this point. But Chris had been right
the first time. It was the street, and the embassy was right on the corner. We
had missed it the first time around. We felt like idiots, but were relieved
that we had finally made it to our destination.
However, no signs of life came from the building. I figured that was because it
wasn't open yet. I felt encouraged though, nobody was outside waiting. That
meant we'd be the first in. Like Clark Griswold in the parking lot of
Wallyworld, sometimes I can really be that stupid.
The time was quarter to nine so we decided to get something to eat and drink
from a nearby shop. Juice and pound cake for me. We returned to the embassy and
met a lady there at the entrance. She was a nice lady, smiling at us and all. If
she thought we were stupid she made no mention of it. She just pointed to the
building and said, “Closed. Tomorrow open at 9:00.” We had been hearing this
across Bangkok from the first day we arrived. I found it impossible that any
place would be closed. I pointed at the sign and told her, “It says open Monday
through Friday.” “Yes,” she said. “But today public holiday.” I looked at Chris
and he looked at me and I just kind of sank onto a step and began to cry. I
couldn't speak, I was so frustrated. All that time and effort we had put into,
not to mention the money used for transportation. Taking bites of pound cake
and taking sips of juice between my tears, I felt so utterly defeated. But
considering what was to come, that defeat was nothing.
The Chinese Embassy—Round 2
The next day we returned, and it was a whole different experience. Bangkok was
wide awake and alive with its noisy bustle. We took the express boat as
planned, and found ourselves traveling with locals on their way to work. Now
that we knew where we were going, we made a beeline for the embassy. And this
time it was packed. The lady from the day before recognized us and handed us
some applications. We sat down on the floor and filled them out. It was like
taking an exam. We knew every answer we gave had to be the right one. No we
didn't have the required return ticket, and no we didn't necessarily have
accommodation (though we had booked several nights in Shanghai at a hostel just
to say that we had a place to stay), but we were going to try our best to woo
the officials. After all, China was one of our main destinations. There was no
way we were missing it.
We sweated profusely while pouring over our application forms. This really
wasn't much fun for us, but to get a Chinese visa we were willing to go through
this. Finally we joined the line and were led up to the second floor. There it
just got harder. We were given a number, something like 950 and they were only
in the early 700s. We had plenty of time to wait in another line and have some
girl check over our papers. The news wasn't good as we sat down. We didn't have
a return ticket. I told her that we had printed out my bank statement showing
we had adequate funds to support us within the country. I asked if that was
enough and she shook her head. There were other problems as well and she spent
a few good minutes with us, slowly dashing our visa hopes as she flipped
through our papers. We weren't the only ones though. There was an American in
front of us who refused to believe that they weren't issuing him a visa right
there and then. He kept coming back asking questions and the girl was getting
irritated with him. She said he needed a business letter or something, he'd
have to come back the next day. Nobody around us seemed to have what they
needed. We felt somewhat hopeful as she said we needed extra copies of our
passports and our hotel reservation. We felt there was still a chance. Our
number was still far from being called, so we ran out of the embassy and down
the street to a copy shop. There were other travelers in there, apparantly
having a similiar experience to us. We then went in search of an internet cafe
to print out our hotel reservation. This was costlier than it needed to be, as
in our panic we printed out something like 20 pages, where we only needed one. The
cafe was unforgiving and charged us a high price for using all their paper. We
ran back to the embassy, really sweating now, and waited our turn in an
overpacked room.
We made the aquaintance of a Scottish gentleman. He told us that he had never
seen the embassy like this. He had gone through the process many times before,
but he said this time they were making it harder to obtain a visa. Something
about elections coming up and the government getting nervous. People around us were
getting turned away left and right. One German man was openly yelling at an
official, calling him stupid, making everyone in the room even more tense and
nervous. I sat down and heard a coversation behind me about how the government,
for whatever reason, can turn masses of people away. I think I was recognizing
the situation at this point. I didn't think we were going to get in. I was
already thinking of a Plan B. “We'll go to Bali,” I told Chris, maybe as a way
of feeling better.
Three hours after arriving at the embassy, we were finally allowed to talk to
an official. It was an unsmiling young girl. Still, I thought we could charm
her. After all we were free-loving backpackers. After silently looking through
our applications, she disappeared into the back, probably to ask her superior
if we were worthy to enter their blessed country. Coming back she asked us “Why
you no apply in home country? You think it easy to get visa here, but it not
easy.” This wasn't good reasoning for me, as we had all the information we
required. We were only short our return ticket, and I explained to her that we
weren't going to book a ticket unless we had a visa first. Also we had been traveling
for three months and couldn't apply from our home country. She looked confused
and disappeared into the back again. Chris and I looked at each other
knowingly. We were being denied. Indeed when the young lady came back she
informed us “Sorry but we cannot give you visa.” I took our applications back
through the window and told her “Okay, we'll go somewhere else instead,” thus
implying that her country wasn't important to us anyway. We then walked stiffly
out of the embassy.
I almost immediately deflated, right there on the street. China had been a huge
deal to me. I think out of all the countries we had planned on seeing, China
was the one I was looking forward to the most. Yeah I knew that it was going to
be challanging. We had read that hardly anyone spoke English, and some areas
really were not tourist-oriented. But that's what I wanted! After sitting on
beaches and stuff I was ready for some real traveling. Hardcore traveling, none
of this cushy stuff we were experiencing in Thailand.
Chris and I sat in a KFC and just stared at each other, almost numb over the
experience. We were supposed to be heading to the Monkey Temple later that day;
a friend of mine now living in Thailand was supposed to meet us there. It
wasn't happening. We were so worn out.
