How to move around in Thailand

Before we left to Thailand I promised myself I will not travel with organized tours, I will not get conned for a combined ticket by bus prepared especially for tourists. I will look on my own, because it’s cheaper and there is much more fun to ride with Thais in local buses than in packed coaches with lots of tourists with huge suitcases…

But it happened. The first attempts to find a connection with Railay ended already in fiasco. It was difficult to find an official website with schedule of the local buses, it’s hard to make head or tail of the train time-table, the railway station is far and you don’t know how early you need to buy the ticket… Of course, it is possible, but you need plenty of time and motivation, or, in the best scenario, a Thai friend.

Thais found a great solution for the massive amounts of tourists visiting their country. At every step there are travel agencies organizing all possible transfers and accommodations. And although is seems like (I was sure for a couple of days) it is a deftly organized way of taking advantage of poor lost tourists, it is not that bad. The prices are reasonable and you don’t have to worry about connections between buses and boats, boats and minivans, there will always be somebody to help you find water during a break, etc. And even though this kind of travel seems extremely chaotic, because you in a group where everyone goes to a different place and still they make you go to the same bus, they throw all the backpacks together, eventually everybody lands where they want, with their own luggage and quite onWe experienced it when we were going from Bangkok to Krabi. At the set time we turned up by the tourist agency, where our bus was supposed to be waiting for us. There had already been a group of backpackers, but almost everybody had a ticket to a different place: Krabi, Chang Mai, Phuket, Suratani. One person from the agency skillfully handed out stickers for T-shirts with some unknown scribbled words in Thai and took us quickly to the bus. The whole trip went smoothly, even the change to minivans when we started to divide in smaller groups. Even unloading and reloading of the backpacks went well. Nothing got lost. From Krabi we were supposed to get to Railay, but as it is approachable only by boat, it turned out that if we wanted to travel on our own, we would have to look for a local bus station and an appropriate bus that would take us to the appropriate pier and then wait for a boat to Railay. It would have taken us probably half day walking around in heat with heavy backpacks. However, for less than 5 euros the agency took us both in an air conditioned van to the right pier and the driver pointed us the place to buy the tickets. Similarly happened when we were going from Koh Phi Phi to the other side to Koh Samui. We bought a transfer and got to the island without any problem. There were more than 300 people and even more backpacks on the ferry and I still don’t know how they managed to organized it so quickly and smoothly.

I know it means taking a shortcut and I will not see the “Thai folklore”, I won’t talk with local people in the train or bus, maybe it is a bit expensive, but for sure convenient and fast. And how do you choose between the tangle of travel agencies? (Although they don’t look like travel agencies, it’s more a small stall with a dozen of posters with handwritten connections and prices). The best way is to do it at the place, day or two before a planned trip, go to 2-3 different stalls, ask about the price and choose the cheapest option. They are all the same. Or choose an option where the selling person was the nicest, because even if it is a little bit more expensive the difference in price will not be bigger than what you would spend in your home country on coffee or beer. I don’t recommend buying by internet months before, or even a week in advance, as you can’t predict if you won’t change your plans or find a better option. We made that mistake once, buying the open date ticket for transfer from Koh Phi Phi to Koh Samui still being in Railay, as the offer seemed more attractive. On Koh Phi Phi we realized that at every step the offers were even more attractive But is it really worth being worried, sniffy and picky if you can spend that time lying on a turquoise beach under a palm tree?

Magda.

More photos from Thailand here.