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| My Bangkok - Hat Yai ticket. "happy" |
But I have a flight booked from Singapore to Christchurch in a couple of days' time, which means that I need to start my lengthy overland journey, as it will take a couple of days. I book a 2:30am bus to Bangkok from Siem Reap. I miss the tuktuk which is sent to take me to the bus, because I'm on Cambodian time and don't take the instruction "Be here by 1.30am" seriously. When I eventually arrive at the bus office, I learn that the bus is late arriving from Phnom Pehn because one of its wheels has fallen off and needs replacing, so it is about an hour away. There is nothing else to do except settle down with the bus employees and share a few beers and basic Khmer words. A couple of my fellow passengers had been volunteering at the other school, and after sharing fond memories, we end up singing "The wheels on the bus go round and round..." together to the bus employees; perhaps not entirely appropriate as their wheels are evidently a little loose.
The bus arrives at 5am, along with a light rain shower. Everyone except me and the bus employees is now asleep on the pavement, and we have to rouse them by poking and shouting alternately. The bus is very comfortable inside; two layers of sleeper beds and very clean as we take our shoes off at the door, as is the custom here. The delay does not matter at all, because immigration at the Poipet border doesn't open until 7.30am anyway and it takes three hours to drive there. We arrive at the border at 8am and pass through Cambodian exit immigration in ten minutes. The Thai entry immigration is another story: an hour and a half in the queue; not helped by the fact that there are four desks and most of the time only one is open. But we make it eventually, being released back into Thailand at 10am and changing transport to a minivan. I know that it will take five hours to get back to Bangkok, and the train I want to be on leaves at 2.45pm, so it is unlikely that I will make it. I tell the driver my plan, and he says he'll do his best to get me there. This makes for quite an uncomfortable journey for my fellow passengers, as we fly along roads that are questionable at more rational speeds, and on more than one occasion we are all flung into the air as we soar over a bump and into freefall.
We arrive in Bangkok in one piece (I think) and the driver stops the bus to let me out to catch a taxi to the station. I arrive at the ticket booth at 14.47: two minutes after my train has departed. I'm not panicking, though - I don't do that anymore - and I know there will be other ways of getting there. The train I have just missed travels through Hat Yai, the junction just north of the Malay border, and terminates at Butterworth, the mainland point for Penang island. The next one southbound from Hat Yai through Butterworth and onwards is nine hours later, so if I can catch a train to Hat Yai and arrive before 4pm tomorrow, there I can join the train I would have taken from Butterworth, and avoid a forced day in Penang, which I wasn't that interested in anyway, having spent a fair bit of time there before.
I ask the lady at the ticket booth if I can get a seat on a train going to Hat Yai tonight, and I'm told that they are all full - there's a Thai Buddhist festival coming up and public transport is very busy. That option being thwarted, I decide to book a sleeper seat in tomorrow's train to Butterworth; this would simply mean 24 hours longer in Bangkok and one night less in Singapore. Not my first choice: I'd rather have spent my extra day in Cambodia, but it's likely I would never have left if I'd spent any more days there on Cambodian time. Having booked a ticket on tomorrow's train, I spot a refund-exchange booth, and decide to ask someone else if the Hat Yai train really is full, because I do want to leave today, and surely there is space for one more person. And there is: I can exchange my (relatively) expensive 2nd class sleeper seat on the Butterworth train for a dirt cheap 2nd class reclining seat on the Hat Yai train for no extra cost, I am told with a smile. I deeply regret giving up my lovely sleeper seat - I've already had one sleepless night and two tend to make me loopy - but this is the train I want to be on, and once I arrive in Hat Yai and change trains, I'd have a bed.
I make sure I'm on the Hat Yai train on time, as I don't think my schedule (or my wallet) can bear any more missed transportation. It's a long journey from Bangkok to Singapore; over 1,800km, not including the first leg of another 400km from Siem Reap, but I like travelling by train. There's no better way of seeing the landscape, and even when I'm asleep I feel a subconscious satisfaction that I am being whisked through the country in the right direction.
My ticket (and my calculations) say that the train will arrive at Hat Yai at 12:35pm; about fourteen hours after it left Bangkok. But at 1:30pm we are still gently rolling through the countryside, with no signs of a town where there might be a major junction splitting the country's rail network in two. I ask a passing conductor how far away we are. "Two hours," he says. I don't like this answer so I try the trolley lady. "One hour," I am told. "But..." I wave my ticket helplessly at her and try to show her the printed arrival time. "Yes," she agrees, before floating away serenely. I'm increasingly worried about my 4pm train from Hat Yai to KL, as my comfortable four hour window steadily diminishes. Are we one or two hours away? I am hesitant to ask a third person in case they tell me three hours. But no else is agitated - they are all asleep - and I can't do anything about my situation, so I sit and wait. Having come to this rational conclusion, I look down at my ticket and see, amongst the mundane details printed such as time, date, train and seat number, there is the word "happy". I take this as a specific instruction, and relax.
