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Based on the recommendation of Claire, our Scottish friend that we keep on traveling with, we went straight from the Bangkok airport to the bus station to head to Kanchanaburi, a small town on the River Kwai. We only meant to spend a couple of days there, but the laid back atmosphere and our sweet hotel room that floated on the river and had a porch with chairs and a hammock extended our stay.

Kanchanaburi itself is a sprawling town but the touristic area is limited to a long street of bars, restaurants, shops, hotels and food cart vendors. It was walking down this street on our second morning that a guy on a motorcycle stopped and said, “can I say hello?” Not wanting to deal with whatever he was selling, Carrie and I ignored him and kept walking. It wasn’t until he repeated his question and took off his helmet and sunglasses that we realized it was our couchsurfing friend Tut from Phuket. He had just quit his job at the timeshare company and was making his way to South Korea. What a small world!

Along with Tut, we spent that evening at the night market where we wandered around sampling lots of foods and looking at all the junk for sale. The three of us also treated ourselves to massages: Tut and I got our feet done while Carrie got a full oil massage from a Lady Boy. The foot massage was quite nice and the masseuse used some form of dull pointed stick to access pressure points and kneed out knots that I had never experienced before. Very relaxing!

Waking up early the next morning, we rented a motorcycle and, with Carrie on the back, followed Tut to the Erawan National Park: home of a beautiful seven-level waterfall. Ranging in size and force, each level of the waterfall cascaded into beautiful blue pools perfect for swimming or other activities. One of the levels had a large mossy rock doubled as a water slide; we spent a lot of time there. Another highlight was swimming under a fall to get a massage from the water beating on our shoulders.

We could have spent hours at each level were it not for the little fish that bit the dead skin off of everyone’s feet when we stood still in the water for more than a second. More startling than painful, it still ensured that we didn’t stay at any one fall for too long. Fortunately, the crowds were not so bad and the higher up we went the fewer people we saw.

After saying goodbye to Tut, our next outing was a ride on the Death Railroad, which was named because of all the POW slave laborers who died building it during World War II. The trip started by going over the Bridge Over the River Kwai, which was made most famous by the old movie staring Obi Wan Kenobi himself, Alec Guiness. Carrie and I tried to watch it a couple of times before our ride but never made it past 10 minutes.

Death Railway chugged along for more than two hours, passing by streams, mountains and large caverns that had been dynamited out by the POWs. At some points the side of the train was literally inches from the face of the jagged cliff. We crossed a handful of rickety wood bridges over deep chasms and even went through a few tunnels. When the train reached the destination, we quickly hopped out and got a bus back to Kanchanaburi, finding it  just a bit silly that on one of our few days of not moving around we spent our time on two unnecessary forms of transportation.

Most of the rest of our time in Kanchanaburi was spent relaxing on our porch, wandering the main street, catching up on some much needed writing and photo sorting and eating lots of meals from an delicious and cheap local restaurant where we befriended the entire staff. My favorite part was playing paper airplanes with their two year old daughter while waiting for amazing pad thais and curries.

As always, trying to get information on traveling like a local from locals was like pulling teeth. For those who managed to actually get on a local bus they had to face super inflated prices, dangers and the occasional incident with police. Fortunately, for once we weren’t trying to travel like locals, as we only had 18 days to see the entire country and couldn’t waste the time. So, for $34 per person, we bought the open bus ticket that let us get on and off at six different destinations while traveling the 1000+ mile stretch between Ho Chi Min (Saigon) in the south and Hanoi in the north.

Buses ranged in duration from a few hours to overnight. They could be nice comfy AC ones just as easily as a teeny minibuses that crammed people, bags and even a motorbike into the seating area. The worst ride we had was an overnight one where we were in the front row behind the driver. There was no leg room and I was forced to rest my feet on either a fire extinguisher or the driver’s toothbrush holder all night.

When I did manage to fall asleep, I was woken up every few minutes by the sound of a horn: either ours or that of another driver. When I would open my eyes for a second I usually saw the bright headlights of oncoming traffic heading right at us from the driver’s window. I guess passing cars when he didn’t have enough time or space to do so and driving in the shoulder of the wrong lane was how he stayed awake all night.

