January 6, 2010 - Leaving Tonsai and Krabi behind

Today, we said farewell to Tonsai, and all of the cats that called it home.

They were a constant source of amusement, from doing cute things, to watching Vanessa react to their cuteness, and giving in by letting them drink the cream for her coffee.

 We've also left behind a number of new friends, new climbs, and spectacular scenery, as well as all of the locals that we've gotten to know, or seen around, who became a part of our lives for ever so brief a time. Locals like Chicken Lady, Fish Man, all of the boatmen, the amazing climber guides, and the amazing hostess at our resort.

For the second time in less than 2 weeks, though, I now find myself on a bus leaving Krabi town, this time heading North towards Bangkok, on the swankest bus I've ever been on - a first class air conditioned bus run by the government. It's a tall bus, which worries me once in a while as it sways pretty extremely. Once we reach Bangkok, the plan is to catch the train North to Phitsanolok and Sukothai beyond.

We spent a bunch of time in Krabi town before catching the bus, visiting a wat and grabbing lunch at Choke Di's while the skies opened up outside.

 

 So, here I am on a bus, drying out, wearing my $5 "Ray Ban" sunglasses, looking at the countryside pass by, expecting to see extremes of wealth and poverty; I see the wealth, but not really the poverty I'd been expecting from Jamaica or even the US, where I saw shacks right outside the walls of absolute mansions. I do see some levels of poverty here, but it doesn't seem quite so extreme. It might be because of the conditions I was living in at Tonsai, in a small bungalow with a rickety floor, concrete, basic bathroom, manual flush toilet...

But, right now I'm in comfort on the bus.

I was almost late for the bus at our rest stop. It took me a little bit of time to orient myself to what was going on, figure out how the open air food market worked, and I hadn't heard when the steward on the bus had told us that we only had 20 minutes. The rest stop itself was somewhat overwhelming, with a bunch of food stalls all scattered about, serving real food, that they would make when you ordered. When I got back to the bus, everyone was already on, and I felt bad that I might have held things up.

The bus, however, was extremely efficient - we actually arrived at the terminal in Bangkok at 3am - 2 hours early! None of us were completely prepared for this, all feeling somewhat dazed as we stumbled out and tried to orient ourselves. But, we eventually found some metred cabs to take us to the train station, where we booked our tickets and camped out on the chairs to await our train's departure.