We headed back to our hotel and tried to get our minds over the fact that we
weren't heading to China. The way I had planned it we were supposed to be there
for the next two months. There was a huge hole in our itinerary now. We thought
Malaysia and Bali, maybe Australia. We tried to get ethusiastic about a new
direction, but I was still heartbroken. China had been my dream. I had already
given up Tibet, and now the rest of China as well.
To make things a whole lot worse, Chris came back to the room after an internet
session and informed me that Indian visas were no longer being issued in Kuala
Lumpur. There went another one of our plans. This was all devestating to me and
I think I cried for about a day. I always knew that travel plans could change
at any instant, but never actually believed it. I had thought the travel gods
were smiling down on us. Who dare deprive me of my dreams? But I was
overreacting. After all, we still had all of Asia before us, and some countries
were more than happy to have us visit them and take our money.
We went back to the bookstore we had gotten our China guidebook from and
exchanged it for Malaysia and Bali. We planned new itineraries and booked
tickets. We had accepted our new plan and were moving on. But we still had our
tickets to Hong Kong, so we'd still be getting a taste of China, just a teaser,
to make us want more of something we couldn't have.
Leaving Bangkok
Bangkok was losing its charm. There's only so much we could take of the
backpacker area. We had eaten at just about every cafe up and down the street,
we had walked by the t-shirt hawkers a million times, even the cheap booze was
losing its appeal. Towards the end of our stay we started eating street food,
which proved to be a winning experience. We watched a lady preparing noodles
right in front of us, and we wondered why we hadn't been eating like this all
along. It was brilliant. Also I tried sticky rice with mango for the first
time. It was heaven, and I've been craving it since. But besides our culinary
discoveries, the lights of KSR were beginning to lose their sparkle. Even the
blind karoake singer (a guy who wandered up and down KSR with a microphone and
a tip box) wasn't as entertaining the eighth time around. I was ready to get
out of Bangkok, Thailand even, to experience a completely different scene.
We booked tickets to the airport through some lady. She was advertizing the
cheapest price around (which should have been an indicatation of the type of
service we'd get). She didn't exhibit the usual Thai pleasantness when it came
to customer service, instead she snapped at Chris. Whoa lady, I wanted to tell
her, don't be a bitch. Maybe she was hungry or something. She was awfully
skinny.
Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:00 in the morning, a very inconvenient
time, so we decided to spend the night at the airport instead of rising at an
ungodly hour. This meant taking a minibus at 11:00 the night before. I had
never slept at an airport before, but I was willing to do it. I had slept worse
places on this trip so far.
Chris and I waited at our hotel for the minibus to pick us up. I understand how
punctuality is not a priority in Thai culture, and 11:00 has to be considered
with a give or take time of about half an hour. But when 11:30 came and went we
were getting concerned. The lady hadn't seemed the most professional of
characters. Perhaps she had given them the wrong hotel to pick us up at. Thankfully
her stand was just down the street so I went down to see her while Chris stayed
behind. I was worried that her tourist stand might be closed down for the
night, but she was still there, only she was asleep, her mouth hung open with a
snore. I thought it odd that she was sleeping on the job, but a shop owner next
door woke her up for me. She just stared at me, apparently still half asleep. “Our
ride hasn't come,” I told her. Instead of responding, she clumsily dug around
in her purse for a few minutes. I wondered if she was drunk, she really seemed
out of it. She finally found her phone and made a call. The conversation was in
Thai so I had no idea what was going on. For a minute I wondered if she had
even forgotten I was there. Then she got up and started walking away,
completely ignoring me. “Um excuse me,” I said, feeling the bitch in me
starting to emerge, “Can we be expecting our ride any time soon?” She kept
walking, but she did turn back to address my question. “They left already,” she
said. “He say he didn't see you.” I told her we waited outside our hotel since
11:00 and no one had come, but she didn't really want to hear that. She was
getting visibly upset. “Now I find you guy to take taxi, but you have to pay
more,” she said. And then the bitch made an appearance as I informed her, “We're
not going to give you any more money. We paid to take a minibus, not a taxi.” “You
pay toll,” she said, and I then told her that I was going back to the hotel to
get Chris and the bags, but we weren't going to give her any more money, as
none of this was our fault.
If she had been more apologetic I might have been nicer to her, as it was
probably the driver's fault, not hers. Still, she was so unprofessional and
acting like this was a burden on her, not on us. By the time Chris and I had
come back she was almost hysterical saying that the taxi money was coming out
of her pocket. We needed to pay toll, we could at least do that. On principle I
couldn't understand why we should be out any money, but she was almost in
tears, as this was costing her in more ways than it was costing us. Chris, to
his credit, tried to calm her down and engage her. She still hadn't apologized.
We came to a main street and she found a taxi. After negotiating he agreed to
take us. Still we had to cough up the toll. It only came to a few dollars so it
wasn't major. In the end we just paid it. We got in the taxi and the lady just
looked at us like we’d killed her dog. We gave her a curt goodbye and took off.
At that point I was really glad to be leaving Bangkok.
The good news in all of this is that Bangkok airport is fabulous. We couldn't
have picked a better airport to stay overnight at. It was unconditioned and
sold the cheap 7-eleven style food we needed to wait out the night. We checked
in at around 4:00 and entered through security, coming to the best part of the
airport. Bangkok airport is relatively new and completely world class. It's
comprised of three levels (I think, maybe there were more) and almost like a
mall. It's the biggest airport I think I've ever been in. Chris and I came
across a lounge area with massive cushy chairs. People were splayed out and
sleeping. It was ideal, as the lights were dimmed low. Chris and I plonked down
and tried to get an hour of shut-eye before our flight. It was almost a
sleepless night, but not terrible. I think we were anxious to get to Hong Kong.
After a month in Thailand, we were ready to check another country off our list,
even if that country wasn't necessarilly China.
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