Happy, Crappy Birthday
Trip Start
Jul 20, 2010
1
19
23
Trip End
Sep 25, 2010
Chumphon, Thailand
Saturday, September 11, 2010
We kicked off Curtis’ birthday with a big “American Breakfast” at the place downstairs (probably the only good thing that happened all day). While we were eating, my beloved flip-flop finally fell apart for good, so afterwards I walked barefoot down the street (luckily it had rained during the night) to buy some new ones. On the way back, we noticed that a small shrine on the street corner, intended as a home for the spirits, was now home to about a half-dozen huge, black rats: we watched as they helped themselves to the offerings left for the spirits, nibbling bits of fruit and bowls of rice, and sniffing the contents of plastic cups. Back in the room, I placed my poor shoes in the garbage and had a moment of silence for them: I still miss them terribly (my new ones give me blisters...)
That done, we set off to book our flights from Kuala Lumpur back to Perth. Good news: there was a promo flight for just $80 each! Bad news: apparently, in order to use our Australian credit card online, we first needed to receive a code, texted to our cell phone from the bank. Which just so happened to be impossible, since we were in Thailand! Sooo, after a $19 phone call to Australia to explain that to us, we set off to find another way. We asked a tuk-tuk driver in the street if there was an Air Asia booking office around. Yes, he told us, but it is closed. However, he would gladly take us to the Tourism Office (TAT) for only 15B, 50 cents! Wisely, we didn’t trust him, and left to ask someone else, but the response was the same: Air Asia is closed, take a tuk-tuk to the TAT. So we did.
We talked to a woman there for a good half hour before we realized she was a total scammer, who basically wanted to plan and profit from every step of our travels from then on. We left, and flagged down a tuk-tuk back to Khao San. He wanted to charge us $5 each! We protested: we’d just come from there for 15B. It finally came out that if a tuk-tuk driver brings somebody to a TAT office, or similar, they give him a fuel voucher for bringing in business, hence, why we’d paid almost nothing for the ride. This driver offered to bring us back for free if we just let him take us to another travel agent. The only catch was, we had to talk to someone for at least 5 minutes. Ugh. Fine. So we went, and we pretended to need help with our travel plans and to care about every wonderful deal the agent offered, and then we excused ourselves. Unfortunately, it seems our efforts were wasted, as they still didn’t give the driver a voucher, but he still honored his end of the deal and brought us back, if grumpily.
While walking back up Khao San, we passed Air Asia: it was open. We hate Asian scammers. The tuk-tuk drivers we could understand, trying to make a living and all. But why the random guy in the street?? What was in it for him! Anyways, we couldn’t book the promo flights from the office, so we gave up and took a taxi to the bus station. By the time we got there, the only available bus was one that would arrive in the coastal town of Chumphon a half hour after the night boat left for Koh Tao. Great.
When we arrived in Chumphon in the middle of the night, a “taxi” was waiting to take us to the pier. We hunkered down in the bed of the truck as the wind froze us for the 20 minute journey. Once there, we found a long, grey building with hard cushions scattered on the floor. We made ourselves tiny cushion beds and passed out: well, I did. Curtis didn’t sleep much apparently, probably kept awake by thoughts of his fantastic birthday... Poor guy...
