Into Thailand

This is from a market right near the hostel I stayed at in Phuket.

The bus from Penang to Phuket was interesting. The first half until the Malysia/Thai border was good, it was a nice van like the one showed in the pictures at the booking office. But once we got the border we had to switch vans. The next van was an hour late and it looked like the guy had just found any random beat up van and decided it would work for hauling people around Thailand.

The bus driver was nice enough to drop off the people in the first town at their hotel. This would normally be considered a good deed, but when they wanted to get out and just catch a cab, he wouldn?t let them and insisted that he take them to their hotel, AND that they pay him for the service...so the rest of us got to take the 30 hour detour around the city with them (because the driver had no idea where he was going) during which I was getting hit on by a prostitute who decided to jump in the van for a quick ride home from the grocery store...

Welcome to Thailand....

So when I finally got to my stop I decided I was going to get out fast and not let him take me to my hostel. I jumped out and caught a cab right away, which I thought was great. Little did I know how drunk the driver was. I should have smelt it before I got in, but I was just happy to be out of the van with the lunatic driver and I completely missed it. It fully hit me when I realized the driver was going 20km an hour and then had to take an emergency piss break on the side of the road...haha. BUT despite many detours and strange behavior.. I did finally arrive safely to my hostel where I would be spending the next 5 days.

After all that I half expect the hostel to turn out to be a complete dive..but it surprised me..being quite a bit nicer than any hostel I have ever been to. And only 8 dollars a night...