Yesterday I jumped on a ferry on Ko Tao and later spent the night at the Atlanta Hotel in Bangkok. Along the way it was an interesting journey. I basically followed the same route Val had taken the week before, except when I got off the ferry in Chumphorn, I was in a small group of people that they didn't have room on the bus for so they had to cart us off into town and place us on another bus. This is not the first time this has happened so I sort of knew what to expect.

Since the bus wasn't going to be leaving for a while, they took us into town so we could get some lunch. At 2:00 we finally boarded the bus, which was already fairly packed. We were leaving about an hour later than our original bus was scheduled to leave and would therefore be getting into Bangkok late as well.

Along the way we stopped once for a 5 minute bathroom break and once for 20 minutes for dinner, which was included with the trip. Unfortunately, it was the worst food I've had in Thailand. Bland, greasy, and not very fresh.

We got into Bangkok around 9:30 after about 10 short stops to drop people off along the way. It was kind of surreal. We were stopping on the side of freeways and letting people off and the funny part was there were cars stopped on the side of the freeways to pick these people up. Can you imagine someone meeting a bus on I-5 during rush hour and just stopping to drop someone off on the side of the freeway?

When we arrived in Bangkok, I immediately found a taxi driver and started to negotiate a fare to get me to the hotel. I had a map and the phone number with me so I showed it to him and let him call the hotel. He told me the fare would be 300 baht ($8). I said that sounded high and I wanted him to use the meter. He started to explain something to me which I really didn't care to hear and so I began to call the hotel myself to ask them how much the fare should be from the bus station to their location. Just at this point a man walked up to me and asked if I had just gotten off the bus from Chumphorn. The ferry/bus combo from Ko Tao. When I said yes he said I needed to go with him to the office of the bus company. I walked with him over to a truck which had all the people from our bus who had been on the ferry with me in the morning. They were all laughing since I guess they had all been looking for me for a while. I put my bags in the truck and climbed inside. When I asked them where exactly we were going, a German woman explained that their office was in a part of town that had a lot of inexpensive hotels. I told them I already had a room and showed them the map of where I needed to go. I had already told them this on the way to the truck, but they were in a hurry to get going and pretty much ignored this. When the German woman looked at the map, she said it didn't make sense for me to go to the bus company office after all since I was closer to the hotel where we were right then. She explained this to the driver so we pulled over and they hailed down a cab for me. This is where things get crazy!

They show the cab driver the map and he knows where I'm going. I get in and tell him to start the meter, no flat rate! He says yes and that he just did. The cab was dark inside so I couldn't read the meter (he had the lights off). When we got to the hotel, which was a bit of a ride, but not that far, he turns the light on and the meter reads 695 baht. This is nearly $18. I suddenly realized he had the meter on all right, but that he hadn't reset it in a very long time. There was a rate sheet hanging over the seat that I noticed during the ride and had been looking at it. I pointed it out to him and he suddenly couldn't speak English very well, even though the sign on the side of the cab proudly proclaimed that he could speak English. There was a phone number on the card to call with complaints so I pulled out my cell phone and began to dial the number when he suddenly changed his mind and started to haggle with me about the fare. We finally settled on 300 baht which was still much more than I should have paid him, but considerably less than he tried to screw me out of! Welcome to Bangkok:(

I finally checked into the hotel and it's every bit as cool as Val described. I got the same welcome drink and had the hotel gopher carry my bags to my room. They also have free WiFi in the lobby so I may go ahead and post these entries just before I leave here and take the chance that Val won't read them the day I head for Vientiane to surprise her.

That's about it for now.

Take care and never trust a cabbie!

Eric