It looked familiar as I stepped down onto the sunbaked concrete. The single line of coach parking. The platform with rows of seats, food stalls. Where the public phone had been, there was now a blank wall.
The experience was the same as eight years before, but this time I was prepared. The tuk tuk drivers crowded round, some shoving to the front, others hanging back. The more in my face someone chooses to be, the more I tend to be disinclined to consider their services. Adopting the detached mask and unfocused eye of a Tai Chi practitioner, I slowly moved through the bustle, pick up my rucksack which was already deposited on the ground by the bus driver and walked away - anywhere - but away.
My companion, Greg, apparently looked like a better bet, but the reverse baseball cap and macho stance of the driver, posturing, close up, cut less than no ice with him. May, our Thai co-traveller, intervened, but with a clear message from Greg that if a tuk tuk it was to be, it had to be anyone other than the pushy man before us. We were a little surprised when, after a brief exchange, May had turned on her heels, walked away to the other side of the station platform and was opening a taxi door. We followed with the bags and were soon pulling out onto a busy road, heading into the city. This was May's home town and we relaxed in her capable hands as she engaged the driver in laughing conversation.
