Ed - the following story was sent in by Chaz and should be a warning to us all.
Normally I travel to Trat on the Thai public coach service which costs Bt137 and operates from Sukumivit direct to Trat daily at 6.30am, arriving Trat 9.30am.
For the trip on Monday, I decided to do it in style using one of the many VIP mini bus services operating out of Pattaya. I paid Bt600 for VIP pick up at my door. The pick up was at 7.15 and I was the first on the bus. Unfortunately, what I thought was good fortune turned out to be anything but when I found out I was the first of many. To add insult to injury the driver was asking me for directions to various hotels around town. It was 9.00am before the bus was fully loaded. When I say fully loaded, I mean fully loaded. Every seat was taken and there was no storage for luggage so many sat with their cases on their knees. I felt really sorry for the two guys at the back who were carrying full size suitcases.
To the highway. The first thing we had to do was all get out again whilst the vehicle was fuelled with lpg. So that’s where the luggage space went!! Off we go again, very hot and very uncomfortable, thank god for vallium. I was awoke about 2.5 hours later to be told that we had to refuel again. Unfortunately, we were in a queue of cars half a mile long waiting to get to the lpg pump. Turns out the station had run out of gas and was waiting for delivery. That 2 hour delay really did drag.
Gassed up we were off again but not for long. We had to change mini-buses as the one we were on was actually doing a visa run to the Cambodian border. Guess what, we had to wait for the replacement mini-bus. Once on the new minibus it was just a short journey to a cafe by one of the piers where we changed our transport to a ferry boat.
I arrived on Koh Chang in the rain...at 4.30pm, a journey of 9hrs 45mins..... If I’d travelled on a Thai bus I could have travelled in relative comfort, been there 6hrs earlier and with an extra 450 baht in my pocket. We may think Thais travel on the bus services because its cheaper....na its cause they're not the stupid ones.
Ed - Given what happened to Chaz, the next time I travel by VIP mini bus I will be sure to check:
- What time the bus actually leaves Pattaya
- that the bus has storage space for luggage
- that I will travel on just one bus from Pattaya to my destination.
