Losing my Passport in Thailand
Never lose your passport. It is the golden rule of travel; the key to a stress-free journey; the epitome of a bad one. What are the procedures? Do they send you straight home on the next flight? When I lost my passport on the 26th of May, I spent the evening battling with loud, crackly phone calls to Thais with little grasp of English. Miew and Ruang, the in-country coordinators for Projects Abroad in Thailand, also called the bus company – no trace. Fiona, Natalie and I spent the night at Blue Juice. In the morning they were gone; the original plan was for us all to go to Ao Nang for some R&R on the beach. I sat at Chao Fa pier, waiting to go across to Koh Klang to leave some stuff with Bulan before heading off to Bangkok on the five- o’clock bus.
The boat drivers all wear baggy long shorts and laze on the stone seats, gazing at us, the waiters, with a smirk from behind fake designer glasses. Another walked up some steps into the waiting area, singing in broken words and causing his colleagues to grin. He walked off briefly, doing reconnaissance for more tourists, honing in on any unwieldy travellers and shouting destinations at them, “Rilay!”
A local bus wheels past, eager to get in on the fresh pickings as well. It twiddles the horn and the driver leans out, “Ao Nang! You leave now!” The traveller ducks away into a nearby restaurant, escaping the vultures.
An older boat driver sits with us. His greying hair is contained under an old knitted beanie. He scratches his belly through a grubby singlet with no shame…
On the water, we passed three men in a boat on the bank of the river, fishing lines trailing into the water. The middle man jerked at his fishing rod and began reeling it in. The boatman slowed the engine, standing to look back and see what was caught. After a few seconds a small silver fish flew wriggling out of the water. We both laughed at the anti-climax.
Coming back to Chao Fa pier, a storm rolled in from the sea, flattening commotion and causing everyone to retreat to cover. I ran back to Blue Juice on the other side of the road. The electricity was gone. A rock-grey light filled the restaurant, its open frond looking out on to the soaked road. I enjoyed a steaming bowl of Tom Yah Leung, a mild and fragrant soup with plenty of garlic, ginger and lemongrass creating a rich, creamy flavour that was, at the same time, light and tart. The rain died down but did not abate.
I headed to the police station down the road. Inside it was deserted. Outside, a group of civilians sat under a wilting tarpaulin. At the doorstep of another building, three men leaned on the stone handrail. They had on more formal attire, so I asked them for help. They pointed to the stationary fan—no electricity. “No copy.” I mentioned my plan to go to Bangkok today and after a minute’s reluctant thought, one of the men lead me back to a room in the first building where he then searched for and found a report slip. I filled it in and he stamped it and handed it back to me. I hoped it would suffice; it didn’t feel very formal, with just a few blank lines and some writing in Thai—presumably questions.
Walking back along the roads of Krabi Town and down Soi 6 towards Vogue Mall, the rain reduced to a patter on the metal roofing overhead, rattling like an old motorbike engine turning its final few times. Where corrugated iron no longer protected the pavement and me, the rain was left to smatter the leaves and ground, popping like damp wood on a fire. I got a local bus from Vogue Mall to Krabi Bus Station. Squeezed in the back of the open-ended “two-row-bus”, the rain caught me every time the bus stopped. Krabi looked miserable. We were in the pathetic aftermath of the midday downpour, and slick wet hair channelled water down the sullen faces we passed. At the bus station, the hills just beyond the houses were blurred and smudged across the sky by the greying cloud.
The Extra VIP 24-seat buses for this afternoon were already booked full, so I settled for a 32-seater leaving at five. That left me with three hours to use up. I was getting cold. From my earlier walks in the rain, my shirt was damp, and now, with no sign of the sun, the chill breeze clamped around me and prevented comfort.
A young Thai woman of about thirty started talking to me, “where are you from?” England, I said. “You travel alone?”
“I have friends staying in Krabi now, but I had to go up to Bangkok today.” I explained about my lost passport. Whilst I talked, her brow furrowed deep into her eyes and at each sentence fragment she would raise her head and circle her mouth around an invisible ice-lolly, pursing tightly. It seemed, sometimes, that she had not a clue what I was saying, but that didn’t stop her continuing with little half nods and oh’s of acquired wisdom. She asked what I was doing in Krabi. I had difficulty explaining our volunteer work.
“I am teaching in a school. Teacher, for a school.” This bit she understood. “But no payment. No money.”
She was perplexed. Perhaps I had said it wrong.
“For one month?” Now she wondered why such a short period.
She was an accountant from Surat Thani, holidaying in Krabi for the weekend and now waiting for her bus home. As she left, she had me write my name on her hand. She mentioned Facebook, too. Perhaps one day soon I will have a friend request from a stranger in Thailand.
