In the Christmas narrative, Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem to find that there is no room at the inn. I am sure every traveler who has experienced the same situation has reached for this comparison; please bear with me as I do the same.

Traveling with two Canadian friends in Thailand, we decided December 30th would be a perfect day to hit the beach. Our trusted Lonely Planet guidebook suggested that we would find two neighbouring beach towns three hours south of Bangkok by bus. The town of Cha-am was first along the Gulf of Thailand coast, and finding a budget guest house there was decided upon as Plan A.Thailand

But Plan A unraveled quickly as we wandered up and down the streets of Cha-am, being told at every turn that the town was full. We did find one room available, but we weren’t quite ready to settle for the stable, at least not at hotel prices. The room was a dingy, dark sauna on the fourth floor, with one bed and a shared bathroom. The rate we were quoted almost made us spit.

And so Plan B took us half an hour further down the road by bus to Hua Hin. Too tired and hungry by this point to walk around looking for accommodation, we entrusted our search to the blue-vested men at the bus stop whose job description we couldn’t quite determine. Still, they seemed genuinely motivated to find us a place to stay, so we sat on a bench in the middle of the bustling oceanside town, contentedly drinking coffee in the early evening while mobile phone calls were placed on our behalf. It was perhaps an hour later when they told us of a place around 5 km out of town that would rent us two rooms for the night. By this time I was already formulating Plan C, which involved taking an overnight train south, hopefully in a sleeper car with mattresses.

But sticking with Plan B, we took a taxi to see what kind of place still had room for us. The price for a room was slightly above our budget, but as long as we could put three people into one room, we weren’t going to sweat it. We eventually arrived at a hotel tucked away from the main road, where each room had its own carport with curtains that could be drawn behind your car for privacy. Young children reading this blog should just accept that we had reasons for not wanting to stay there, older readers can use their imaginations (as we did) to understand why such privacy might be desired by the target clientèle of this establishment.

And so we went back to scheming up new plans. We were discouraged from pursuing Plan C - the overnight train - by those who assured us that all southbound trains were as solidly booked as the hotels.

Plan D was to sleep on a bus headed to either Surat Thani or Krabi, destinations in the south of Thailand that we believed would be less busy on the holiday weekend. But we met a young couple at the bus station who told us of a wonderful island far away with long, sandy beaches and endless beach resorts with plentiful rooms for all. Overnight buses departed for this dream destination hourly. Thus was Plan E born, the plan that would take us to the island of Koh Samui over New Year’s Eve. The 9 and 10 o’clock buses were full, but after a long period of sitting anxiously at the bus station, we boarded the 11 p.m. bus and tried to catch some sleep.

From Thailand Trip

And we did indeed find a beautiful island with available accommodation and long, sandy beaches. We also found a lot of rain, and the most dangerous fireworks display I have ever witnessed. May this blog post inspire someone on Koh Samui to regulate the sale of fireworks to drunken foreigners on New Year’s Eve. We were fortunate not to witness any casualties, despite seeing a few wayward explosions.

It was an exhausting experience, but we ended up with a place to sleep, and found ourselves reasonably close to Krabi, the rock climbing Mecca of Thailand, where we would later spend two days abusing our bodies on some beautiful climbs.

From Thailand Trip

I would like to wish a belated Happy New Year to everyone who took the time to read to the end of this long, unwieldy story.