Thailand

Im in Thailand now, although yesturday I had a tad bit of a hard time getting across the border. My 4 hour journey to Trat, took 12 hours and I ended up in Bangkok....At 6:30 in the morning took a share taxi from battamabang to the Pailin border crossing to Thailand, its open to foreigners but not that commonly used, I paid so much money for this car that they crammed full of supplies and people, that Im sure I paid far more than all the others combined. I arrived at the crossing and the Cambodian border guard showed me a new regulation, keep in mind he spoke barely any English. The sign said that in order to cross into Thailand you needed to have travel arrangements or a bus ticket. It was unclear, so the Cambodian officer drove me to the Thai side, who didnt speak any English, because I didnt have the documentation they wanted and they wouldnt take a bribe?!!? I couldnt get across. Ahhhhh. So they let me know that there was another crossing that a motorbike could take me to, where I could buy a bus ticket?, now this border crossing was 2 hours away and NOT on the map...so I hopped on the back of the bike and headed through the middle of nowhere. At the time I arrived I saw a group of foreigners and I was shocked....so I ended up having to pay a huge amount of money for the cambodian side to print me a fake bus ticket, just to prove that I had travewlled in cambodia I guess?! They told me that there was a mini bus heading to Bangkok and that it was leaving right away and if I didnt take it he couldnt help me....which was true. I went through the border and hopped on a bus to Bangkok full of tourists, eventhough trat was only 45 minutes away there was NO one to take me!!! Turns out that the driver, a lovley german man, has a business of doing visa runs for people living in thailand but from other countries, and it just so happened that at the exact time I was there he had brought a group of people to re start their visas and had he not been there I would have been up shit creek with out a paddle. Once I found this out I understood why the thai border officer called over the other officer to tell her that it was my 1st time in Thailand and he shared his food with me :) Claudio told me that NO ONE uses that crossing!!!

When I arrived in Bangkok I was unprepared because I wasnt expecting to end up there....Claudio invited me to stay with his family for the night and it happened to be his sons birthday party, I met a whole house full of amazing thais and ate the most amazing food!! Today Im heading to Koh Samet for 5 days before meeting up with Ash again Bangkok!!!! Later, megs