I go Phuket

I'm going to have to write this one in instalments, because otherwise it will be ridiculously long, and take days both to read an write.
So I'll start with last Friday, the last day of term, when we left for Phuket. 'We' is me and Ben, a teacher-friend from school. We were on our way to stay with Kimmie, who I hadn't seen in three whole years, which neither of us had realised. It was maybe not the best time for a holiday, with me still not having received a full month's salary yet, and having to budget intensely for the trip, but I was determined, so we set off. The first leg of the trip was on the Wednesday to the terminal to get the tickets. Being the organised and paranoid person that I am, there was no way I was going to show up at the terminal on Friday with only a hope of getting a ticket. Alas, this trip didn't go so well - the taxi driver swindled us by driving us practically all the way round Bangkok, a distance of 50km, and charging 350baht. Not cool. Especially when we then managed to get a bus home for a mere 18baht, a 20-minute journey. Pig.

Anyway, so we had the tickets and set off on Friday after school, meeting up at Victory Monument (which I still need to take pictures of to show you my morning route). Our next unwise decision was to take the 515 bus to the terminal, the same one that got us home on Wednesday. A wise choice in that it was only 18baht, unwise in that this was at about 17:30, and rush hour. It took us an absolute age to get there, and the people on the bus were laughing at us for getting antsy. Ben then wanted to get out and walk the last 2km, in the pouring rain. He did not at that stage know how heavy my bag was, luckily I talked him out of it.

The slowest bus driver in the world.

Made it to the terminal at about 7pm, for a bus that was leaving at 7-30. But wise Mr Ben also pointed out that this is Thailand, nothing happens on time. And he makes a very good point; African time has got nothing on Asian time, its truly a whole new perception of time and punctuality.

The next difficult part was making sense of the bus station. All the signs saying 'platform' pointed to floors above us, and we reached the fourth or so floor, before wise Mr Ben again came forth and suggested that the bus could hardly take off mid-air, so we ignored all signs and headed back downstairs. We got some food and libations for the 12-hour journey; what had at first appeared to be a chicken burger later revealed itself to be a shrimp burger. It was proclaimed 'well-nice' though.
All this food and libation buying and getting lost and finding the toilet, took ages, with the result that we only happened upon our platform (and quite by accident too) at 7-27, three minutes before scheduled departure. And then we were even some of the first people on the bus! The bus duly left at 8pm, which was quite annoying after all that running with the heaviest bag in the world. Just like the Translux then.

It is a very long and very boring trip to Phuket. The bus stops once or twice in the 12 to 13 hours, the reasoning being that the bus is equipped with a hong nam (toilet) and so there's no need to stop. However, there has never been a more smelly hong nam since my life, and we could smell it from our seats the whole way. Ugh.

May told me before I left that I should wear closed shoes on the plane, in case my feet swell. I wore closed shoes on the bus too, because Thai people like having the aircon at subzero temperatures, and while my tootsies did remain toasty warm, they also swelled to elaphantine proportions, and so I had fat ankles for a full day in Phuket. Not my sexiest day.

More to follow soon :)