The travel agent quickly added that there were plenty of bus tickets available – and we could leave that night. He told us it was a more comfortable ride than the train and came with two free meals. He pulled out a photo album with pictures of smiling tourists snuggled happily under blankets to prove it. I looked at Benjamin. “I think we’re getting screwed,” I thought-beamed him. We were literally a block away from the train station, where we could have looked into the matter ourselves, but instead we purchased 2 first-class overnight bus tickets for 700 baht each, about $16.00 U.S – we later found out it was much more than what we should have paid. Our instructions were to return to the agency at 6:00 p.m. sharp to catch a shuttle that would take us to another location where our bus would pick us up. Our instructions were written in Thai.

By the time we got back to our guesthouse, we felt like the hapless subjects of Lonely Planet’s tourist scam stories. We immediately consulted our guidebook, but I knew what I would find. It was obvious that we’d been taken to an unofficial agency, complete with TAT props, and tricked into purchasing inferior bus tickets. In addition to our debacle, the book also mentioned several other worrisome occurrences that had me paranoid for the rest of the day. Several years ago a bus driver attacked a passenger with a machete when he asked why the air con wasn’t working. Other passengers reported that after purchasing tickets for a private luxury bus, they were crowded into a small, hot mini-van instead. Some travelers purchased tickets to find there was no bus at all.

We were back at the travel agency at 5:45 p.m. I was expecting the place to be deserted, boarded up, out of business. But it was still there and the shuttle was on time, unusual considering the Thai’s tendency to show up for appointments whenever they feel like it. We were dropped off at the curb of a large boulevard somewhere in Bangkok. After helping us with our packs, the driver hopped back into his mini-van, assuring us that the bus would come. “Everything is fine,” he said in broken English and sped off. We were left to wait with a small group of passengers from Sweden, Germany, and France, all anxious to find out if the bus would turn up or not. To our relief, it did. As promised, the bus had air-conditioning, pillows, blankets, and reclining seats. I didn’t see a machete anywhere.

The bus had a staff of two well-groomed attendants, complete with big smiles and serving trays. Head doilies garnered our seats and gaudy floral curtains were tied with sashes between the windows. Our seats were near the door, an area of the bus that became a gas chamber of exhaust fumes that seeped in at the frequent, and lengthy, stops that we made on our way out of Bangkok. I mentally scanned through the items I could access in our daypack. I was dismayed that although we had 2 rubber bands, 1 twist-tie, 3 zip lock bags, a piece of string, and other essential items one picks up for unforeseen and creative uses while traveling by backpack, we had no brown paper bags. My intake of the noxious fumes had me mildly concerned about my ability to breathe.

Air pollution was not my only problem. Noise pollution blasted out of speakers located right above my head. Thai pop music makes the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard sound blissful. High, shrill voices and relentless repetitive melodies played on tinny speakers at decibels equal to those of a nightclub. As I settled into the uncomfortable seat I would occupy for the next 10 hours, I began to wonder about the 2 meals that were promised with the purchase of our tickets. I was curious to find out what kind of culinary adventure I would find on a first-class Thai bus… and whether or not it would taste like exhaust fumes.

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