Public Transportation!

One of several types of Tuk Tuk's

Being here in Thailand without personal transportation has been challenging at times but interesting all the time! As I have mentioned before there are various types and modes of transportation that one can pick from in most situations. In the larger cities you have the most options of course, with the bicycle rickshaw’s, Tuk Tuk’s, Taxi’s, Song Tau’s, city buses, cross country buses and trains. In Mae Salit we have Song Tau’s going by approximately every 1/2 hour and you can use them to get all the way to Mae Sot to Mae Saring if you needed them too. You may be traveling with not only lots of other people but maybe a pig or two, maybe a chicken tucked under someones arm or lots of bags of produce or whatever needs hauling from point A to point B for the people in the area.

Different colors of Song Tau's means a different route

I enjoy doing the public transportation very much. It is a way to connect with the people and be one with them. It is so interesting to see how people react to us, how they live, what is important to them, how they are dressed and if there is anyway we can communicate or if we just end up smiling and laughing at our attempts to bridge the gap with each other.

Bus station in Chiang Mai

The front view 

There are obvious drawbacks to public transportation: 1. You are on “their” schedule meaning you end up waiting or running a lot. 2. You go only where they are scheduled or willing to go and maybe not where you need. 3. If you see a perfect “Kodak” moment, you will see it disappear also, most likely. 4. You may see the most interesting market or   store to purchase that needed item, but if you are on a bus it is impossible to stop and continue with your journey without difficulty. If it is one of the smaller modes it is possible to stop, although you will either have to pay a larger amount to keep the, let’s say, Tuk Tuk driver waiting for you or hope you are not so far out of the main thourough fares that eventually another one will come along before to long of a wait. In our area you know you will most likely have at least another 1/2 hour wait for another Song Tau or more. And, 5. If you are riding in anything other than an air conditioned bus, it is hot, windy and maybe crowded.

The inside of one of many styles of buses-this was a single level one

Laren and Davis sitting together on a City bus - much slower, non A/C

A woman selling "spirit" flowers among the stopped cars

Last week we had to do our visa run. We had two options that we knew of: 1. Go to the Immigration Office and pay the 1,900 Baht each and also each one of us would have to show that we had 20.000 Baht to prove we were not working for pay while we were here. We could do this in Mae Sot, which means only 

a 4 hour round trip as far as traveling time is concerned. OR 2. we could get bus tickets head to Mae Sai (it took us 13 hours total travel time with layovers and rest stops to go from home to get to Chiang Rai which is 60 km from Mae Sai, one direction) for 2 - 3 long days of travel and border crossing to get extensions on our visa’s. We thought we had taken care of all this before we ever left. We had gotton 3 month visa’s for each of us, but when we got to the Bangkok airport they were scratched out leaving us short the time we needed by 10 days!). We have been told by numerous people that it is much cheaper to use US money ($10 each) and supposedly, we do not have to show any proof of Baht in hand. We found out that that was true! We opted for the what seems much more laborious and time consuming option for 2 reasons: 1. We just plain do NOT have 20,000 Baht each to show them that we are not working. Period. And 2. This way we were able to meet our new school principal at the Chiang Mai airport and introduce him to the bus system when we went back to the school together on that Friday.