On another sleeper bus the seats in front of us reclined so far that the only position I could sleep in was with my body completely straight, bracing myself against the wheel hump on the floor in front of me. At one point it was so uncomfortable that I took my blanket and slept on the floor for the rest of the night.

Cyclos
Buses aside, the other transportation method we used was the cyclo. Propelled by a Vietnamese man on a bicycle, it is a variation of your classic bike rickshaw. The seats are big enough for one person to fit comfortably, though locals often cram whole families onto one cyclo. As for us, we managed to both get into one only once. The other times they told us we were too big and had to take two. Really, they just wanted more money.

I learned how to drive a car in New York City rush hour traffic. I learned how to ride a scooter on the dirt roads and busy streets of India. So, it only made sense that I teach myself (with lots of help from Carrie) how to ride a proper motorcycle in Vietnam: one of the most dangerous places to ride in the world. Never having driven a stick shift car (successfully), I had to learn how the concept of gears at the same time as trying to steer clear of the constant flow of traffic.

My first day driving, fortunately, was in the quite town of Mui Ne, which was pretty empty. Unfortunately, shortly into my first day of driving we were hit by monsoon rains. I got the bike home with no problem but got soaked in the process. Next, I took it into the hilly mountains of Da Lat and had a quick crash course on how to use gears on steep inclines. Finally, we took another motorcycle out to explore Na Trang: a busy beach town. This was my favorite, as we returned to the hotel in the middle of rush hour traffic and I got to put my new skills to the test.

Traffic madness in Ho Chi Min

Traffic in Vietnam is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Stop lights are few and far between and motorcycles outnumber everything else. Intersections are the craziest, with all modes of transportation converging together and having a giant game of “who goes first.” Somehow, with a lot of honking, everyone gets their chance to go. Moto drivers tend to let the bigger vehicles go first, but at any given time another bike, car, pedestrian, cow or whatever can jump right out in front. I swear, crossing the street should be an Olympic sport.

Really, the whole thing is quite beautiful: like a noisy dance with a chance of an accident. I never dared to drive in Hanoi or Ho Chi Min, as they take the traffic to a whole new level, but I think I could have done it.

Crossing the street is terrifying in Ho Chi Min

The primary way for both tourists and locals to get around the country is via air conditioned bus. These range from deluxe first class to ones where the AC barely works. Either way, there is not much to write about these as anyone who has ever taken a long distance bus can picture the inside easily. Perhaps the only noteworthy part is the fact that loud Cambodian karaoke videos are blasting over the speaker system for most of the ride.

As for the Cambodian tuk tuk, it differs a bit from any I have seen in other countries. The actual carriage part is attached to a standard motorcycle by a clamp that straps onto the middle of the bike seat. The carriage can move from left to right but has a slight delay from when the bike actually makes the move first. It is also far less stable than other tuk tuks, as if the motorcycle falls over, it will take the carriage with it.

We knew that we were going to be traveling during monsoon season but, up until arriving at Kratie, it had never affected our plans. However, shortly after arriving the deluge began and we had no choice but to hole up in our hotel for the night instead of doing our planned activities. This was a big bummer, as our schedule had us on the first bus out the next morning and the town became a casualty of war.

The next day our early morning bus took us to Phnom Penh, the capital, where we had to drop off our passports at the Vietnam embassy to get a visa. We originally thought the process would take a long time and we would have to spend the night but it took less than five minutes.

At this point we decided to try and make the last bus of the day to Siem Reap that was leaving in 10 minutes on the other side of town. A taxi or tuk tuk would never make it so we hopped on the back of motorcycle taxis and sped off. Weaving in and out of traffic we narrowly avoided cars, trucks and other motos…but we made it on time. And then the rain began.

We finally made it to Siem Reap at nearly 10pm after leaving Kratie at 7am and hopped into a motorcycle tuk tuk to take us to our hotel. The monsoon rains were still falling and halfway into our ride the moto started to skid out in the mud. Bags went flying out of the open sides as we slipped down a small hill: the driver trying hard to get the vehicle under control.

