Saraburi? Saraburi?

On Friday I decided to hop on a bus to Saraburi to go visit some friends from the program.

I arrived at the bus station in Suphanburi and attempted to ask for a van to Saraburi (vans are twice as fast as buses and definitely the way to travel) “yes, yes, van” they kept telling me but suddenly I was being ushered on to a rickety old bus that had unquestionably seen better days. I didn’t have much time to protest as the bus was already leaving the station.  Hope I am headed in the right direction!

Turns out I was placed on the slow boat to China (or in this case, the slow bus to Saraburi). This bus was slow as molasses and I really thought it was going to break down at any moment. It was also the bus that made stops about every 5 minutes. What I thought would be about a 2 hour journey in a nice air conditioned van turned into almost a 4 hour bus ride through the countryside.

I got quite concerned about hour 3 that I was not headed in the right direction. We were in the middle of nowhere and all of the signs were completely in Thai. About an hour later, still concerned that it was taking way too long, I attempted to ask what time we would be arriving in Saraburi. This was met with confused looks from everybody. “This is the bus to Saraburi right?” I asked. Silence.  More confused looks. “Saraburi?” I kept repeating. Nothing.  Then the lady made a bunch of weird gestures at me that I did not understand and told me to sit down. About 10 minutes later we arrived in Saraburi (thank goodness).

My journey was not over as I still had to figure out how to get to the school where I was meeting my friends. I attempted to ask how to get to the school which was again met with confused looks. “Anuban Saraburi” I kept repeating. Nothing. Finally someone understood and I was ushered to the curb. Suddenly, a motorbike taxi appeared in front of me and the driver was given instructions on where to take me. I hesitantly hopped on the back of the bike (my first time ever on a motorcycle) and we took off weaving through traffic. About 5 minutes later we pulled up to the school. Miraculously, I had made it.

What I thought would be an easy, quick ride tuned out to be quite the experience with a lot of language difficulties. On the positive side I got to see a lot of the beautiful countryside.  Sometimes the journey is just as exciting as the destination. And sometimes you have to put a lot of faith into random strangers. :)            

My time in Saraburi was short and sweet. I wandered through a big night market, tried some interesting street food (I passed on the fried grasshoppers), and met some great people. Ended up at a swanky Thai jazz club followed by a dance club with live music by a band called “Sweet Mullet”.   Wish I could have stayed longer but overall a pretty successful trip!