Travel disasters Part 2
To date, the most amount of traffic I’ve ever had on my website in one day was the day I put out a blog post counting down my top 5 travel disasters.
Which, hello, is mildly offensive? Like, I’m out here putting out incredible posts about Seoul, teaching English abroad, chasing waterfalls in Bali, and THAT’S what you came here to see?
Some people just ~love~ to see you doing bad smh
Just kidding! It was actually also one of my favorite posts to write. And I pride myself on being super transparent over here in my little slice of the internet, and travel, while still my favorite thing in the world, is not always pretty. Far from it, in fact.
But when you get home, does anyone want to hear about the crystal clear water you saw? The tour you took through Paris? The view from the top of the volcano?
Absolutely not. They want to hear about the ferry from hell you had to take to get to said crystal clear water, how you got pickpocketed, and how you went straight from the club to the volcano excursion and had to hike it drunk at three in the morning so you could get there for sunrise.
Those are totally unrelated stories that have absolutely nothing to do with me by the way (😅).
Anyways, the last time I wrote a post like this, it was over a year ago - and I’ve done lots more traveling since then. Which, luckily for you, has resulted in an all new set of travel disasters and stories to tell you and my grandkids one day.
And these disasters are somehow so much more funny than me simply losing my wallet in the Seoul metro station.
Let’s get into it. And please brace yourselves: I’m really exposing myself here.
traveling from Siem Reap to Koh Phangan
Through the last 10 years of my life and the through the 30 countries I’ve traveled to, never. NEVER. have I EVER had a travel day quite like this one. It was an absolute nightmare. If I have any advice for you, avoid the land border crossing from Cambodia into Thailand at all costs. Here’s how my day(s) went.
My fav travel buddy Josh and I were traveling from Siem Reap in Cambodia to Koh Phangan, an island in Thailand to get there for the full moon party. On a map, it looks like a reasonable trip. A long trip, don’t get me wrong, but a bus, an overnight bus, and a ferry seemed do-able at the time. We left Siem Reap 4 days before the full moon, thinking we had plenty of time to arrive, make some friends, and be somewhat well rested for a crazy, world-famous party that lasted until the sun came up.
We optimistically booked the transit through our hostel, and hopped on a little shuttle that would take us to the bus station at 7 am. It was about 45 minutes to the bus stop, and we waited an hour for the bus.
To be fair, it was a fairly nice bus. The seats reclined and there was air conditioning - which is sometimes all you can ask for in Southeast Asia. Our bus driver, however, was extremely jarring, as he was REALLY stressing the importance of the border crossing. It sounded like he was telling us to get off the bus and run? We weren’t quite sure what he was even talking about. Josh and I looked at each other, and after verifying that neither of us had any clue what he had actually said, popped in our earbuds and promptly went to sleep.
We drove for about 4 hours before reaching the border. Right after getting off the bus, I ducked into the nearest restroom. When I came out, the bus driver started yelling at me and pushing me towards passport control. Josh - who had kindly waited despite the yelling - and I followed directions and ran into the building where I found *drumroll please* a very short, orderly line that we got through quickly. I was like, “Dang. this bus driver really has a freaking STICK up his butt. This is literally fine.”
Once I exited Cambodia and went to enter into Thailand, however, I understood. I’d spend the next 6 hours WISHING I had just got off the bus and ran.
Cambodia was all velvet ropes and orderly lines, while Thailand was a mob rushing this one tiny gate every 15 minutes when the officers opened it. Only fifty or so people managed to push through the gate each time, and there were HUNDREDS of us. Open air, packed in with travelers and locals alike like sardines, and heavy backpacks made for an EXTREMELY uncomfortable 4.5 hours.
It took us nearly 5 HOURS to push our way through the mob and get to the gate. There was no order at all and people were doing whatever it took to get through that tiny gate and onto the escalators beyond that would take us God knows where. Pushing, shoving, trampling, cutting people off and body-checking people with their backpacks - anything went.
This is where it gets horrific.