The edge of a rich jungle tumbled down to the road surrounding the station. From the curb, greenery took over and suffocated the earth, progressing from tangled bushes and pineapple palms to taller coconuts and thick fig trees. Vines played over the trees in thick waves. Moss overtook what little visible wood it left. The messy outskirts grew to the full height and became a wall of green backed by the grey clouds still dominating the sky.
My bus came at ten to five and I ventured up the steep steps to the second level, fitted out with twenty-four black and yellow seats adorned with frilly pink pillows and a fuscia blanket each.
We passed through a town nestled in towers of jungle-clad rock; the hills and mountains so iconic of Krabi. Oil palms have carpeted Southern Thailand with their feather duster like appearance. During the last hours of sunlight, we drove past nothing but plantations hugging and sheltering the road. Occasional settlements were small and rare, with most of the buildings being offices or warehouses for the plantations beyond. Whenever we gained higher ground, I could look down onto the Southern Thailand carpet as it faded off in the mist. The owners built their homes amidst the palms, sometimes fifty or sixty metres back from the road and barely visible. With the plantation surrounding, it was as if the oil palms were someone’s idea of a beautiful garden.
The storm chased us north. Behind us, the clouds were thick and heavy, blending down to the distant mist as they unloaded their cargo. In some areas, the recent storm had taken its toll; fields lay inundated with water and roads were transformed into cratered surfaces of asphalt grey and faun mud-puddles.
Fell asleep on the bus and awoke some time later. Yellow lights lit the seats and sleeping bodies around me. I remember thinking, “oh, we’ll be in Bangkok soon,” that we were nearing the end of our journey. I checked my phone; it was still the twenty-seventh—ten o’clock in the evening. Dinner time, it turned out. We pulled into a bustling coach stop where thirty other buses waited in diagonal rows. Everyone moved off the bus so I followed, entering a large complex holding two big canteens and a bulk produce supermarket. One of the passengers—she had been sat next to me across the aisle—turned to me, translating the instructions all the others had received. We had a free dinner here for forty, “no sorry, twenty! Twenty minutes, in canteen VIP two.” I followed her and those she was travelling with through the first canteen. An array of stone tables lay throughout both areas. Around each stood ten stone pedestals. She walked through them all and their group sat down at one in the corner. I stood nearby and hoped to edge in on their table, to be able to follow their lead with what to do.
In the centre of the table, six dishes lay on a Lazy-Mary. As it was turned for the others, I took what I could from each dish. Fried morning glory, a little spicy but tasty; chicken and pineapple soup, my favourite; spice red chicken curry, too hot for me; a plate of salad and vegetables; chopped spring beans with prawns; and deep fried fish in the centre of it all. For a free meal, the quality was excellent, and I’m sure they would’ve kept bringing more for the twenty minutes we were allotted. The lady said I could wait on the bus once I had finished, so I headed back out armed with the number of our bus (930) hoping to find it amongst the thirty other steaming beasts. Outside it was still raining, topping the shower up to ten hours and counting.
I woke again a few times before the lights turned on and we arrived at Bangkok Northern Bus Terminal. Sat in the waiting room under a white stadium roof, a mess of megaphone calls whined across the space. They transfused their calls in a crackly voice that sounded too weak, half-hearted. I was waiting for daylight to get the BTS to central Bangkok and find the UK embassy. Already at five o’clock in the morning, twelve hours after leaving Krabi, the sky started to marble with lighter blue streaks breaking through the dark Prussian blue sky.
I headed to the taxi stand and hopped in, requesting Mo Chit, the BTS station just nearby the Northern Terminal that could take me to central Bangkok. Turns out either I got off early or the bus went to the wrong place. I was at the Southern Terminal, placed far west of the city, and the journey to Mo Chit took twenty minutes and two-hundred Baht. I didn’t mind though, I was determined to use this unplanned trip to Bangkok to ride the BTS sky train.
The station hangs over the highway it follows, balanced on concrete pillars with a few sets of stairs and escalators taking you up ten metres. This is just where you buy tickets though—and last minute snacks or books—the platform is above you again. You are now above the majority of the skyline, especially around Mo Chit in Bangkok’s suburbs. As the train flies south towards Siam Square, you are immersed in office life; skyscrapers create oversized picket fences along the track and a stream of office workers files in and out of the train at each stop.
From Ploen Chit station, I followed signs to the British Embassy, traipsing up and down Wireless Road until I found the embassy at the other end, opening at 8am as expected. I hoped, given my early arrival to Bangkok, to sort out all paper work with the embassy before lunch, and then think about getting back to Krabi in the afternoon or evening.
Inside the embassy, everything went much smoother than expected. I tore off a ticket and, before I had time to complete the necessary forms, I was called to a counter. The consulate aid had me fill out two more short forms and hand over the fee—about £100—and two passport photos and I was done. I only needed to come back at two o’clock in the afternoon to collect my Emergency Passport.
