The first time I wake up is as the sun is rising, around 6am. I go back to sleep almost straight away. The second time I wake up is around 8 or 9am as people are arriving on the beach. The third and final time I wake up is when the ocean starts lapping around my feet, dangling off the deck chair. I stretch. I feel pretty rough, but not as bad as I was expecting.
Standing up I s.t.r.e.t.c.h again. Urg. What time is it? Damn. Check out was... twenty minutes ago. I need some free wifi, I need to get in touch with Ben. I need to find the hotel. We need to get back to Saraburi. I need to get back to the school. I need some money. I check my pockets. Phone. Yes. Okay free wifi it is. Money? Lets see, about 1p in change... receipts and oh! 500 baht! That’s like ten quid. Oh I’m alright now. I’m not as panicked. Not that I was panicked. All things considering I was pretty chilled.
I get off the beach and start walking down the road. This is tourist heaven. There will be free internet, or even just internet, around here somewhere. Then I see it. Massage. I could really go for a massage right now. But I haven’t showered in… actually 16/17 hours isn’t too bad and I haven’t done any running around or anything. A foot massage too. I did a lot of walking on hot sand yesterday and this morning. This is my new priority. And at just 100 baht an hour? Yup.
I think I’ll skip writing about the foot massage and write an entire post of its own as to why I like it so, so much. So I get the massage and continue walking down the road on what now feel like heavenly feet. After about half an hour of looking I find some free wifi. Great. Load up his facebook page. YES! We have his phone number. Score. Okay… my phone has no signal and I don’t know how much it will cost from a payphone to call a mobile, or where a payphone is… or how to use one here.
“Suwadee cup” Oh yes. For now, that’s as far as my Thai will stretch. “Do you speak English?”
“Yes” With a big smile.
“Ahh! Great! I am lost! I need to find my friend.”
“Where is your friend?”
“I don’t know, but I have his phone number. But I have no phone.” I said clutching my phone. I get a strange look. “No! This, no signal in Thailand! UK only! Use Wifi!”
“Ahh. Okay.” They get out their phone and pass it to me, again with a big smile.
“Thank you so much! Cob-corn-cup!”
Ring ring. Ring ring.
“Ben!! Where am I? Erm… ‘where am I?’ Southside. Wait! Near the McDonald’s! Yes I have some money. The bus station? A taxi? Yes. Okay. When? Now? Okay. See you soon.”
“Follow me, I show you taxi bike. To bus station, 15 Baht.” The guy walks me outside the café, round the corner and up a main road. We turn another corner and there are lines and lines of taxi bikes. He talks to one of them. Then turns to me and says “15 baht.”
“Cob-corn-up! Really! Thank you very, very much!”
I jump on the back of the bike and we speed off up the road. It takes about half an hour to get to the station, and I find Ben almost straight away. He has my bag, with all my stuff I’d left out packed away. But the bad news is we’ve missed the last bus back. We can get a bus via Bangkok, but that would involve big detours and long waits, turning a four hour journey into a nine or ten hour journey.
Ben is asking around at the various stops and then tells me and the other guy to just wait where we are. He disappears around a corner into the lorry-stop. Ten or fifteen minutes later he re-emerges, waving at us to join him. We turn the corner and find him talking to a truck driver. This particular truck is of the old world war two canvas style trucks. The kind you’ve seen in the film that soldiers pile into.
“Get on.” Ben tells us. “He is going Saraburi.”
“Great!” I say, and pull back the canvas cover at the back of the truck. But it is rammed, completely full of boxes. There is no space at all. I look at Ben who says;
“Not in, ON.” And points up. I look around at the side of the truck to see his mate climbing a material ladder, sewn into the side of the truck. Jesus. I climb up and to my shock we find a few baby seats and basic seat belts stitched into the fabric. We sit down and buckle up. As we begin to set off Ben turns to me with a massive smile and says; “Bridge… duck!”
The wind, the bugs, my face. Like my face didn’t hurt enough already after last night… it was an experience. A very cool one for the first fifteen minutes. But four and a half hours leaves your entire body numb. But who am I to complain? We got dropped off at Saraburi and they driver didn’t charge us a penny. I was happy to get home and crash on my concrete bed. I went to sleep very early that night.
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