Josh and I are FINALLY somewhat close to the gate, which hadn’t opened in 30 minutes. We see the officials start to unlock the door, and everyone gears up. It’s GO time. Although Josh and I are a ways back, there was absolutely NO WAY we are letting ourselves miss this turn. We’re pushing, we’re getting pushed, and people are trying to squeeze through this tiny doorway with 65 liter backpacks and massive suitcases. The lady in front of me trips and falls to the ground, and the whole mob kept pushing me forward. I was trying so hard not to trample her, but three men behind me literally ~picked me up~ and *pushed* me through the door to keep it moving. Like, I was not touching the ground for the last few feet.
The crushing weight of the mob behind me was TERRIFYING.
Once I made sure Josh had made it through the gate too (which he did only by grabbing onto my sweatshirt and not letting go), I dropped to the floor and burst into tears. We were two weeks past the crowd-crushing incident in Seoul, (I used to live in Korea before this trip) and I never understood how something like that could happen until I felt the press of the crowd at the Cambodian border crossing and watched a woman get trampled.
From THERE, we entered another room with a tiny doorway everyone was vying to get through, and when we FINALLY got through that one, 30 minutes later we were met with the longest line I’d ever seen. To be fair, I was honestly just stoked to see a line in general, but it took us another three hours to get to the passport official.
We waited two more hours back on the bus (thank God) for the last person in our group to sort out some passport issues, but in the end the bus drivers just decided to leave him. I felt bad, but was also just so relieved it wasn’t me.
At that point, we had already missed our overnight bus that would take us to Surat Thani, the port city in the south of Thailand, so we spent the next 6 hours of the bus ride booking a hotel in Bangkok near the airport and buying flights that would take us to the port instead.
We crawled into our hotel beds at 12 o’clock midnight, after having left our hostel in Siem Reap at 6 that morning - absolutely DREADING our 5 am flight.
Let me tell you: moral was LOW. I was very thankful to have such a good friend traveling with me at that point - I would NOT have made it through that border crossing in one piece, nor would I have the willpower to keep the journey going.
One (too short) night of sleep and a BANGIN’ airport McDonalds breakfast later, we were on our (very delayed, of course) flight to Surat Thani.
The hassle didn’t stop there. The airport in Surat Thani is a solid two hours away from the actual port, and to put the cherry on top, we had bought the wrong ferry tickets. Shocker. At that point, however, I would’ve paid ANY amount of money to just be there already, so we shelled out some more Baht to jump on the ferry that could take us immediately.
Ladies and Gentlemen: one 2 hour ferry ride later, we stumbled off the ferry (me holding my lunch down BARELY), and set foot on Koh Phangan.
I honestly did not think we were going to make it LOL. 50 hours of travel later, we rolled up to our hostel and immediately took a shower and went to bed in the middle of the afternoon. I slept soundly until the same time the next day. It’s been 4 months and the border crossing in Cambodia still literally haunts my nightmares.
Missing the last bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Kong
Another transit nightmare was one the SHOULD’VE been simple but since I’m such an idiot sometimes, quickly turned into one of the sketchiest thing I ever did.
To set the scene, I was racing through northern Thailand to meet a travel blogging deadline. Despite my limited time, I was determined to see as much as possible, so during my trip from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong, I made a little pitstop in Chiang Rai to see the famous white and blue temples.
It was the 28th of September, and I was required to be in Chiang Khong at 7 am the 29th. My aim was to hop around Chiang Rai before heading back to the bus station and grabbing a 3 dollar bus that would drop me in Chiang Khong.
I glanced at the timetable, set a plan to be back by 4, and set off on my mini adventure.
I rolled up to the temples with all my backpacks and bags, and it was a big hassle of a day honestly. At one temple, I left my bags with a very kind monk (like bro I just mimed leaving my bags and he bowed at me so I assumed that was him saying that he’d watch them for me), but at the other temple there as a free luggage storage room, which was super helpful.
It seemed like no one in this region spoke English, however, and that made EVERYTHING difficult. I had trouble ordering food, finding luggage storage, getting taxis, the whole deal.
The temples were gorgeous, stunning, unique, everything I hoped they would be - and when I had taken my fill of self timer pictures, I decided to head back to the bus station.