We finally came to an abrupt stop and got off to reclaim our bags and survey the damage. No one was hurt and everything seemed fine until I discovered what actually caused the tuk tuk to stop: my DSLR camera backpack wedged under the wheel! We won’t go into the mini-freak out I had but when we finally arrived at the hotel I got to survey the damage.

Looking at my stuff I realized that the wheel had come to rest right on top of my big super zoom lens. Fortunately, I had a filter attached to the front of it that absorbed most of the damage. The filter glass had shattered and the ring that screws onto the actual lens was badly bent and could not be removed, but the lens itself still worked. To this day the filter ring is still on there and a few shards of glass remain. Guess it’s something I have to take care of when I get home.

One of the main attractions in Siem Reap, other than Angkor Wat, is a boat ride through the Flooded Forest and stilted village of Kompong Pluk. Located on the banks of a river that leads into a lake, the entire forest is flooded annually by the monsoon rains to the point where only the tops of the trees are visible. All houses in the village are built on high stilts that protect them from the rising waters.

Depending on the time of year there are two possible ways to get to the tour boat. During the monsoon season the water is high enough that a tuk tuk can drop tourists off at the side of the river where the boat waits. If it is dry season the river begins much further back. As such, the tuk tuk drops people off in a small town before transferring to the back of a motorcycle to drive down a bumpy dirt road to where the river is high enough for the boat to pick up passengers.

Our experience was neither of these, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Originally we wanted to do something else that day, but the hard sell of our driver/guide convinced us that this three hour tour was the way to go. So we hopped into his tuk tuk and after a brief stop for tire air and gas (bought from a shack on the side of the road and poured from a whiskey bottle) we were on our way.

A short while later while driving down a very rural road we heard the unmistakable sound of a flat tire and had to stop again, this time in front of someone’s house that happened to have an air pump. We sat there for nearly a half hour while they tried everything to repair the tube before eventually replacing it. While waiting, I tried my hardest to befriend a dozen curious but shy local children by making faces, playing peek-a-boo and more. In the end, I won them over with high-fives and by the time we left they were all smiling and waving and high-fiving each other.

Back on track, despite nonstop rain over the past few days, the monsoon season was still young enough that we had drive over the dirt road to reach the far away boat dock. So, at our next stop Carrie and I hopped onto the backs of two separate motorcycles driven by our guide and his younger brother and headed out. The tuk tuk remained behind for yet another tire repair.

Motorbiking through mud and pool-sized puddles

While there were a few puddles in the dirt road, there was enough space for the bikes to maneuver around them with little effort…at least in the beginning. As the drive continued the puddles became more frequent and the dirt road got more muddy. One puddle was actually more of a pool and, with no way to get around it, we drove through water at least two feet deep that engulfed half of the motorcycle and reached my shins.

By the time we passed the pool puddle the road was entirely mud. Still, our drivers pressed on: slipping and sliding the whole time. The bikes were all over the road and, despite his best efforts, my bike slid out and fell four times. Fortunately, falling off a bike in a mud pit is more funny than painful so it really wasn’t bad. As for Carrie, I guess the younger brother was a better driver because he didn’t fall once.

Not wanting to turn around, we kept going until a local man told our drivers that the road got even worse up ahead and we could not possibly make it on the bikes. So, with no other choice, we took off our flip flops and began to walk the final mile barefoot.

At first the walk was no problem; I even had fun sloshing around in the mud. However, shortly after we began walking the road dried up and became hot and hard. Making matters worse were the tire tracks all over the road that had hardened and become razor sharp. Needless to say, it went from a fun walk to a painful one very quickly.

Laughing at the absurdity of our tour was the only way I made it through the experience, but finally, about 30 minutes after we got off the bikes, we arrived at the dock. Here, our driver handed us off to the boat captain (a 12 year old boy) and the pilot (his 10 year old younger brother).

The boat tour itself was outstanding, even if the water level only flooded the trees half way up. I went nuts taking photos of the village on stilts, which was on a scale the likes of which I have never seen before. The entire village is based around the river that floods every year and boats are the only way to get from one side to the other.

