GO GO GLOBAL GRINGO!: Ko Lanta and the First Big Trip

Ko Lanta at sunset

Workout of the Day (WOD):

Move from eastern Bangkok to a remote bus terminal in under two hours during evening rush hour; get on a bus;
Every Four Hours on the Hour: Sleep an uncomfortable 45 minutes during a 12-hour bus ride;
Once completing the bus ride, walk 8 Km/5 miles with a 14-kg/30 lbs backpack to the nearest seaport;
Rest two hours;
Take a three-hour boat ride on the Andaman sea;
Deadlift and throw 100 bags and suitcases from boat to dockworker;
Take a 10-minute tuk-tuk to a hotel;
TIME CAP: 22 hours

After being confined to Bangkok and the surrounding area for over two weeks, Nathalie and I finally made our big break headed south. Just for fun, we chose to do it in the most sadistic way possible.

Bangkok was beginning to wear on us. Sure, the city is fun, but after a certain point, we had our fill and decided it was time to break away from its orbit and officially begin our trip. After weighing our options over Lebanese food one-afternoon last week, we settled on going to the southern island-hub of Krabi, laying approximately 1,000 Km/600 miles from Bangkok, then heading onwards to the neighboring Ko Lanta.

There are two ways to go from Bangkok to Krabi: fly or take a bus. While the short, one-hour flight was tempting, this career break is all about the adventure and taking the bus embodies that spirit. Looking for advice on how best to make the 12-hour road trip, we consulted with the excellent staff at the Thonglor Playhaus hotel, who advised us to book tickets on a 'VIP bus' to makes the journey.

If you're like me and are unfamiliar with 'VIP buses,' the concept is fairly straightforward: instead of packing the vehicle with as many seats as possible, the bus has only 24 'business class-style' seats, instead of the normal 50-60 places. In addition to more leg room and a reclining chair, there's a food and drink service along with a dedicated attendant on board. In essence, it's business class on a bus.

I rarely, if ever take buses on long journeys, so I was curious to experience this type of product. Naturally, this option sounded like the way to go. The hotel reception kindly called and reserved our tickets for the next evening's departure.

A form of a bus

Bangkok has four principal bus stations aligning to the compass rose. As we were heading south, we had to go to the Southern terminal to catch our ride. As it would turn out the station is located far from any metro or rail station with few practical options to connect to it via public transport.

To get there, we wound up taking the BTS as far out as we could, then took a taxi the rest of the way. Other than having to flag down a cab and a small delay on the train line, we had no issues and were able to arrive an hour before our departure time. It was at this point that we received the first surprise of the night.

Outside of the Southern Bus Terminal (courtesy wikimedia)

When we got to the ticket counter, the agent kindly informed us that they had unilaterally canceled our tickets. Nice. We asked for an explanation, and they told us that as we had only reserved the bus but not paid it, they could cancel and resell the seats if they didn't get payment two hours before departure. It would've been handy if they had told us that when we had booked as we could have planned accordingly to arrive earlier (Global Gringo Travel Pro-Tip: even if it's not mentioned in the conditions, always have a plan B, at least here in Thailand).

When we asked if we could buy tickets on the spot, they told us that the bus was sold out, and for a moment, a deep feeling of frustration had sunk in. We had hauled ass to get out to the middle-of-nowhere south Bangkok and had no hotel for the evening nor a bus ticket out of there. The woman at the counter recommended that we check with the government bus company (THE) to see if they had spots on their VIP service.

We went and checked and luckily for us they did, with the bus leaving on 30 minutes later than the one we initially planned on taking. We booked our ticket which was the same price as the private coach and grabbed something to eat before the departure before heading to the gate.

Upon boarding, the images we had in our head of what a 'VIP bus' would look like didn't quite line up with the reality. The bus was a bit worn for age; there was that tell-tale old bus smell, and the seat, while large and with built-in massage rollers, was at times uncomfy. Neither power plugs nor USB ports were anywhere to be found, which would've been nice to keep our phones and devices juiced. Despite this, we didn't really seem to have any other issues with the bus.

The cabin was only one-third full, meaning it was pretty relaxed. However, bad luck usually comes in sets of three, and we were 'lucky' enough to have an exceptional human specimen seated just behind us. Smelling like the Thai version of the Marlboro man and with the matching emphysema to boot, our bus buddy had no qualms letting out the most gut-retching, mucus clearing coughs throughout the ride. Once he fell asleep, Mr. flavor country made no effort to prevent any acts of flatulence, filling our sleep-space with some of the most unique fragrances known to mankind.

Despite our bus buddy, the main obstacle keeping me from sleeping unbroken was the road itself. I've lived in Belgium for over 12 years. As any Belgian who has even ridden in a car there will tell you, the condition of the roads range from crappy to third-world, so I have plenty of experience riding bumpy highways and auto-routes.

The difference is that we could've crossed Belgium four times over in the 12 hours that it took us to go from Bangkok to Krabi. As I'm a bizarre sleeper, I had a tough time passing out. Every time I was almost asleep, we'd hit a 'turbulence pocket' aka a stretch of potholes, and be jostled back into full consciousness. Thanks to this and my friend behind me, I was only able to get two sleep cycles of around 45 minutes throughout the whole 12-hour bus ride.

It wasn't all put to waste though. We didn't book a hotel in Ko Lanta before leaving Bangkok. We took advantage of being awake and reserved our stay via our phones using our portable wi-fi hotspot.

