Tag: bus

“VIP” bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai

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Onboard the VIP bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai

All good things must come to an end, and our time at Chiang Rai was one of those good things. We’d loved the Maryo Resort Hotel, we’d had fun at the night market, we’d had some really good and inexpensive meals, but it was time to move on. Maryo quickly booked us seats on a VIP bus leaving the next day. The nice lady at the front desk said they’d had trouble using credit cards online so she gave us a printout of our booking, loaned us a couple of bikes and sent us to a 7-11 a couple of blocks away. (It seems nearly everything can be done at a 7-11 in Asia!) We pedaled to the 7-11, showed our printout and paid our 516 baht ($14.74) for two tickets on an air conditioned motor coach. (The “tickets” were actually a cash register receipt stapled to our original printout.) read more

Taking a bus from Kotor, Montenegro, to Dubrovnik, Croatia

Although we planned drive ourselves in Croatia, we opted not to keep the car we’d rented in Montenegro for that trip. My reasoning was 1) we’d avoid cross border charges; and 2) we didn’t want a car for our days in Old Dubrovnik anyway since parking is nonexistent in the old town. The best option appeared to be a motor coach. I bought tickets ahead of time on GetByBus at https://getbybus.com/en/ for 483.5 Croatian kuna ($42.5o) for 2 tickets, tax included. A print-out of the ticket is required and the drive is about 2 hours. We had only one brief stop at a town along the way. read more

Perast, Montenegro

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View of the two small islands off of Perast

With some hours to spare before our motor coach to Dubrovnik, we took the opportunity to visit beautiful Perast which lies just a short distance north from Kotor. We’d driven past the town on our way to the Ostrog Monastery, admiring the lovely old town and the two achingly picturesque little islands just off shore. One island hosts a monastery which is closed to the public, but the church on the other island is open to visitors.

With directions from Maryjana, we caught the local bus just across the road from the modern Kamelia Shopping Centre, a mere block from our apartment. The bus ride is ridiculously cheap, about €1pp and takes only 30 minutes or so. We were let off near the spot where you can hire boats to take you out to the islands. Our boat ride cost about €5 apiece. We sailed around the islands and then were dropped off at the church island for 30 minutes. The boat continued to shuttle back and forth and we could have ridden back later, but we had plenty of time. read more