When I opened the taxi app, in what comes as a surprise to absolutely no one, there were absolutely NONE to be found. I spent 30 minutes panicking and attempting to call taxis over and over before I literally ran into a random store and told the worker I would pay him if he took me to the bus stop in his personal car (AKA I waved some cash in this poor mans face and showed him a picture of a bus). It worked.
There I am, in the back of my first random car of the day, chilling with this man’s literal child next to me in his booster seat as we speed down the highway to the bus station.
I profusely thanked the man and paid him extra for the inconvenience, ran into the bus station and to the sign where it said Chiang Khong with three minutes to spare.
Except there was no bus?? I triple checked the timetable, and quickly realized what an absolute IDIOT I am. Guess what I did. I don’t even want to tell you. I’m so embarassed.
Upon further inspection, the timetable was in military time. When it said the last bus was at 14:30, my brain just completely ignored the 1 and all I saw was the 4. I missed the last bus because I DIDN’T REALIZE IT WAS MILITARY TIME AND THOUGHT THE BUS LEFT AT 4.
So, I did the only thing I could think to do: I burst into tears. Chiang Khong is 2 hours away, not an ideal distance to take a taxi. Upon seeing me in absolute SHAMBLES, a horde of tuktuk drivers raced over all offering their services. I eventually haggled the price down to 25 dollars (my daily budget was 35 so this was a HIT lol), and my tuktuk man pulled his little vehicle around, and I hopped in the back.
There I was, in my second random car of the day, hunched over in the back of this rickety little tuktuk as we fly down the highway. I’m like, mildly concerned for my safety, but fulfilling this travel blog commitment obviously meant more to me at the time.
We pull off the road (red flags were going off the second my google maps made a wrong turn), but we pulled into a gas station, which seemed like a legit reason to pull off.
The driver gets out and motions for me to follow suit. He gestures towards the tiny, crusty dusty sedan we parked next to. It looks like it’s barely being held together, the seats are stained with God knows what, and there are three Thai men sitting inside.
Keep in mind, literally no one is speaking English. My tuktuk driver gestures to the car and says: “My friends! Chiang Khong!” - and the men in the car all simultaneously cheer above the BUMPIN music coming from the stereo: “CHIANG KHONG!!”.
I sized up the car. Was I really about to get into my third random car of the day? Not even a taxi - a normal CAR. I’m literally crashing these poor guy’s road trip. (I’m also a little blonde, white, solo female traveler in a rural af part of Thailand, lol).
And I did.
Obviously I had my google maps pulled up and whenever we made an unexpected turn I made a huge fuss - frantically trying to download the Thai keyboard bc - who would’ve thought google translate doesn’t work unless you have the keyboard (common sense but just not something I thought about) - but it turns out we were just dropping off the other passengers at their respective houses along the way.
Honestly, towards the end, I was kind of having fun. They were trying to teach me Thai songs and doing their best to make me feel not as left out of this strange little road trip, and I eventually made it to my hostel safe and sound, although my pockets were definitely lighter.
Was that my wisest decision? Heeeeeck no. But in all seriousness, I’m never going to be distrustful of kind strangers in countries where the main contributor to the economy is tourism. Always follow your gut! And my gut told me I was going to be just fine.
(I did document the entire thing on my snapchat story and told people to call the embassy if I didn’t post at least once in 30 minutes though. Gotta cover your tushie amiright.)
Victoria being banned from Vietnam
While this story didn’t necessarily happen to me, it was still such a COMICAL, iconic moment from my travels that I absolutely HAVE to share it with you all.
During summer break, my friend Victoria and I decided to spend a week and a half traveling through Vietnam, as the flights from Busan were literally 70 dollars. We applied for our online Visas, planned our little excursions, packed our bags, and set off on our adventure.
We already knew our trip was doomed when I got literally every single one of my (travel sized!!!!!) liquids thrown away in security, and once we were through to our gate we realized we didn’t take out any cash from an ATM ~OR~ call our banks to let them know we were traveling internationally.
There was no ATM in our terminal either, and of course it was a bank holiday that Friday as well as the next Monday, so we just crossed our fingers that we would be able to pay for everything with card.
