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Monday
Jul052010

6/22/10 (ao nang)

Ao Nang – Bangkok 

We originally planned on heading to Koh Tao, an island on the east side of southern Thailand. We were just about to book our overnight ferry when our friend, Chef McDang phoned us to see when we were going up to Bangkok. Chef McDang and I met while I was at the California Culinary Academy (CCA). He visited CCA several times over the last two years to conduct demos on Thai cuisine and we had become good friends. He is a descendant of the royal family and is a very famous chef in Thailand. He has a weekly TV show and restaurant review column. Most notably, he just published his first Thai cookbook in English called Principles of Thai Cookery. He graciously offered us to stay with him once we got to Bangkok and we were very excited to see him.

He suggested that instead of going to Koh Tao that we head straight up to Bangkok and he would arrange for us to stay at Koh Chang, an island close to Cambodia, for a few days where his friend owns a very nice resort. We decided to take his advice and handed the phone over to the travel agent so he could make the changes. Within a few minutes he arranged for us to take the overnight train to Bangkok, where his driver would come pick us up in the morning. He also called a friend who was going to meet us at the bus stop in Surat Thani since we had a few hours before we were supposed to board the train. We were excited to take the train since it was something we hadn’t experienced.

After all the arrangements were made we grabbed lunch at a café. The wind started to pick up and within minutes there was a huge downpour. We had to take a tuk tuk back to our hotel to grab our luggage since it was raining so hard. We hopped on a van which took us to the bus stop where we were to board for a 3 hour ride to Surat Thani. 

It was like no other bus station we had ever been in. It was a concrete hut with one bus company running the operation. When we went to the counter to get our train tickets we were informed that a train had derailed earlier in the day and we wouldn’t be able to take the overnight train. Our option was to take the overnight bus or wait till tomorrow for the train. It really put a damper on our plans since it meant that we would be getting into Bangkok at 6am rather than 10am and wouldn’t be as comfortable as a sleeper train. We didn’t want to spend an extra night in Ao Nang since Chef McDang was making arrangements for us to stay at Koh Chang so we opted for the bus. Then came a heated argument on how much money we would get back since the bus was much cheaper than the train. The bus company was only going to refund us the actual price of the train tickets, not including the commission the travel agent made, since they were different companies. It didn’t help matters that the bus company got into an argument with another traveler on a different matter. It made us skeptical about what was going on. We couldn’t confirm if there was a problem with the train system and suspected that they created the story about the derailment so we had to take the bus because they didn’t get enough travelers to get on the overnight bus. I called the travel agent I had been working with and demanded that we be refunded the entire amount. After about twenty minutes of going back and forth we were refunded the entire amount for the train tickets. What an experience!

We got on our overnight bus and hoped our earlier experience wasn’t going to be an indication of our journey to Bangkok. We stopped in Surat Thani for a break and grabbed a quick bite to eat. After dinner, Jon took an Ambien and we reclined our seats to get some sleep.

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