Sadly, the villagers have tourism down to a science. At one point, a woman jumped onto our boat and got me to buy 10 notebooks to donate to the school children. When she got off there were four other women waiting to do the same thing who were disappointed to find that she had beaten them to the punch.

After spending a few minutes in the middle of a lake we were dropped off in the actual village for a walk/tour. How surprised were we to find a Buddhist celebration going on and a parade winding it’s way thorough the street. Townsfolk were all dressed up in their Sunday best, music and speaking blasted from a loudspeaker and everyone had a big smile.

All around, people hoisted up money trees and other gifts for a group of monks about to enter a three month period of silence and isolation. We followed the parade to a temple atop a hill where the monks sat accepting the donations while villagers banged ceremonial drums as loud and hard as possible. The scene was amazing and the people were super friendly, though it was very awkward when I had to give out the books.

Originally, I thought we were going to walk into a classroom and just hand the teacher a stack of notebooks. However, due to the celebration the kids were all in the street. So, at the urging of the girl who sold me the notebooks, I stood there and handed them. One by one, kids came up, accepted the books, bowed their heads and said thanks. The whole thing seemed incredibly fake and scripted and I was so glad when I got rid of the last book because it was also very awkward. Like, are these kids actually going to use them? Do they want them? Is the girl going to take the books back to sell to the next boat of tourists? I don’t know nor do I want to.

Waving goodbye to the townsfolk, we got back onto the boat for our walk back to the motorcycles. However, upon returning to land we were happy to find that our guide had found someone to drive us back to where our bikes were waiting. So, Carrie and I hopped on back of the best driver in town’s (according to our guide) bike and were amazed as he easily navigated through the mud and dry patches. The only problem with the ride was that the best path to drive on was right next to a wall of spiky bushes that often whacked us in the face, arms and legs. Still, we were too busy laughing at the absurdity of it all to care.

Once back on our original bikes, the rest of the return trip was much the same as the trip out there. Lots of slipping and sliding, another trip through the pool puddle and a few near falls. By the time we got back to the village and boarded the finally-repaired tuk tuk the sun was already setting, filling the sky with an awesome display of oranges, reds and blues. We finally pulled into our hotel after dark, having spent double the forecasted time on the tour and full of memories to last a lifetime.

A boat ride through the village on stilts next to the Flooded Forest of Kompong Phhluk

Buddha celebration at the village on stilts next to the Flooded Forest of Kompong Phhluk

Tourist Travel: Buses, Sleeper Buses and Minivans
Like most countries, Laos offers tourists pre-packaged ways to get from one popular destination to the next at a price way higher than local transportation. The advantage of taking one of these AC minivans or comfy first class buses is that they pick you up at your guesthouse and take care of all transfers along the way.

Overnight trips are taken on sleeper buses that literally have beds instead of seats. Some beds are big enough for one, others have space for two, though barely. The twin beds are very narrow and too short to lay straight on the back. This worked out fine for Carrie and I since we just curled into a ball and fell asleep next to each other, but we know some people traveling alone who got stuck with random strangers in their bed.

While we sometimes took the packaged buses, we also tried to do it ourselves in order to pay less and travel like the locals. While we always got to our destination, we often found that it took far longer, was more uncomfortable and cost just about as much. We still got the foreigner price, even on local transportation, and got none of the frills. Still, that didn’t stop us from trying.

Songthaew:
Take an oversized, rickety and old flatbed truck. Put benches on either side of the cab and possibly a third bench in the middle. Then put a canopy attached to poles overhead and cram on as many people as humanly possible. That’s a songthaew and the most common way to travel as these are the only public buses offered. Bags, chickens, bikes and anything else people carry are placed on the roof or tied to the rear bumper, which usually has an extended grate for stepping or storing.

On one particularly uncomfortable three hour ride from Champasak to the 4,000 Islands we joined 21 other people in the back of a songthaew, bumping our way over potholes and dirt roads. Tied to the back bumper were about a dozen pigs in a wicker basket and a few more stuffed into sacks: all tied down with rope, squealing and sending their stink wafting into the songthaew. I had a guy next to me for a while who used me as a pillow. Carrie was pointed at and discussed in the local language for a few minutes after we got on. Best of all, we paid as much as we would have if we had taken the AC bus. Gotta love traveling!