We bought drinks at the coffee shop across from our gate (like usual? once you get through security I always get a drink and have never had an issue bringing it on the flight???), but the gate agents made us throw our drinks away before boarding.
Our 5 hour flight took off and we quickly realized we weren’t even getting a SIP of water on this plane without some cold, hard cash, (they didn’t accept card!) so we did our best to sleep it off and ignore the sense of impending doom we were both feeling.
When we touched down in Da Nang, we were both about to die of dehydration very ready to get some water and food in our systems. We were all but running to get through passport control so we could get a dang bottle of water and some freaking lunch. I got through no problem and I turned around to wait for Victoria, but when I saw the officer stand up out of his chair and walk around to where she was, my stomach flipped and i KNEW something was wrong.
Enjoy this photo I snagged when I knew things were about to take a turn for the worse.
They let her come over and give me the rundown before escorting her into the back offices: On her visa application, she wrote the dates of our trip the American way - month, day, year. If you’re from America, take note. Literally everywhere else in the world writes the date day, month, year.
Moral of the story: her visa was for December 8th, not August 12th. 12/8, not 8/12.
Somehow, the officials at the Busan airport didn’t catch it, and let her get on the plane illegally. They wouldn’t let me stay with her, so I went to go find food, crossing my fingers that she could cry her way out of it or something.
I’m texting her from the airport cafe for the next 2 hours, absolutely devouring my Bahn Mi, while she’s literally in custody. They kept trying to get her onto a plane straight back to Busan, but she brought in the big guns.
And by big guns I mean crocodile tears and the blonde friend card.
Who did they think they were, splitting apart this duo of young girls, leaving the little blonde girl to fend for herself in Vietnam?? How could they sleep at night??
Long story short, they agreed to giver her an emergency visa. It was going to cost 250 USD, and she wasted no time in handing over her credit card.
To which they said - and lets all say it together - “CASH ONLY”. And they wouldn’t let her leave the room.
So they sent an officer to me carrying her credit card, and operation try to get money out of the ATM for the 1000th time was a go.
Obviously, neither of our Korean cards were working at the ATM - so I ignored everything my parents ever taught me about using credit cards to get a cash advance and pulled out some money on my Capital One international card, hoping that my credit score wouldn’t take too big of a hit.
I hand the money back to this random airport worker, desperately hoping that it would get to Victoria.
Thank God it does, and after another hour and a half she emerged from the airport and had a massive full page emergency visa in her passport, but it also came along with a big old red X.
Apparently, they told her that they’d let her in, but since she technically arrived illegally, that she was banned from ever entering the country again.
Ladies and gentlemen: Victoria managed to get banned from a whole freaking country before she even got through customs.
The entire, shambly trip, we kept joking that we needed to get the extra bowl of pho, we needed to spend the extra money on a nicer Halong Bay cruise, we needed to get another drink (as if we had the cash for that) because, well, it’s Victoria’s one and only time in Vietnam!
And we sure did make the most of it.
Ft. one of my favorite silly little pictures - if you look closely it’s a picture of Victoria and I:)
Knocking out my tooth in Laos
Here’s the backstory. I was desperate to complete the Ha Giang Loop in Vietnam - and I wanted to do it myself. Not on the back of a local’s motorbike, I wanted to do it all by myself. The only problem was - I had never ridden a motorbike before. And I was just a week and a half away.
Luckily, in Laos, they drive on the right side of the road, which was one less thing for me to worry about - so I took a day, rented a motorbike, and did my best to learn.
And it went well! And it continued to go well for the next few days.
If there’s one thing about me, as I’m sure you all know, is that I’m slightly delusional at all times and very overconfident in my abilities. This was absolutely no exception.
In my mind - I was a full blown biker chick at this point.
So setting out on my own in Vang Vieng to go hiking seemed like an absolute piece of cake, despite the AWFUL roads that Vang Vieng is known for. Potholes, mud, gravel, dirt, huge loose rocks, puddles, Vang Vieng has it all.