At 3.15pm we arrive at Hat Yai. I have a comfortable forty-five minutes to book a sleeper seat on the train to KL, and then I will have a bed for the first time in two nights. I disembark and head straight for the ticket booth, waving aside a hawker who wants me to buy a bus ticket from him. "Train is full," I am told by the ticket operator. I ask if I can get to either Butterworth or KL today on any other train. I cannot, because there are none; but I can book a seat on tomorrow's train in 24 hours' time.
My heart sinks, and I realise I have lost my game of catching up the train across the country. It seems that I must spend 24 hours somewhere, waiting, and that due to my meddling, I must do this in Hat Yai: certainly not my first choice of location. I turn away from the booth disconsolately and walk straight into the bus ticket hawker. He has been lurking behind me, listening to my endeavours, and knows that I am in trouble. He finds my weary struggles amusing, and as I let him lead me to the bus ticket office he is laughing to himself.
The man in the bus ticket office tells me that everything is full except his bus, that his bus is the only bus to Singapore, and that his office is the only place to buy it. I am not really listening - I know their games - and I ask him what time it arrives in Singapore. "12 hours", he says. "6am tomorrow." It's my turn to laugh - he thinks I will believe that his magic bus can take me across 900km and two border crossings in 12 hours? I turn to walk away and he calls after me to wait. He phones someone for information, and then tells me, 11am tomorrow - 16 hours. This sounds more like it, I think, a little less of the bullshitting and I might consider doing business with you. But I am still sore over my lack of a comfortable sleeper bed on a spacious train, and I remember that I haven't asked a cross-sectional group of the station employees yet. I leave the office and walk back to the station, the hawker still in tow. Everyone I ask in the station tells me that the trains are full, and I am now satisfied that this uniform information is true. I return to the bus ticket office, the hawker still clinging to my side and laughing. When we return, he regales his employees with my futile attempts, and they all laugh too.
By this time I am resigned to spending a third largely sleepless night, and completing my remaining journey by bus. I think that if it is supposed to arrive at 11am, and I add on the additional four hours or so that no one talks about, I will arrive in Singapore at around the same time as the train. I haven't slept properly for a long time and I am already exhausted, but I would rather do this than spend any more time in Hat Yai.
The ticket operator wants 1,200 baht for the ticket. I think this is too much, and in any case I only have a little over 1,000, which I offer to him. He doesn't take it. I offer him all the money I have - 1,080 - but he wants to sting me for the full amount, and says I must go to an ATM. At this point I am close to tears and too tired to argue. I leave my backpack in the office and head in search for an ATM.
I wander for what feels like miles, not seeing any ATMs - strange, in such an repulsively commercial town - until a sign for "bus tour" catches my eye. Inside the quiet little office is a smiling, unassuming woman and her small child. I ask if she sells bus tickets to Singapore, and for how much. "1,000 baht", she says. I would have readily given her all my money to avoid paying the other company anything, and I happily buy my ticket, feeling confirmed in my decision. On the way back to the other place to pick up my backpack, I notice three or four ATMs I had walked straight past without seeing, and I think that something in my tired mind had prevented me from noticing them until my feet had taken me to the second ticket office.
I return to the first ticket office to pick up my backpack, and I'm met with jeers and laughs from the men. They think they have me, and they gloat. I walk past the desk, put my bag on my back, and turn to go. Alarmed now, they call to me to wait. I tell them I've bought a ticket somewhere else. They misunderstand what I've said, and start haggling with me. I don't immediately clarify that it's too late - a vindictiveness in me rises to the surface, and I want the upper hand against these people who were so unkind earlier. When they drop down to 1,000 baht - my original offer - I tell them again that I have already bought my ticket from someone else, and I walk away laughing. Never have I felt such satisfaction in refusing anyone.
Things improve significantly after that: I have some noodle soup and iced coffee, and whilst waiting for the bus, I find a sparklingly clean little shower at the back of the office. Having taken care of food and hygiene my mood brightens. I chat to the driver who brought me here in a tuktuk to wait for the bus, and I ask him about the upcoming holiday. I am glad to talk to him and have some friendly human contact, because I don't want one of my last interactions in Thailand to be a negative one.
The bus journey is uneventful. The seats are very comfortable; almost reclining enough to be sleepers; and although it is quite noisy with the radio playing in the front and people talking, I am exhausted enough that I sleep deeply for some time. Just after the Thai-Malay border at Bukit Kayu Hitam we stop for food, and I satisfy my desire for Malay food: a crispy chicken leg cooked in something delicious. I wolf it down: I realise that I haven't eaten much over the last three days, and certainly not much meat. The roads change to smooth tarmac and clear anglicised signs, and we fly through the country. I feel a sense of relief at having crossed the border, as if I didn't really think I would make it. Singapore is now one country away and within reach. It's a haven of stability and safety in my whirl of travel, and I can't wait to arrive.
At 10am we leave Malay immigration and cross the causeway from Johor Bahru into Singapore. Singapore immigration is completed efficiently, there is hand soap in the public toilets, and my three day journey is almost over. It's 11am by the time we arrive on Beach Road, and I'm five hours ahead of the train I would have been on, had I not been two minutes late all that time ago in Bangkok. I feel as victorious as Phileas Fogg.
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