I spent the rest of the day and night in my cocoon, going over and over in my head exactly what got me sick or if it was just the shock of being in a new country after such a long trip. I was still very much disoriented from the whole experience and there’s no telling how it affected me. I can’t imagine coming here for anything less than a week… you’d be recovering the entire time.
After a fistful of Imodium and some Pepto tablets, I fell asleep, hoping to wake up early to catch a bus from Bangkok to Phuket, where I trained for my teaching job. I slept better this time and was grateful for a continuous, uninterrupted rest.
By the time I woke up in the morning, I was pretty much over my brief stay in Bangkok, knowing I’d be back in a little more than three weeks, with much more time on my hands. By now, I was keen to getting on the road to Phuket, which I knew was going to be about a 14-hour bus ride.
My Lets Go: Thailandbook told me about several buses to Phuket that left throughout the day, so I wasn’t too worried about getting to the bus station at any particular time.
I freshened up, eagerly packed and checked out. There was a tourism desk at the hostel, so I asked the receptionist about buses to Phuket and was shocked to learn there were only two, and the morning bus left at 9 that morning (it was 11 a.m. at this point) and the other one was leaving at 7 p.m… so now I had to find a way to kill the time in between, with the burden of my pack.
Normally, Bangkok would be the best and easiest place to kill several hours, but I was sick, disoriented and still had no real idea where anything was or how to get there… so I camped out under a ceiling fan in the lobby and read the entire time, using the opportunity to rest and recharge.
Finally it was time to board the bus. A cute, young Thai girl came around and sought me out for the bus, and was followed by a haggard train of dazed and confuzed backpackers like myself. Our leader guided us through a maze of streets to a large roundabout where buses congregated before shooving off on their various routes, and when we got to our staging area I was glad to finally relax, even getting some adrenaline flowing. I knew shortly I’d be on a nice bus to Phuket, an amazingly beautiful island that would be my home for the next three weeks.
Next to me was an attractive girl with really short red hair, a slender face, a tank top and some casual cargo pants – pretty standard outfit for the backpacker sort. I introduced myself, taking a shot she was American or at least could speak English. My gamble paid off and we had an easy conversation, talking about where we’d been staying, where we came from and where we were going. We casually chatted while a group of young Thai children kicked a soccer ball around us and our group. The sun was going down and there was a nice breeze and it felt like the first time that day that I didn’t sweat. It was one of those calming beautiful afternoons that are best shared with someone, if only for a nice conversation.
And it was then I really began to realize what my life was going to be like for the next several months, or years.
Before I left, my parents and I had a conversation about what it’s like traveling, and whether you get lonely and if it’s easy to meet people. Even with my relatively small traveling experience going to Wyoming and back, I had gotten a pretty realistic taste of what life is like on the road, and whether or not it gets lonely, so I told them that, hell yeah, it does get lonely, it gets real lonely. Like sitting at an empty booth at a deli in a gas station in the middle of the night in the middle of a snow storm in the middle of No Where, Wyoming by yourself for hours on end waiting for a bus-lonely.
But if you’ve ever traveled like that by yourself, you know that acquintences are always just around the corner, whether you see them coming or not, and when you meet people on the road, it’s a refreshing oasis for the pysche, an opportunity to reach out and establish a connection with someone else, who sometimes is in the same spot you’re in, and then it makes the loneliness tolerable, because those inevitable connections are that much more satisfying.
Turned out Chloe was obviously in the same spot I was in, traveling-wise and we shared an easy and comfortable connection immediately, and it made up for all the loneliness and isolation I’d experienced since I left Orlando.
We got on the bus and sat across the isle from each other, on one of the biggest buses I’d ever seen, with only about 10 of us onboard. So we had our own little section to ourselves. We got comfortable and as the bus took off we each looked out our respective windows at the fading density of Bangkok while the sun dropped below the skyline.
This was a friday night and the next night was the full moon. As the bus plowed south through the countryside, the jungle and the mountains and palm plantations were awash in the light from the moon, and every so often we’d pass a wooden hut on stilts, with dogs milling about and people squatting next to water spigots cleaning pots or filling them, or manning a wok or just sitting under a light, watching the nightly traffic pass.
A movie came on and we watched it. It ended and the bus grew silent. I laid my head back and tried to sleep, but couldn’t, so I looked over toward Chloe’s seat and she looked back, I smiled and we continued our conversation, and I was struck once again by how powerfully grateful I was that I had someone to talk to like her and I found myself wishing we were going to the same place.
It turned out she was going to some small coastal community to catch a ferry to an island, where she’d be staying for a few weeks before heading off to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
Such are friendships on the road. They’re notoriously unstable and infrequent, but incredibly satisfying, and we spent the next few hours talking about it, until, inevitably, the bus rolled to a stop and she got off.
Once again, I was alone, but I spent the rest of the trip reflecting on that brief encounter and looking forward to the rest that lay ahead.