In towns there are other types of songthaews that are a hybrid of pickup truck and tuk tuk. Maybe 10 feet long, they run on three wheels, have a single seat up front for the driver and a cab-like back with benches on either side. They hold less people than their truck counterparts and go way slower, which is why they are not used for long distances.

Tuk Tuk:
Aside from the songthaew tuk tuk, Laos also has smaller versions of these popular Asian taxis. Still using only three wheels, the driver sits on what looks like the front half of a motorcycle (it is also driven like one) with an area to put his feet. The back part has two benches like a songthaew but is significantly smaller and can fit only four people (as long as they don’t have bags) comfortably…or as comfortably as one can sit on a wooden bench in a vehicle with no shocks.

Boats:
With the Mekong running through the entire country as well as tons of other rivers and lakes, boat travel is very popular in Laos. Options range from speedboats to ferries, motorized canoes, barges and even a long wooden boat big enough for hundreds. But more on that later.

Street vendors selling chicken, drinks and more surround our sangthaw in southern Laos

The Mekong River is the lifeblood of Laos, running through most of the country and providing resources for more than 50 million people. The shores are filled with villages, farms, boats and locals going about their daily lives. A glance into the horizon reveals beautiful mountain ranges, rock formations, blue skies and more. What better way to take it all in than a two day slow boat ride from Houayxai to Louang Prabang.

Filled with all Western tourists except for one Lao family and a few monks, our boat the first day was long, narrow, wooden and reminded me of a short ceilinged hallway. Our seats switched between the floor and thatched wooden chairs, as all of the comfy bus seat chairs were taken before we got in. The scene on the boat reminded us of a bar, as many travelers spent the day boozing it up on Beer Lao, singing and mingling. In fact, the most popular meeting spot was the line for the toilet.

While the party raged around us we relaxed in our chairs, watching the world go by. Fishing was a common theme as many local fishermen sat in small dinghies with bamboo fishing poles waiting for a tug. Others cast out nets to catch their day’s meal while others still just placed their fishing poles on rocks with a line in the water and left them there until later.

Every few hours the boat would stop on the shore somewhere to drop off something being ferried on the roof or to pick up more cold beer and we would be invaded by hordes of vendors: usually children. The boat was quickly filled with the sounds of “chips, coca cola, Beer Lao, pineappllllllle?” Literally, they were selling the same goods as the boat had for sale but for some reason they made a killing and left with their baskets empty.

Eight hours after leaving Houayxai we arrived in Pakbeng, a river town whose sole means of income seems to be the daily stop over of hundreds of westerns. There is one street that makes its way up a hill and features nothing but guesthouses, restaurants and little stores. While I’m sure that there is a whole other side to the town, it is one that tourists never get to see. After getting off the boat and a mad dash to find a cheap and good guesthouse, we spent the evening wandering around before the power went off at 10pm, as it does every night.

Day two of our boat ride began with a surprise: the two boats leaving that morning had been consolidated into one. So, instead of leg and walking room we now had more than 100 people crammed into a space big enough to fit maybe half of that comfortably. Our seats for the next seven hours were benches with little leg room and, although the scenery continued to be stunning, we were very ready to be done with the trip by the time we got off at Louang Prabang.

A panoramic view of the Mekong River from the slow boat including a look inside

With our new friends Claire and Karen in tow, Carrie and I left the Perhentian Islands in Malaysia at 7:30am to head to Koh Phangan, Thailand, for the Full Moon Party. Referred to as the best and biggest party in the world, we had based our entire schedule for Malaysia and Singapore around getting to the party. It was something that we just had to experience. Little did we know that getting there would be an experience all in itself.

Our day began with a quick boat “taxi” to the speedboat ferry that would take us from the Perhentians back to the mainland. From there we hired a proper taxi to take the four of us to the Thailand border at Sungai Kolok. Getting our passport stamped to leave Malaysia was quick and painless. Getting into Thailand was not.

First we had to undergo a health check, which involved filing out a form swearing that we had no swine flu symptoms and getting our temperature checked. After mine came out at 36.7 degrees Celsius the nurse showed it to me and said, “very close.” I freaked out a bit until I saw the sign that said 38 was the minimum for concern. What was she scaring me for?!

