As usual, the journey began with hopping on a bus to Bangkok; however, this time, I was headed to Mochit Bus Terminal - the north/ northeastern bus terminal, and 10x larger than Ekkomai. Often times, the bus 'manager' makes us switch busses, by pulling us off and leading us onto another bus that is heading straight to the wanted destination, and then they pay off the other bus 'manager' what is left of the bus fare. Well, I got kicked off in Bang Na, about an hour outside of Bangkok. The bus 'manager' motioned to me, hurriedly saying, "Mochit, Mochit?" I promptly got up, followed him to the front of the bus, and while on the last step, I turned around and said (in Thai) "Where?" He pointed to a bunch of public busses lining up on the street on the other side, and then with one step off the bus, I asked for money. He waved his hands and shut the door and bus sped off. So, yeah, I got kicked off. But, in a way, it was a message heard from above - because I had to pee sooooo bad, that I was going to get off soon anyway or pee in my pants right there in the bus seat. And, luckily he dropped/ kicked me off in front of a huge department store, so without even thinking about what was to come, I immediately went to the bathroom.
Then, I had a cigarette, and finally was in a state to figure out what to do next. I went to one of the many bus stops (it was a very busy area), and found three young Thai girls to ask where I could catch the bus to Mochit. It turned out that they three were also heading to the bus terminal. So we all got on a public bus together (picture below), for 9 baht and an hour trip to On Nut BTS station, the last stop on the southern end of the skytrain system. Then we took the BTS for 40 minutes, riding to the end of the line, and got off at Mochit BTS Station. Mind you, this is not the bus terminal. Normally (and I've done this only once before), you have to take a taxi from the BTS station to the bus terminal.
I kept telling the one Thai girl, who spoke the most English (and still very little at that) that we would have to take a taxi anyway from the BTS station, because she kept saying, "no taxi, no taxi". Her response was "No, BTS much faster, traffic bad, no taxi." Yes, I got that, but I knew we would have to get in a taxi later anyway, and I just wanted to confirm that they were doing this as well. I eventually gave up, and when we got outside the Mochit BTS station, I felt like saying, "see, this is what I meant." But, I think they got it and knew it and were just lost in translation about what I was saying before.
Anyhow, no taxis wanted to take us to the bus terminal because the traffic was too bad. It seemed worse than normal, and I think there was something going on. So, they were finally able to convince two motorbike taxis to take us there - albeit, we went speeding in between cars onto oncoming traffic, much closer than I am comfortable with (though, that is how you do in Thailand, at least if you want to get anywhere by motorbike). The Thai girl nicely paid for the taxi. Her friends must've gotten dropped off somewhere else, because after many back-and-forth phone calls, she started to panic. We walked around in circles around the huge, dark and grimy back parking lots of the massive bus terminal. Mochit is so crowded, dirty, loud, confusing, and just plain unpleasant. We finally went inside one of the many floors, and she asked the many ticket counters about a bus for me to Ang Thong.
I was planning on heading to Ang Thong to stay with Allie for the night, and then we were going to go to Ayuthaya together on Saturday.
"Don't have. Come back tomorrow, 5 AM" was the response I kept getting over and over. Then, I asked about Ayuthaya; same response. You can imagine how my heart and legs just sank beneath me. After all that, I finally arrived here only to find out they had finished services to this area. The girl finally left to find her friends, and I called Jacqueline, who was en route to Mochit Bus Terminal from Sri Racha. She was also going to spend the night in Ang Thong, but just left Sri Racha a couple hours after me.
We both decided I would just wait there for her. I got something to eat, well, quite a few things. And then, I just sat and waited. The place was crawling with hundreds upon hundreds of people, many with lots of luggage, many looking quite nomadic. It was dark and dingy, and definitely made me feel like I was in a refugee camp. Not a fun place to be, at all.
Jacqueline finally made it there after 9, and we jumped into a taxi towards Saphan Kwai, the area closest to the bus terminal with hotels. After checking out a few, with prices too high for our budget, we actually ended up in The Suda Palace Hotel - this is where we had our orientation! Can you believe it? We couldn't. But we made a late night of Chang and 4:00 am McDonald's delivery. Yup, that's right, we ordered McDonald's, which was promptly delivered to our hotel room door. Amazing. A good end to a long and arduous day.
The next late morning, we decided to skip the bus ride, were too far from the train terminal, so we opted for the mini-vans from Victory Monument. We arrived in Ayuthaya only an hour and a half later, or so, and after some walking around we ended up with our friends at Ayuthaya Hotel. We didn't see any of the sights in Ayuthaya; in fact, we only saw half the street of our hotel and around the corner down some side street, where Chang House was - home to our nightly activities.
There were about 11 of us in total, most from orientation, and a few boyfriends. Three girls are leaving in 2 weeks: Liza, from South Africa, Angela from London, and Ally from Texas. So, this was our farewell night out in a place we could all get too. And what a night it was. I won't get into the random drunken shennanigans that occurred, but we had a grand ole' time, and a few of us even got in some late-night swimming in the pool at our hotel.
Obviously, the trip wasn't at all about Ayuthaya, but rather friends... so my pictures, of course, are all from the night out - probably boring, unless you are one of them. :o)
The public bus to Bangkok (with wooden floors)
From left to right: Me, Jacqueline, Ally, Liza, Jen, Bridget and Maddy
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