I knew where to go in the meantime: Siam Square was two stops down the BTS line, and Siam Square holds the hub of shopping for Bangkok, and possibly all of Thailand.
MBK, Siam Discovery, Siam Centre, Siam Paragon and a few others I have forgotten. These mega shopping centres leave most others in their reception area and grow excessively up and out in waves of restaurants, souvenir stands and clothes shops. I opted for the Paragon Centre. I arrived at its glass doors twenty minutes before opening. Three others stood with me. Ten minutes later and that number had risen to twenty. Five minutes after that it doubled again. Obviously this was a popular place; I had never seen people queuing for a shop except on book or game launches.
The first floor is dominated by food and drinks establishments. Ranging from Krispy Kreme and Haagan Daazs to KFC and on to local set-ups such as Otoya Kitchen and K-ce Ramen, this is a place where you could have American for breakfast and coffee, French for a steak lunch and noodles with sushi for dinner from one of the Asian joints. Moving through the complex, I came across an area sign posted as Dining Paradise. They weren’t far from the truth. An indoor pond rippled under escalators, wooden bridges and an automatic piano, adding a classical tune to the Taylor Swift emanating from elsewhere. The walls and décor on this side were pristine, with rich wood panelling on souvenir stands, marble flooring, and crystal glass looking through into quaint cafés and bistros that would feel at home along the streets of Paris or Rome.
Circling around, I came back to a Food Gallery, a curve of counters serving the full range of Japanese cuisine from noodles to radish salads, sushi to crispy duck. With too much choice on the traditional side, and a little confusion as to how the food court cards worked, I opted for KFC—stood next to McDonald’s with a Burger King beyond that.
Downstairs, in the basement, the light darkened and the mood blued. Down here is the aquarium; Ocean World. I paid the 900B entrance fee and walked past fish tanks of different exotic fish, little plaques to their left for information. The glass was clean enough for me to take photos and later pretend I was underwater, diving with the fish. The walk around was uneventful, and the ‘main attraction’ of a glass tunnel through ‘open sea’ was too short for my liking, and caused warped fish to billow past the curved glass.
There was one highlight for me. After passing through the ‘jungle’ section—which held reptiles, amphibians and spiders along with fish—there was a room devoted to jellyfish. One large tank held about forty. It had a black backing and spotlights shining from the top, picking out the translucent bodies as they drifted through the tank. Calm piano music from Chopin’s Nocturnes filled the room, creating the perfect soundtrack to their feather-like movements in the water. I found myself closing my eyes to enjoy the piano, something I missed from England.
Back at the embassy, I was a regular now; I knew what to do and where to go. My Emergency Passport in hand, the lady gave me instructions to go to the Thai Immigration Bureau to transfer my visa to the new passport. Easy-peasy.
On the way there in the taxi, I listened to ten minutes of hold music from the Australian Embassy—the same music as their post in London, I realised—before sorting out what to do about my Australian Visa. The taxi driver dropped me out the front of a government complex and instructed me to walk through. I asked immediately inside and the security guard directed me along a two-kilometre walk through the grounds. First hiccup.
I ventured through the mostly empty plots. The buildings are ominous, made worse by grey clouds haunting the sky. Their sides leaned out over the pavement, overpowering me as I walked past. Escaping those, I entered a compound and, seeing no way through on the other side, asked security again. This time he pointed the way I had come. Accepting his help, I left again, but kept original course, heading around the compound. I was now on a grand boulevard running alongside empty fields with patches of dirty pond and a few scraggly palms. To the right, the government buildings retreated behind fountains and stone plazas dotted with obscure statues and spirit houses. I kept walking, finding signs in English pointing to the Immigration Bureau. The road took me around a large, oppressive building, toppling outwards on all sides like those I passed before. A sloped ramp took a traffic jam of taxis up to the front door. Inside, the foyer was an open, empty space, populated only with a few supporting pillars and two rows of red plastic chairs.
A handwritten sign pointed to the Immigration Bureau and a clerk there sent me back out and ‘downstairs’ to get copies of my new passport and police report documents. I remembered no stairs heading down, but lifts hidden in a corner allowed me to the first floor. Here, the space was transformed from a government office into a sparse mall, with banks and electrical shops on the edges and donut stands in the middle. I saw signs to a copy centre and followed with haste. The space opened up further like the British Museum in London: a huge hall enclosed a central cylindrical inner building, with rooms all around the outer edge as well. Far from being Roman or Greek inspired, however, this chasm was a migraine of white-wash. In the hospital-like light, I rushed through to the copy centre and back up to Immigration.