Next we had to wait on a long and hot line to get our passports stamped with our Thai visas. While waiting, a money changer approached me and tried to give me a terrible exchange rate. As everything does, it turned into a little scene that ended with me refusing to give him my money.

The encounter did have a positive effect though, as Reuben, a Spaniard traveling alone and standing behind me in the line, asked me why I didn’t want to change money with that guy. We continued to talk about traveling and soon established that he too was going to the party without pre-booked accommodation. And just like that we had a fifth member of our crew.

After successfully getting through the border check and entering Thailand we found that the train station we needed for the next leg of our journey was about 4 kilometers away. There were no car taxis anywhere so we had no choice but to all hop on the back of motorcycle taxis with our big bags. For ten minutes we caravanned through the streets of Sungai Kolok: waving, hooting and hollering at each other. Depending on whom you ask it was either a fun or terrifying experience; Claire said she had never been more scared in her life!

Safely arriving at the train station and buying our tickets to Surat Thani, we joined a train full of other Western travelers heading to the same place. The ride was long, dusty, hot and highly entertaining. Reuben was sitting next to a Thai who was drinking beer for 10 hours straight. Karen and Claire drank whisky with a Thai police officer in the food car. Carrie and I met an army officer who loves scuba diving as much as we do. Good times were had by all.

We finally arrived at Surat Thani at around 9pm and quickly started looking for cabs to take us to the boat dock. However, we had somehow picked up a straggler (we’ll call him San Diego because that’s where he’s from and I don’t know his name) who invited himself into our group to try and save money on the cab. He alternated between making sure to latch onto us and trying to find his own cheap deal. In the end he tagged along with us, which made us need two cabs instead of one and we all had to pay an extra 10 bhat for helping him. No problem, I would hope the same would happen to me in that situation.

The boat, which doubled as a cargo ship filled with food, beer and other dry goods, wound up costing double the normal price due to the party. The inside was lined with mattresses both on the floor and elevated in the aisles. Everyone had an assigned spot, though we did have to kick a few sleeping locals out of our beds after playing cards until nearly 1am. It took a while, but we all finally fell asleep to the rocking of the sea.

Arriving at 5:30am, we were awoken by the sounds of the ship’s horns and countless taxi drivers on the jetty shouting “good morning! You want taxi? Where you go?” through the boat’s windows. Still groggy, we had no choice but to enter the taxi gauntlet waiting for us and try and figure out where we were headed. Not surprisingly, it was at this point that San Diego reappeared after being MIA all night and tagged along with us. Our destination: a hotel with a room big enough for six.

The epilogue to the story is that Claire’s place didn’t work out but we did find a wonderful AC room that we could cram the original five into. San Diego had been both trying to find his own place and make sure to stick with us all morning just in case, so we were a-ok with him doing his own thing. We even helped find him a cheap single room, but were completely done with him. Finally, at around 8:30am we all plopped into our beds and passed out.

Final tally
1 train ride
1 motorcycle taxi
3 car taxis
3 boats
26 hours of travel

Views from the back of our motorcycle taxi to the train station

The scene on the dock when our boat arrived at the full moon party at 530am

We spent the night dancing and having a blast before going to bed at around 8am. Reuben returned. Karen came back. But where was Claire? This was the question we were still asking at 7pm when I hopped onto the back of a motorcycle driven by a Thai friend I had made. Our destinations? Health clinics and the police station to see if anyone had seen the girl whose passport I held in my hand. None of us knew what to do but we were very worried.

My friend told me that people go missing all the time and if she didn’t show up and we filed a police report that we would have to stay on the island until she surfaced. I had no luck on our motorcycle ride, but upon returning what did I see? Claire chatting with the girls telling a story about meeting new friends and winding up on the other side of the island with no cell phone. Thank goodness she was ok but what an experience for us.

The next day we all said our goodbyes and Carrie and started our 700 kilometer journey north to Chang Mai for some trekking. We had gone against our usual method of travel and booked a direct trip to Bangkok through a tour agent to make our life easier. Our taxi left the hotel at 11am and we next joined thousands of Westerners boarding a boat to what we thought was Surat Thani.

