Twelve In A Row Part 1

At The Victory Monument

As early as 4.00a .m, we (Koko and me) prepared ourselves for our travel to Ratchaburi.  The van picked us up at 4.30 and safely we reached Victory-Bangkok after the three hours and thirty minutes ride.  Though we were still sleepy, we were able to find the van station after all the confusing directions given by the bystanders.

I rang Elia for the direction to her place and she instructed to take a van under the foot bridge. She was  assuming I got it clearly but as  I looked around the rotonda ,OMG! there wasn't only one or two foot bridges but maybe more than ten! So, which one?

My hubby bought a cell card so we could have something to use whenever we run out of money in our phones.We decided to ask the man near those vans parked picking up passengers.  "Kothot ka,  rot tu ti pai Ratchaburi jot tee nai ka?'' (Excuse me. Where is the van station for Ratchaburi?) The man wasn't so sure so he asked me again, "Ratburi la krap?'( Do you mean Ratburi?) I said to the man clearly that it was RATCHABURI but he got a facial expression  so my hubby said ," Yes, Ratburi ", so I turned to my husband and said "not Ratburi but we're going to Ratchaburi. ,right?" Koko just rembered that Thais accustomed themselves to writing things or names of places the way they wanted to not as the way they arepronounced, like:
            (spelled) Ratchaburi= (they say) Ratburi
                         Chantaburi= Chanburi
                        Pattumthani= Pattong
                        Suvarnabhumi airport= Suvannabhum airport
It's sooooo confusing!  At the end the man understood we were bound to Ratburi so he said it is near the C.R. (comfort room).  Now, we had to go around where that C.R. was. It's sad we couldn't locate.
We saw a bystander and we asked again for Ratchaburi but this time I said Ratburi.  The man was nodding his head and pointed to  the place. We were glad  we didn't need to argue how to say the name of the place. We made sure we were going to the right direction as he instructed. After a few steps we were standing in front of a food shop. We were not buying food ?? No, no, no was that guy joking on us to eat some food first?Oh, enough asking strangers! We'd rather read the placards. Why didn't we did that in the first place the fact that we can read Thai? LOL. A case of stupidity on our part?

 Thank God we're able to find the station. We ended up laughing. The truth is we passed by the station .Haven't we got four eyes. I couldn't imagine ourselves being directed, go straight, to the left ,to the right 'til we were lost.

Oooops! It's not yet the end of my story. What happened next?