The ticket master issued mine and directed me through to a waiting room. I feared I would be missed as the time neared four-thirty—closing time—and when he did call me in at four-twenty, he sent me back to the chairs for a further half hour while he sorted the paperwork. Everything complete, I was relieved to be leaving, but now I had no time to get to the Bus Terminal for a bus back to Krabi. I feared they would leave at five pm as they did from Krabi.
A motorbike taxi flagged me down and asked my destination. He said he could take me the back route, a short-cut and took me first down a speed-bumped back alley running alongside a sewer line. We were passing through the slums of Bangkok, high concrete walls separating them from the estates and governmental buildings just nearby. Dogs wandered across the broken path; children crouched in doorways, clothed in rags; a few cyclists wobbled out of the way as we sped from speed-bump to speed-bump. At one point, the path all but disappeared, sliding between two homes and crowded overhead by the corrugated-iron roofs.
The alleyway spat us out onto a highway, whipping my face with wind, my eyes watering, zooming onwards to the terminal. We crossed a dilapidated train line; shrubs and grass grew between the sleepers and the fence guarding the track had been bent double by vandals. To my driver’s credit, it took just ten minutes instead of the twenty he had estimated, but it was still past five o’clock.
I headed inside anyway, thinking to buy a ticket for tomorrow morning before heading to central Bangkok to find a place for the night. The lady at the counter had other ideas though. She said today’s bus would leave at six-thirty in the evening. It wouldn’t be VIP like my previous journey—those departed only from the Southern Terminal—but at least I would be back in time for breakfast.
Through all the rushing, form filling, and waiting, I had managed to get a ride on the sky train, and even a motorbike taxi, though the second wasn’t one I had hoped for. Now I had just over an hour to sit through at the Northern Bus Terminal in Bangkok before I would be on my way home again.
Bangkok is a city best driven out of at dusk. You see the final slithers of fire dampened by cloud and then—just like that—it’s dark, and the city is transformed. What was once a concrete jungle, a labyrinth of alleys, polygamy of cultures and colours, becomes a unified show of fairy lights. They twinkle, shift and stream past the window. Cars on free-ways far below our flyover become nothing but bright toys, lit low by other headlights. Traffic jams convulse in electric fire, flowing red in one direction, bright yellow in the other. Leaving into the night and rising above it all on the elevated super-vein that both feeds and drains the city allows you to physically remove yourself from the excess that is Bangkok, and yet be left with a stunning view. It is a view that asks, “why are you leaving this behind?” one that begs you to return. And how could you not? What if there’s some part, some crucial, beautiful, secret part that you missed. It’s as if the city drew my name in the lights.
I remember talking with my brother a few days earlier. He went off for a moment to get his lunch, and when he came back, he told me, with great excitement, that he had invented a new way of cooking rice. Sceptical, I asked him what he had done. Instead of draining the rice after cooking, he’d left it in the pot for a few hours—by accident, I presumed—rendering the rice soggy and overcooked. I never did ask him what it was like, but I’m sure it was similar to dinner at our pit stop on the bus.
We were each given a small bowl of this soft, watery rice, and then a choice of five dishes was laid in front of us. The boiled eggs had scab-red yolks and were very salty; the fried fish, too, tasted as if it was doused in salt; the onion and cabbage was tasty, but too pickled for my liking; cut and fried sausages became my staple meat for this dinner, adding some vegetables from the fifth dish too. The lower quality food was to be expected on this first class bus, though. The extra 150B for VIP went not only to a reduced seat number—greater legroom—but also better food. Not one to complain when hungry, however, I ate plenty, and got up in search of my bus.
Not seeing any I recognised, I asked an attendant, showing my ticket. She took me to a stall giving out bags of a roll and drink in exchange for half a bus ticket: more complimentary items. After collecting, I asked after my bus, which she fast found: she had been stood right in front of it. We were on the road again, Krabi our next stop.
I woke hours later, dawn creeping in through the thin curtains. We were passing the palm oil plantations again and before long we arrived back at Krabi Bus Station. It was still raining, just how I had left it. It occurred to me that in the last forty-eight hours, I had spent half my time on a bus. Without proper sleep or a proper bed—or even a shower to speak of—for the last two days, I headed straight for my host family on Koh Klang. It was good to be back, and the weather was still cool from the morning rain.
For the most part, my adventure had been stress-free. It had taken one day to sort everything out and, sure, it had cost me some money, but I would much rather spend a hundred pounds or so, than be sent home to England on the next flight out. I would have to wait and see how effective my new Emergency Passport would be at crossing international borders; even though the lady had assured me it would all be OK, I still had doubts.
Though I wouldn’t suggest losing your passport whilst abroad, I will never think of my experience as a bad one. The worst thing that came of it was the loss of my visa pages and immigration stamps to all the previous countries I have visited. That is something I would never want to lose again.