In reality the boat dropped us off a few hours later at some dock somewhere in Thailand where busses waited to take us the rest of the way. We were among the last people off the boat by the time we finally got our bags all of the busses were full and we had to wait on this random dock for nearly two hours before the next bus came.

When we finally arrived in Surat Thani we were left at a bus terminal in the middle of nowhere so we had no choice but to buy their overpriced food. Our bus left 30 minutes late and got into Bangkok 30 minutes early: at 4:30am. We hopped in a cab to the train station, booked an 8:30am train to Chang Mai and waited in the terminal for it to leave.

A twelve hour train ride later we got to Chang Mai. got in a cab, found a hotel and passed out.

Final tally:
3 taxis
2 bus rides
1 boat ride
1 train ride
34 hours of travel

Add the 26 hours to get from Malaysia to the full moon party and you get 60 hours of travel in 6 days. Had we skipped the full moon party and flown from Malaysia to Chang Mai it would have taken 3 hours. Was it worth it? 100%!

It didn’t take long for us to realize that Bali was unlike any place we’ve ever traveled before, in that it is nearly impossible to use public transportation. As always, after arriving at the airport we were greeted by scores of taxi drivers. And as always, we politely refused and said that we wanted to take public transportation. After finding another pair of backpackers and getting information on how to make the 50 minute journey to Ubud, we walked out of the airport towards the bus stand.

Public buses in Bali (called bemos) are actually little vans with bench or bus style seating. They do not go long distances and getting across the country can be done only by using multiple bemos for each little leg of the trip. Each bemo ride should not cost more than 5,000 rupia (50 cents) per person and should drop us off at either a bus stop or terminal where the next bemo should be waiting or on its way.

For locals in Bali, this is exactly how it works. However, as we quickly found out after leaving the airport, the reality is quite different for tourists. We had to haggle hard with every single driver  we encountered to get even close to the fair price and often drivers would just flat out refuse anything less  than 20,000 rupia per person to go even a short distance. Most told us that there were no more bemos to Ubud that day and we should just give them large sums of money to take us.

“But aren’t you a bemo?” we would ask the drivers. The answer was always the same: “yes, but this is a private bemo.” We would later learn that all bemos spend some time doing trips for locals but most just wait around and use their vehicle as a private transport for foreigners, as it makes them far more money. Very few public bemos were even willing to stop for us, as the system in place is designed to frustrate foreigners to the point that they throw their hands up and accept whatever price the private ones ask for.

The epilogue to our airport to Ubud story is that we finally made it there: four hours and four bemos later. We spent God knows how much time haggling and saying no to absurd prices and even despite our best work the trip wound up only being $9 cheaper than it would have been to have a 50 minute long AC cab ride from the airport to our hotel. At that point we too threw up our hands and decided no more bemos!

After a few days in Ubud, we decided to try out the other cheap option for travelers in Bali: the shuttle service. For anywhere between $5 and $20 per person, a private car will pick up as many people as it can cram in. Reservations are required, but last-minute additions are welcomed. Regardless of how many people are in the car, the per person cost remains the same. We were lucky enough to have our first one be for just us, but we have heard horror stories from other travelers.

While the shuttle service is ok, they only operate in major destinations. Other times, there is no choice but to pay a driver to go wherever we need to go. This is the most obnoxious of all, as they know you are lost without them and charge between $20 and $30 for a quick drive anywhere. We contemplated going back to bemos, but the odds of those working out in our favor were slim so we just sucked it up.

Next we come to the public and private taxis. In big towns like Kuta and Denpensar (the capital), iit is not hard to find a normal metered taxi. However, once you get out of these places the taxis are just more private drivers. As we learned, actual taxis are only allowed in a select few cities. Everywhere else, anyone with a car is welcome to line the streets and hawk out their vehicle for a ride. This results in the most commonly heard things on the streets of a town like Ubud being, “hello taxi? Yes, taxi? You want taxi? Taxi? No? Maybe tomorrow?” It gets quite overwhelming with more drivers than tourists and becomes something of a joke for all travelers.

