If I had to describe Thailand's bus services in one word I would use the word CHAOS.  You never really know what is going on or if you are actually going to get to your destination (or when).  But somehow in the end everything works out okay.  They have this crazy sticker scheme where you get a certain color sticker depending on where you are going, but then they have all these add-on stickers for extras like taxi transfers and stuff.  You end up going through like 5 or 6 drivers in a day and you end up waiting in a bunch of random places throughout the day too.  Let me explain how my trip from Ko Samui to Phuket went today.  Ko Samui is an island off the east coast of southern Thailand.  Phuket is an island off the west coast of southern Thailand.  So I got on a pickup taxi to the travel company at 9am.  I then waited until 9:30am and then I boarded a bus to the dock in Ko Samui.  I took a 2 hour ferry to Donsak (on the mainland) and then boarded the same bus again.  That bus took me to Surat Thani where I was dropped off at a restaurant/travel agency.  We waited for 30 minutes and then got onto a pickup taxi.  We drove 6 or 7 blocks to another travel agency/cafe.  We waited another 30 minutes for a second bus to pick us up.  We left about 2pm and arrived in Phuket around 8pm.  The ride to Phuket we were stopping to pick-up and drop-off passengers.  Somewhere in the middle we stopped for 20 mintues to get food and drinks.  These private buses are like the public long distances buses.  Anyways we got to Phuket, but the taxi to the hotel was no there.  So we (me and a guy I met from Liberia who was going to the same place as me) had to call the travel agency.  Luckily he had a cellphone we could use.  We had to call twice and finally after 15 minutes a guy shows up to take us to our hotel, but he had no idea where it was and got mad that we didn't know either.  I told him I had the number if he wanted to call and he said staright out you call.  He had to be the worse driver ever.  But we finally made it to the hotel and to my surprise it is the worst hotel I have stayed in yet.



This isn't a great picture. but what I wanted to show you was not the plain basic room.  I wanted to show you the blue thing on the wall.  That is the curtains to the window that looks right into the main hallway.  So everyone that is staying in the hotel will be walking right past my window.  Isn't that great?  But what do I expect for $13 a night.  Oh well it is only for a few days and then I am off to a very nice and quiet beach resort in Krabi.  For dinner I decided to try the Pad Thai with pork again.  Last time I didn't care for it to much.  This time it tasted much better.



The best part about the bus ride today when we went through the jungle.



You can just see how green and lush it was.  It was absolutely beautiful.  And to make it better the bus driver was driving like a maniac through the hills as it was raining.  There were bags sliding around and the bus felt like it was on 2 wheels for awhile.  I felt like I was on one of those buses that you read about in the world news where a local bus in some tropical 3rd world country crashes or goes off the side of the mountain.  Well luckily we made it here alive and with clean shorts (for the most part).  :)  I have only seen about 2 blocks of Phuket so far and I can tell this is a wild place that definitely lives up to its reputation.  I think it will probably be too much for me, but it will be interesting that's for sure.