Entering Thailand

Finally I was on my way to Thailand, the promised (by guide books and friends) land I had been yearning for: good food, people, places, decades of large affluence of masses of people, it should be easy living. The first shocking thing was the border crossing: it took over an hour and a half because both the Cambodian, but even more so the Thai government, does not seem to care about even the most basic degree of comfort or simple courtesy to the entering visitors, like putting signs, or a maze that clearly marks a line people should stick to or making immigration officers help foreigners when their “Thai Nationals” lines are empty, which seemed often, while I was stuck there. Their operations seem capriciously careless: it is hard for me to believe that the officers manning the booths did not notice that one line flowed to one booth, while another had two lines fed to it. Net result? If you happened to be in the wrong line, you would not advance. Why not make the elementary effort of forming one line and let each booth take the next person when ready? Things did not get easier from there. I realized that I was pressed for time: I had to reach the ferry departure point for the little Island of Sichang within a few hours, or remain on land for one night, not an attractive prospect, since this would be at a commercial port city. I asked a bus company, which claimed to be the only one, their bus wouldn’t leave for another hour. I went to change money and asked a bus that was obviously departing, personnel manning it said it would take me part of the way, then I would have to change. I did, and realized I had made a mistake: the second bus was blowing hot air instead of cool from the air conditioning. There wer no open seats, I squatted in the back of the bus, by the feet of a monk, who eventually got off and gave me his seat, which was far from comfortable. The bus stopped to let passangers off and on at any possible occasion, increasing the take for the crew (but not the company). By the time I worked my way up to the front, the bus was suspiciously empty: the crew fobbed off the 4 remaining passangers to a bus following it, it did not seem worth their while to continue the run, they claimed it was their last stop, I felt I was back in North Vietnam. The following bus’s crew (which was tailing and whose crew was briefed by that of the forfaitting bus) demanded an additional fare. Eventually I made the last ferry and arrived to the promised island of my Thailand seaside vacation, After a frentic passage through the bustling city of Si Racha.