My day started with a 6 hour bus ride from Ayutthaya (The old Thai capital now filled with ruins) to Tak. Tak is a town with nothing going for it except it’s placement geographically. When the highlight of a town is it’s bus station, you should get in and get out as quickly as possible. I had decided to challenge myself and continue from Tak to see Tee Lor Su Falls, the largest waterfall in Thailand. This plan would be much more difficult than expected.
After arriving in Tak at night and barely missing the minibus rides to Mae Sot, a small town on the border with Myanmar, I attempted to get a ride from a taxi. Knowing the minibuses were less than 2 dollars, I refused to pay the 16 dollars the first seedy looking taxi driver wanted. Unfortunately for me, assholes exist worldwide, and not liking my denial of his ludicrous offer, he blacklisted me from the other taxis and my attempts to negotiate a better fare. I was later told by a fellow traveler that many small towns in Thailand have a “taxi mafia” where taxi drivers do not cross each other or negotiate prices, and blacklisting can happen for almost no reason. Because I refused the offer of the first taxi driver, and tried to find a better deal with another driver, I somehow became blacklisted, and no taxi drivers would speak with me anymore. Here I was, stuck in a bus station outside Tak, at night, with not only no transport to the town I actually wanted to get to, but also no way into or out of the cheerless Tak. I took a look down the dark road supposedly leading towards town, but with no idea how far away I was, nor if it was a safe plan to walk the road at night, I looked around for any other options. Luckily, after a 20 minute broken english conversation about how to get out of this place with the young Thai man at the information counter, a police officer who overheard the sad exchange mercifully gave me a lift to town in the back of his pick-up truck.
Instead of a relaxing end to the fruitless night, I encountered the bad side of cheap backpacker accommodation. Occasionally the 3 dollar per night guest-houses are great. Clean sheets, clean room, clean bathroom, all the basic amenities that you really need. This little hole was the bad type of 3 dollar per night guest-house. A single loud and rusty fan, softball sized holes throughout the window screens, a decor reminiscent of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and a grimy bathroom with plumbing that only emitted a dark and pungent brown liquid.
So, with no other options that came to mind, I covered myself with bug spray, put on earplugs to drown out the buzz of the mosquitos that were able to freely wander in and out of the room, and tried to concentrate on happy thoughts. The following morning, I ventured down the road for water so I could have my first “shower by plastic water bottle”. It was as exactly as fun as it sounds.