A morning walking tour of Krabi

After what felt like an eternity, we arrived at the Krabi bus terminal a little bit before seven in the morning. Wearily getting off the bus, we were approached by a young Brazilian man who was traveling around the region by backpack. He proposed that the three of us walk to the center of Krabi as he booked a hostel there and was close to the port. He was under the impression that it should only take around thirty minutes as the center was just 2 Km/1.2 miles from the bus station.

Bad luck part three: it turned out that it was more like 4 Km/2.4 miles into town and more or less double that from there to the port. Additionally, it was already approaching 25C/80F, we were hauling our 14kg/30lb backpacks, and were running on little to no sleep. As they say at the Power Factory back in Brussels, Beast Mode: ON, and off we went.

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't difficult. At this point, Nathalie and I were tired, hungry and were getting sick of the taxi and tuk-tuk drivers trying to hustle us for a ride to the seaport (we weren't ready to pay half of what it cost us to go from Bangkok to Krabi just for a five-minute car ride). After we left the Brazilian at his hostel, we loaded up the map onto the phone and began navigating our way to the port. Thanks to the magic of modern technology, we were treated to a serpentine walk through a calm residential area that spilled off of the main road.

Despite the scenery and the opportunity to explore an 'ordinary' part of Krabi, we were almost at our limit and had entered into the hardest part of the journey. Our tempers were flaring, and the frustration of trekking eight kilometers while running on fumes was almost too much. I can only hope that the people in the homes we were passing didn't understand the English spewing out of our mouths.

After nearly two hours of walking, we made it to the pier. We had a couple of hours to kill before the one ferry left for the day. However, we made the most of the opportunity, taking a much-needed break to sit and eat at a cafe in the port complex.

Crossing the Andaman

At 11:30, we boarded the boat with the rest of the visitors, pushing off. The ferry was small and, in western eyes, probably overcrowded. Interestingly, it was almost exclusively packed with tourists. I guess the locals use a different means of getting to the island (edit: there's also bridge and short ferry service that connects the mainland with the island, which we discovered when we left Ko Lanta a week later).

Initially, we were sitting in the lower level of the boat, and the plan was that I was going to pass out on Nathalie's shoulder for a bit and catch up on some sleep. The problem is that we were close to the bow and even the smallest opening of the window resulted in a constant soaking of sea water. This meant that the windows were kept closed making the air hot and stale. I took refuge on the deck and immediately felt the frustrations from the bus ride and hike catch onto the wind and blow out to sea.

The world was amazing from the deck. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and I felt great! The stress was gone, and that beautiful tranquility I experienced in Ayutthaya came rushing back. It's incredible what 30 minutes of sitting outside taking in the sea air and the bright sun can do to one's spirits. I was transformed into the peaceful being I was longing to be and every second of it felt fantastic.

I elected to stay on the deck for the rest of the ride, and when the boat slowly rolled into port here in Ko Lanta, I was ready to complete the journey with a wide grin on my face and amity in my soul.

On deck deadlifts

As I mentioned earlier, the boat was full of foreign tourists, and with them came at least 150 pieces of luggage. The ship was small, and there wasn't a dedicated storage bay for baggage. This meant that bags were stuffed down on the lower deck behind seats and had to be brought up by ship hands and port workers one at a time.

A hard-earned smile

Nathalie and I had initially disembarked and negotiated a rate with a tuk-tuk driver to get us to the resort while waiting for the luggage to be offloaded. Once we arranged our ride, I went back to the pier to collect the bag. However, I soon noticed that the crew was shorthanded and needed help getting the bags up the stairs and off the boat. Eager to get to a proper meal and a bed, I walked back over the plank and took a spot in the line, deadlifting the bags from the top of the staircase and tossing them over to the man at the front of the plank.

It felt great to help, and I could see clearly on the face of the fellow workers and the locals that it was appreciated. Oddly enough, there were plenty of passengers standing on the deck waiting for their bag, but none of them wanted to pitch into help. I'm not entirely sure why they didn't want to lend a hand to get their bag faster. They certainly weren't helping anybody by standing around on deck and in the way (Another Global Gringo Travel Pro-Tip: help out when you can, and you're not inadvertently stealing a job. We're all in this together, and karma will pay you back).

The greatest 15-minute tuk-tuk ride. ever (plus one hell of a meal)

After we finished with the bags, Nathalie and I went with our tuk-tuk driver and hit the road towards the resort. By this point, the finish line was in sight, and we were both full of smiles. The driver dropped us off in front of the complex, and we calmly made our way to the reception. After 22 hours of non-stop traveling, we arrived at our destination.

We checked into our bungalow and took a much-needed shower. After we got dressed, we headed out to the restaurant in front of the reception and had what was probably one of the best beers and stir-fried chicken of my life. We then spent the next three hours sitting at a covered picnic table on the beach, enjoying happy hour and the incredible sunset.

On the way back to the room, we ran into two of our new neighbors who happened to be Canadian and Swedish. I wound up talking ice hockey with them for ten minutes before Nathalie and I grabbed a bag and went to the 7-11.

We bought a few items for the room and had a local take on a crepe (roti) from a food cart for dessert. When we got back to our room, we sat on the bed and within minutes, succumbed to the exhaustion that had taken a backseat to the delight of arriving at the resort and surviving our journey. We slept for eleven hours.

This was the first big move that we've done so far. I'm absolutely confident it won't be the last, but it certainly put a lot of things in perspective and gave us a great learning experience. We're going to stay here in Ko Lanta for the next four days and enjoy the island. The journey asked so much of us to make here; the fact that we did it only reinforces the pleasure of being in a tropical paradise.