Finally we come to the most economical way to get around that, unfortunately, we didn’t realize and take advantage of until the end of our trip: rental cars. For $9 per day we rented a Feroza, which is a Jeep-like bucket of bolts with a very wide turning radius, speed and gas gauges that don’t work and very little pickup. In order to rent it all we had to do was fill out a simple form with our name, address in the USA and passport number, but they didn’t verify any of it and I easily could have put down any info and still gotten the car.

As I can barely drive stick on the right side of the road, Carrie was our driver and did an amazing job navigating driving on the left side of the road and shifting gears with her left hand. We got lost a few times due to terrible signage in the country, but all in all the rental car was the best way to travel and we wish we had done it from the start…it would have alleviated much stress, hassle and wasted money.

Rating: Bali Low (except for the rental car)

“Can you help me? I seem to have gotten lost in southwest Thailand and am trying to find my way back onto the backpacking trail.” These are the types of thoughts that Carrie and I have had lately after our visit to the Andaman coast. It started in Krabi, where we headed to after Bangkok to check out some beaches, the stunning limestone crags that line the sea and to do some diving.

Upon arriving in Krabi, we quickly found that our ideas of finding a cheap local boat to take us around to the crags and beaches would not work. The system in place makes it very difficult to do anything yourself unless you know the right people or have a large group to split the costs. If you are traveling solo, or with one other person, there is little other choice than to go through a tourist agent to book a tour.

For two days we shopped around, comparing tour options and prices while trying to coordinate with our friend Sean that we met in Bangkok. In the end, we found a few we liked but first had to head to Kho Lak to see about scuba diving.

Though only two hours away, everyone we talked to said the only way to get there was an overpriced AC minivan. Even the locals we talked to said that it was the way to go, so we booked it and hopped onto the van that picked us up at our hotel…can’t complain about that. However, a mere five minutes later we pulled into a restaurant parking lot and were told to grab our bags and get off.

We soon learned that tour agencies sell tourists these rides without coordinating with the actual van company. Upon arriving at the restaurant everyone gets off the van and is given a little sticker with the name of their destination. The staff then has to figure out how many people are going where…and how to get them all onto the few vans that they have. For more popular destinations there is no problem, but some people had to go out of their way to drop off others first: no problem in a bus, but they paid for a direct shuttle!

Everyone was also told that they could be dropped off at their hotel if they had one, and if not the company had to book them a hotel or they would be left at the edge of town. This was just a ploy to get hotel commission, as in the end everyone was dropped off at the same place in Kho Lak and the driver refused to take people to their hotels. Thankfully, we knew better…but some in our van did not.

As one might imagine for a country in the middle of a civil war, there are military checkpoints everywhere. The most frequent ones we encountered were on the road when the bus we were traveling in would be stopped and people would have to grab their bags and head through an inspection station. Some were searched, some were not. However, Carrie and I would just sit on the bus and wait.

Eventually a soldier would come on and start checking the documents of the other passengers who didn’t get off. We have no idea why some got off and some didn’t. Anyway, the soldier was always stern and gruff with the locals but full of smiles when they got to us. “What is your country? How long in Sri Lanka? Do you like it?” These were the most common questions. I don’t think we had to take out our passports once, though one time I did get off and walk through the checkpoint just for fun. While others were being searched, I got smiles and chuckles from the soldiers and was waived on.

Our theory, which was backed up by talking to locals, is that everyone knows that it’s not the tourists who cause civil unrest. Sure, they might be a day or two over on their visa, but they still have thrown caution to the wind and come to a country that most dare not enter. Why would the Sri Lankans want to cause trouble with the few of us who are willing to come spend our hard earned money in their economy!

We had similar experiences with checkpoints when we hired a private driver to take us up north to the Ancient Cities. While other cars were stopped left and right at checkpoints, our driver just slowed down and let us wave to the army officer who quickly sent us on our way. When driving at night he had us turn on the inside lights when we approached the checkpoints in order to assure our speedy continuation. Usually, when driving locals, the driver has to stop at every single one and wait for the whole car to be searched. It really did make us feel like a sort of royalty at times.