Day 104: Ko Phi Phi to Bangkok

I awoke the following morning to rain—the second time that foul weather had moved in on the morning I planned to leave an island. What timing I have.

The ferry ride to Phuket was uneventful with the exception of the loud, obnoxious British college students who were sitting a few rows in front of me. Oh, how I couldn’t wait to get to northern Thailand and never see a package tourist again.

I reached Phuket, looked at my map, and realized that the bus station was 3km from the pier, and that I wasn’t even sure how to get there. But I’d had it with having my hand held by English speakers—I was going to walk it. I asked for directions five times over the course of those three kilometers, and each time I was pleased to find that the person I asked spoke no English. I pulled out my glossary, spoke a little Thai, and patted myself on the back as the minibuses of tourists sped by me. It’s kind of sad that I had to manufacture a reason to speak some Thai, but the truth is that it’s impossible to force yourself to stumble through a foreign language when the other people speaks your native language perfectly well.

In Phuket town, I bought a bus ticket to Bangkok and then set out to find some food. Though the island of Phuket is probably the most touristy place in all of Thailand, the tourists tend to stay at the beach, and the inland Phuket town is really quite genuine. I ate a fine curry at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant just south of the bus station and then headed back to find my bus.

The ride from Phuket to Bangkok was 15 hours of pure pain—not because the road was bad (it wasn’t), and not because the bus was crap (it was actually quite nice), but because the air conditioning was cranked up so high that, no matter how many blankets I threw over me, I couldn’t sleep. I really think the temperature must have been 60 degrees Fahrenheit on that bus. Why do they do this? It must be insanely expensive to blow that much cold air, and everyone on the bus is covered in blankets and freezing, so why not just turn off the air for a few hours, make everyone a lot more comfortable, and save a few bucks? I’ll never understand why they keep those buses so cold.