10.4.10 - Leaving Bangkok

I can't believe that I'm coiming to the end of my stay in Thailand! How do two months go by so quickly?? I think it's the amazing company, the great food, and the copious amounts of shopping that has sped time up. In fact, time went by so quickly, that I over-stayed my visa entry allowance by 18 days. When I realized this, I made a trip to immigration, thinking that it would be a quick fix. I would pay the exorbanant fee that was brought on by nothing but my own stupidity and irresponsibility (so I really couldn't be mad about it), buy a proper visa, and extend my stay in Thailand a few weeks. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I could only obtain a 7 day visa after over-staying as I had, and that in order to obtain a 15 day visa, I needed to leave the country. Immediately. Because they charge 500 baht for each day that you stay over in their country. This is how they trap all the drunken Westerners who come here to blow their pension on cheap beer and cute girls. I am not one of those. I am just impossibly irresponsible for no good reason sometimes. Anyways, so from the immigration office, I had no choice but to get a taxi to the bus station, and hop on the next bus to Cambodia. After a 5.5 hour ride, I arrive at the border, and after a quite expensive hour I make it through customs and back again, catching a taxi back to the bus station just in time to make the last bus back to Bangkok. The ride home didn't take quite as long, but all together what started out as a 2 hour errand turned into a 15 hour day trip to another country. And as I was standing on the other side of the Cambodia border, I reached into my purse for my camera to document the fact that indeed I was there, even if it was only for 10 minutes, and my battery was dead. Of course.
I'm so sad to be leaving Bangkok. I had gotten used to spending a lot of time alone, but now that I've been hanging out with friends all the time, I remembered how wonderful it is to share traveling with someone. I mean, when you're alone, you have no one to laugh with at your blunders, and no one to commit them with either! I've eased my anxiety by booking my stay in Bali and am going to continue with diving and get my advanced open water certification. I've also booked my first five days in Hawaii and I'm starting to get really excited about it :) The faster time moves, the closer I am to returning to the States and to real life...that part is not so easy to get excited about, but I'm working on it.
That's it for now...more later, from Bali!