The final night in Hua Hin included a swim suit costume change and a walk on the beach and then a night market...with food on sticks! Lisa had the most exciting food that could manage to impale itself upon a stick. It was a squid. Squid on a stick for Lisa. We also shared BBQ bananas in coconut sauce and some other stuff on sticks. The night market was quite exciting and made for a fine send off from Hua Hin.
We made our way to the bus station around 9:30 for our 10:25 overnight bus to Phuket (where we planned to immediately catch a ferry to Kho Phi Phi). No one really spoke any English at all at the bus station and it was quite crowded and bustling with travelers. We asked several questions to the station attendants by way of charades, etc. about how we would know when it was time for our bus. They were clearly annoyed and not of very much help. We saw a few buses come in early with the name of our town so we got up and held up our tickets and they just shook their heads no and told us to sit down. Assuming our bus was late, we waited a little while until the next bus rolled in with "Phuket" on the side. Naturally this had to be our bus, so we gathered our bags and ran to get on. We walked the isles looking for our seats as the bus began to pull away. Before we found a spot to settle in, the bus attendant asked for our tickets. He looked at them and immediately told the driver to stop. We got kicked off the bus, again with no attempted explanation. We walked back to the station to ask again. The next hour or so we took turns subjecting ourselves to the wrath and humiliation that was the Hua Hin bus station staff. Every time, without even creative attempts at communication, all they said was "no" or "sit down" or the straight forward irritated head shake as they became increasingly disgusted with our presence. By now it was 11:30, and we had no idea what was going on and were very tired and frustrated. We tried to figure out how we could have missed it, because we began trying to get on every bus that came through an hour and a half ago. I risked my life and asked an attendant another time. When she told me to sit down, I asked again. She angrily slammed her finger down on my ticket and said "wrong company. go sit down." Now we had the information that there were multiple companies and we had to figure out a bus that corresponded to us. This, for us, was an elementary matching game of matching corresponding shapes of Thai letters, since we don't read the language. Minutes dragged on and no bus. We had barely slept at all the night before due to jet lag, and were now confused and exhausted in a bus station full of employees that hated us. Lisa started in on talk of Hua Hin hotels, and we decided that if 1:00 am rolled around, the bus probably wasn't coming. I walked to the window a final time, where the bus man shut it in my face and walked away. Appalled, I mastered my first Thai phrase in that moment which was "I do not understand" and planned to throw it at them again and again until we got somewhere. As I was getting up, a Thai couple approached us who saw our frustration as well as its source and, in very broken English, offered to help. It was now 12:30am. As we were trying to communicate with the new liaisons, a bus driver wearing a shirt with a logo that matched the shapes on our ticket walked up. Our bus was here. We vaguely found out that it had encountered accidents on the way and was running late. It was the happiest moment of our lives.
Once on the bus we experienced yet another in a line of surreal moments when the regular lighting inside was green. And not like, fun accent lighting for decor purposes, but like actual lighting. It was like the whole bus was in night vision. It was weird, and would have been under normal circumstances, but was especially so after being awake nearly 24 hours and undergoing the emotional roller coaster that was the bus station. Kind of like walking out of a nightmare into a nightmare.
Finally ready for sleep, we each took a sleeping pill because even if you're exhausted, sleeping on a bus is never easy. We were soundly snoozing in a sleep-aid induced slumber when the green lights reappeared accompanied by some loud Thai pop music. We were confused. Again. We didn't have very much time to exchange drugged, bus- haired, bleary-eyed looks before the bus pulled up to a large building and everyone began getting off. The driver told us 17 minutes.
If I had had the wherewith all at the time, I would have brought a camera into this place, because I'm pretty sure it was as odd as it seemed at the time. The ceilings were unnecessarily tall, like a huge warehouse. Inside was a small, convenience-store sized gathering of Thai treats available for sale. All were of unknown identity to us. There was also a cafeteria-style row of hot food. We gathered that this was an eating and resting break. After going to the bathroom on "squatties", we aimlessly bumped and stared at things. The driver pointed us to an equally expansive adjacent room containing round hefty marble tables with marble lazy susans built into the centers. All of our bus companions were silently and expressionlessly eating food and sharing the offerings upon the rotating centers. It took us a while to understand the workings, still until a woman motioned for us to sit down. We were each served a bowl of hot water and rice and we followed everyone else's lead and began loading the rice bowl with the contents of the middle platters. It was actually quite good and also comforting. After 17 minutes, the bus passengers silently and again, expressionlessly began filing onto the bus. It was the first time I felt like one in a herd of cattle on this trip (more times come later). It doesn't all sound horribly strange when its all laid out, so I do think a lot of it was that it was 3 am and the sleeping pills were still active, but...no...not all of it...it was still pretty weird. I wish I had photos, as I feel like that would tell the whole story. You know what they say with the picture and the thousand words...
We slept resonably well/ok/not that well and experienced the first of several early morning bus wake up calls. Around 5:45/6am as buses believe that passengers should be awake. Afterall, its morning. They achieve this by turning on the lights (in this case green ones) and cranking up the Thai pop hits over the bus speakers. Again, hazy and slightly surreal. As we've become more accustomed to the night buses, I've found that I've cultivated a real affinity for Thai pop, particularly as a blaring 6AM wake up call. Kavarna, get ready.
As we've continued traveling, we've gotten pretty nightbus savvy. We now know the ropes of the 3am hot-wate-rice dinner. Still, desolate rest stops in the middle of nowhere, Thailand are always just slightly unnerving. It may be because we're always in the fog of kroger brand sleep aid. It may be the high ceilings and sparse rows of baked goods. The otherworldliness of being immersed in a completely different language that we have no way of comprehending. Or the utter silence of the whole experience. Either way, Thai transit is really on to something. Where else can you get your transport, accomodation, and dinner all at once? Efficiency. I'm pleased to report also that since the nightmare of Hua Hin, all of our bus station interactions have gone very smoothly. We've picked some rudimentary language skills and most people around here are happily willing to meet us in the middle with charades.
We reached our destination of Phuket in order to hop onto yet another form of transport. Oh all the traveling in this Trip of Travels.
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