test-thai copy.JPG (6976 byte)
Thailand
-about this travel
-photos
-funny stories
-travel tips
The towns
# printable #
  ASIA
Iran
Laos
Cambodia
Uzbekistan
Kyrgyzstan
Northern India
China
Pakistan
Iraq (Kurdistan)
Syria
  AFRICA
Mali
Senegal
Uganda
Rwanda
Ethiopia
Somalia
Guinea
Sierra Leone
  AMERICA
Nicaragua
Chile (Patag.)
  EUROPE
Albania
Russia
Bosnia-Kosovo
Belarus
Ukraine (Kiev)
Milan-Scotland
hitch-hiking
Hungary 98
Poland-Czech 98
Lith.-Latvia-Estii 98
Germ. -Austria
Denmark
Eastern Germany
Holland
  LIVING IN:
Sweden
Poland 04
 arrw08_09c_new.gif (157 bytes) HOME
 arrw08_09c_new.gif (157 bytes) BEST PICS
 arrw08_09c_new.gif (157 bytes) Panorama pics
 arrw08_09c_new.gif (157 bytes) The worst
 arrw08_09c_new.gif (157 bytes) Visa
 arrw08_09c_new.gif (157 bytes) About me
 arrw08_09c_new.gif (157 bytes) In Italian
 arrw08_09c_new.gif (157 bytes) Contact me
 arrw08_09c_new.gif (157 bytes) Links
 arrw08_09c_new.gif (157 bytes) Credits
guestbook2_md_blk.gif (5856 byte)

HOME > Thailand > funny stories   

Funny stories

 
  1. IN POIPET, THE CAMBODIAN BORDER, I GOT SHOCKED

  2. LAO VISA, IF I HAD KNOWN I WOULDN'T...

  3. GETTING THE FEET MASSAGED I MET...

 


IN POIPET, THE CAMBODIAN BORDER, I GOT SHOCKED

 

It's called Poipet. If you pass through there for sure you won't forget this name.I mean one of the two border points between Thailand and Cambodia opened to foreigners.
I got there from the town of Siem Reap in Cambodia. It took me several days to reach Siem Reap from the Lao border, I mean spending days sweating on a kind of wooden raft, then toasted on the roof of a steel boat and finally packed in a 30 people van jumping and jolting on bumpy strips of earth called roads. Lonely Planet warns you about your freaking out moving in Khmer land, so you cannot complain saying; "if I had known. " since you knew. That's way I was just patience and tried to enjoy everything,: people, landscape, town, cows, rice. hence time flew till the moment I realised in few hours my ass would have had peace.
This happened to me in Siem Reap thinking that in 8 hours I'd have reached Poipet, the border with Thailand. Those hours turned out endless and the bumpiest of ever; the average speed was at most 20 km/h and in addition the rusty old "bus" punctured. I still remember the driver getting on asking about volunteers who help fixing the tyre (and melting under the hot sun). Of course I dodged.
Finally we approached the border. One km before it the bus stopped and the drivers shouting to beware of thieves dropped us off. What I particularly remember is the dust, lifting from the semi unpaved road, clouding everything and the people pushing overloaded rusty trailers. I got my passport stamped and I started walking towards the Thai border stared by dodgey people doing nothing but standing there. While walking I saw a huge brand new glass-aluminium structure, it was a casino and then the Thai flags. The road became paved and the dusty disappeared. Just besides the border a clean polished market and same sparkling air conditioned vans ready to leave to Bangkok instead of the Cambodian rusty old bus.
Air condition. yeah it was three weeks I was longing for it!! Just I got on the van a man brought me same bottled water and a sandwich included in the travel fare. I was astonished. Five hundred meters from the border a four lane highway took me in Bangkok in four hours covered at 120 km/h.
This huge gap between Thailand and Cambodia once again shows how the political stability determines the development or the destruction of a country more than its resources or its geographical position.
.

 

 

LAO VISA, IF I HAD KNOWN I WOULDN'T...

 

I was just arrived in Thailand trying to figure out how to get a Laotian visa as soon as possible when I met a woman, who run a hostel, saying she could provide it for 30 $. I decided to trust her (frankly I didn't have other chances) and I left her my passport paying in advance. Unfortunately it was Friday hence there was no way to have it before Tuesday. It meant four days but, at least I could get it in Huay Xai, the town at the Lao border where she had another guesthouse. I was worried of separating from my document at the beginning of such long trip, having just a piece of paper as receipt and I was looking forward to get it back.
Time flied while I was hanging out in the north of Thailand thinking where my passport could be, like a daddy anxious for his kid. Finally it comes Monday and I went to the indicated guesthouse in this small town in the middle of nothing asking at what time I should have picked up my passport with the visa the day after.
"Boh?? Maybe at 7 a.m., maybe at 9 a.m., maybe at 11 am, maybe tomorrow"
"What?? But my boat to Luang Prabang is at 9 am and I've to buy the ticket in advance before it gets fullbooked!!!"
"Don't worry you can buy the ticket anyway"
"That's for sure,!!!! But what about getting back my money if I don't receive my visa in time??"
Here started a persuasion about having promised they would have taken the ticket back. It was pouring the next morning at 6 am while I was standing in front of the guesthouse "reception" (I mean a scrap wooden table) plaguing the girl for my visa. I think she was eager to kick me my ass the fifth time I asked her how I would have known when my passport were received. But she didn't and told me to be patience. Every minute to me seemed hours thinking about my boat. And what about if nothing would have happened?? Where the hell should I have gone to complain??
No way! At 8.30 am a young guy came riding a moped through the muddy puddles with a bag containing my passport! Yeah!! I was excited when I crossed the Mekong on one of this narrow unstable pirogue, but I turned quite upset when I saw it was possible to get it at the border for almost the same amount of money. And you don't even need the pictures!!
Shit !!!
The last but not the least, the boat left Huay Xai more than four hours later; lots of efforts for nothing.

 

 

GETTING THE FEET MASSAGED I MET...

 

It was one evening in Chiang Mai while I was walking in the crowdy centre, that I wanted to have my feet massaged. I lay down on a deck chair right at the side of the main way were hundreds of people where strolling with nothing to do but looking at me and at the stalls. I wasn't bothered, on the opposite I enjoyed this "being in a window shop" feeling. A respectful old lady spread on my legs a kind of eucalyptus essence. A good flavour but so strong that for the next hours even the cats runaway from me! A bunch of seconds after she started massaging I realised the Thai massage is not a relaxing one, but it aims to stimulate the muscles. It can be sorrowful and sometimes it was, but at the end I felt my legs fresher and more in shape.
Anyway while I was lying on the deck chair letting the old lady to do everything she wanted to my legs, I noticed the people, especially the young girls, looking in my direction whispering to each other. There was an agitation around me more than elsewhere. I realised what was happening when a young girl went to the guy lain next to me with a piece of paper and a pen asking for a signature. And then another and another. I glanced at him wondering who was.
After a while I didn't withstood asking it to him. He turned quite disappointed hearing my question and answering he was a famous actor.
The worst for him came up when I kindly asked:" famous?? Where?" and, even more disappointed than before, he answered:" famous in Thailand".
Then I shut up felling I had grounded his proud.
Sorry man, despite globalisation Asia is still so far from West world.


about this travel photos funny stories travel tips The towns printable