So there I was, going way too fast, obviously, when it started to rain. Unfortunately, I didn’t have sunglasses or a visor on my helmet so it was getting harder and harder to see. I was squinting a little bit, still going about 45 miles an hour, swerved to avoid a pothole, hit another pothole, and flew over the handlebars of my bike - landing mouth-first on ANOTHER pothole. I literally CURB-stomped myself.
As soon as it happened, my tongue felt my front tooth and to my absolute HORROR, it was angled completely back towards my throat. My heart immediately dropped into my toes. My first thought was, “Dear God this cannot be real. Not my front tooth, not in LAOS, not in Vang Vieng - a town with NO HOSPITAL.” Like, imagine trying to make friends as a solo traveler when you have one front tooth.
I looked in the one rear-view mirror on my bike that survived the crash, blood, mud, and gravel smeared all over my face and in my hair, panicked, and did the only thing I could think to do: I pushed it forward and up as hard as I could. That tooth was NOT coming out of my mouth. Not on my watch.
The front of my shirt was ripped, my left leg was demolished, I had gravel imbedded up and down my body. It’s pouring rain, I’m alone with no Data, (got scammed with the sim card I got, go figure), so I have no choice but to pick up my bike and get back on.
I’m literally sobbing, wishing I could just go home, not even entirely sure which way the hostel was. I started driving back towards the hostel, but quickly realized I was going to pass out, so I pulled off, put my kickstand down, and promptly hit the ground for the second time.
After I came-to, I peeled myself out of the mud like the freaking walking dead, got back on my bike AGAIN, and finally made it back to the hostel.
Of course, back at the hostel, it was perfectly sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and I roll up soaking wet, covered in mud blood, and gravel - suffice to say I caused quite the commotion.
Obviously, as all travelers do, everyone jumped to my aid, cleaning me off and patching me up, helping me book bus tickets to the capital and the closest hospital for the next day. I held off on texting my parents for the first few hours until it was a reasonable time in the morning for me to wake them up.
When I finally got over my ego and texted them, behold - This is what my dad sent in response with the message, “are these the vibes?”
Needless to say, I was thoroughly unamused.
My next plan of action was to call my Italian friend Stefano the dentist, who I met on the trip where Victoria got banned from Vietnam, and asked him what he would suggest I do. He instructed me to wear my retainer to hold my tooth in place (I did happen to have my retainer with me - and hadn’t worn it once the entire trip, no shocker there), so I popped that baby in, had a successful appointment in Vientiane, and carried on with my life!
It’s fine now, after a root canal in America, but while it was happening, I had to keep repeating my motto to myself, “We keep it freaking moving.”
And I did!
I got back on my bike, and completed the Ha Giang Loop by myself. I rented a bike in Thailand and rode all over Koh Tao. Learning how to ride a motorbike gave me so much freedom in the rest of my travels - something I would knock my tooth out all over again for.
I’m so glad I wasn’t scared to try again, and completing my goal despite the disaster that struck just a week before made an epic adventure in Vietnam mean that much more to me.
That sums up my most recent travel disasters!
With a post like this comes the obvious disclaimer that despite all the crazy, hectic moments, injuries, and crises, is how much I truly love to travel. I do not tell you any of these stories to deter you from traveling or to freak you out, but to show you that to travel is to adapt and improvise.
Whatever travel throws your way, you just adapt the best you can, and you keep it moving! One thing about us humans is that we always get through the trials sent our way, even if they seem like the end of the world while they’re happening.
I’ve CLEARLY had my fair share of less-than-fabulous moments, but something that’s always helped me is acting like I’m already telling the story to people back home.
Yes, I was absolutely TERRIFIED that I might have to have a dental surgery in a country most people haven’t even heard about, but the entire time I was documenting it on instagram stories and posting updates on how much lip filler it looked like I got.
Was I scared that something could go wrong when I hopped in that silly little sedan with three strangers in rural Thailand? Absolutely. I also documented the whole thing and made it a saga on my snapchat stories to keep my mind in a lighthearted space.
Live the situation as if you’re already telling this hilarious story to friends back home, and it can help your attitude and give you the knowledge that you will get through it, and at the end of the day, all it will be is another one of your crazy travel stories.
