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Last Updated: 20/07/2010 11:10:15
Rudd On The Road
By Steve Rudd
Part 23: A Cashflow Crisis
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Twelve ATMs down, and not all that many to go. It was fair to say that I was in a quandary, with no cash to my name other than a few dollar notes I had left over from my recent trip to the US.
It wouldn't have been so bad if I'd had a clutch of British pounds, or a sizeable wad of notes in any currency for that matter; a staggering number of currency exchange offices line both sides of Khao San Road in Bangkok, and fast and efficient 'trade-offs' are commonplace. But I simply had nothing to give, and I was one step short of surrendering my dignity in order to earn myself a little money for food.
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I considered swinging by a 'Western Union' office as a last resort. I dreaded the thought of having to beg loved ones back home to wire me money, but desperation can often force even the most self-sufficient people to compromise their values should all alternative avenues of opportunity seal themselves off with explicit indecency.
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As I approached a 'Western Union' office at the end of Soi Rambuttri in the Banglamphu area of Bangkok, I was surprised to hear somebody vocalising the way I felt via the immortal lamentation: 'This is the worst day of my life!' Sympathising with her woe, I asked her what was wrong, presuming she was experiencing a similarly traumatising cashflow hiccup as myself.
She had three bankcards, and not one of them worked. In response, I confessed that I was pretty much stuffed, too. Every time I'd attempted to make a cash withdrawal from an ATM, the screen of each machine indifferently screamed in bold type, 'Your transaction has been cancelled.
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Please consult your issuing bank.' I couldn't understand it. I knew for a fact that I had money in the account.
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As a result, I became paranoid that somebody had somehow intercepted my bank account details and had withdrawn what remained of my savings without my knowing. All manner of disturbing scenarios began to crowd my mind, but at least I wasn't the only person facing such a depressing dilemma.
'Did you inform your bank back in the UK that you were going to be travelling abroad?' the girl asked.
'No. Why?' I responded in a beat.
Fortunately, I had taken enough ready cash with me to Mexico and the US to see me through such countries without me having to resort to using an ATM once in the Americas.
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This was the first time I'd tried to use my bankcard abroad on this trip, and the girl suspected the reason that I was unable to use my card boiled down to a simple case of debit card security in the form of 'fraud avoidance.'
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Having by now learnt that the girl's name as Abi and that she hailed from Truro, I begged her to elaborate.
'It's nothing to worry about. It's happened to me before. You just have to ring your bank and confirm that you are abroad and that it is really you who is attempting to withdraw money. Sure, you'll have to answer a barrage of security questions, but it shouldn't take too long, and once your identity has been confirmed, you should be able to gain access to your hard-earned cash immediately.'
While I rummaged in my satchel for my account details, Abi reeled from a second brainwave that might bail her out if she was really lucky.
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A second later she returned to the 'Western Union' office with both her bankcard and passport clutched in her hand. Requesting a few thousand Thai baht with a smile, she couldn't believe her good fortune when the clerk behind the counter delved into his drawer of money and handed her a bundle of notes.
I was learning fast. Evidently so was she.
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Copyright © Steve Rudd 2010
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part 22: Trios Amigos! By Steve Rudd
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OK. So what do you get if you cross a well-to-do Frenchman, a freethinking Englishman, and a mad-as-hell Spaniard? Adventure by default.
I was in Sukhothai, Thailand, all psyched up to savour the unassailable beauty of one of the most dazzling jewels in the country's crown. Long before Ayuttaya and Bangkok succeeded the city as Thailand's capital, Sukhothai flourished as the naval of the nation.
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part 21: The One Hundred Baht Experience By Steve Rudd
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I was searching for 'The London Hotel', having had the place recommended to me by a friend. Paying close attention to the road signs, I was definitely heading in the right direction as I made tracks away from Phitsanulok's train station.
Confusingly though, the hotel that I presumed to be 'The London' had no exterior hoarding in English proclaiming it to be the place I desired. Its sign was in Thai script, and thus beyond my comprehension.
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Twenty: Stray Dogs and Cheeky Monkeys By Steve Rudd
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I'd barely made myself at home in Lopburi, and I was already on the verge of being chased out of town. From the off, as I ambled out of the train station after catching an early morning train north from Bangkok, the town's myriad stray dogs were on my tail, as though they genuinely resented backpackers snooping around their patch.
Making more haste than usual to find
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Nineteen: Going West for Eastern Inspiration By Steve Rudd
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'Tuk-Tuk!' came the shout across the concourse. In the same beat I was offered a taxi, before a middle-aged lady rushed up offering me a cut-price massage. And this was all out front of Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport, into which I'd just flown from LA.
My writing work in the US finished, I had decided to head over to Southeast Asia in order to attend the wedding of a couple of friends who I'd first met on my first visit to
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Eighteen: A Mile Of Miracles, And Then Some By Steve Rudd
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Taking the bus was too easy, despite the fact that my film making pal Dave Kebo had dropped me off at the Shell gas station at the Wilshire and Vermont intersection in Koreatown which was conveniently situated right beside a bus-stop.
Looking due west along Wilshire Boulevard, my feet felt the twitch before my heart. A bus bound for Santa Monica had just pulled up, and for the meagre fee of a buck and a quarter ($1.25)
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Seventeen: On Foot Across LA By Steve Rudd
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I don't like not knowing what's out there. I prefer to be informed rather than ignorant. I hate living in the knowledge that there are sections of certain towns and cities in the world that I know next-to-nothing about.
That's why, given the chance, I always walk whenever and wherever I can. I walk and I walk and I walk until my feet begin to announce their grievances.
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Sixteen: When in Venice ... By Steve Rudd
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No visit to LA is complete without a saunter along Venice Beach, south of Santa Monica.
The actual beach is beautiful, yet it is the mad parade of stalls and performers which are set back from the beach on Ocean Front Walk that are the real attraction to this part of the city.
It's like the sixties never ended, a slew of tarot card readers, tattoo artists, dubiously talented musicians and all manner of folk on the scrounge for marijuana making
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Fifteen: A Run-In With Gordon Ramsay By Steve Rudd
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Having touched back down in LA on what had been a sensationally overcast day, I was glad to see the sun the following morning as I ventured out into Santa Monica, aspiring to hit the beach. I was back in the city to catch up with a friend and to do some writing, but I still intended to make some time to see exactly why people get so excited about the smattering of beaches gracing The Pacific Coast at LA.
It's certainly easy to understand why
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Fourteen: St. Patrick's Day With A Difference By Steve Rudd
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In the wake of an exhilarating hike into Runyon Canyon, one of Hollywood's best-kept secrets, I was all buoyed-up to sample a prime slice of LA nightlife. It was St. Patrick's Day, and I was keen to see how Americans celebrate it. Rest assured, I wasn't disappointed. They celebrate the day with just as much gusto as stout-addled folk back in Ireland.
Opting to head downtown in order to appreciate the wide variety of bars in the district, I was accompanied by Dave Kebo, a movie-making friend who I'd first met in Istanbul back in November 2008.
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Thirteen: The Green Side of Hollywood By Steve Rudd
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Keen to see a side of LA that the majority of visitors to the city never get to appreciate, I couldn't have been more pleased when my friend Dave Kebo, a movie-maker who was raised in LA and knows much of it like the back of his hand, offered to show me around.
It was St. Patrick's Day, and our first port of call was a cafe in the Silver Lake district, east of Hollywood. Neither of us had so far indulged in breakfast, so we ordered up and sat back, sitting out on the busy sidewalk in order to increase our chances of spotting a celeb.
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Places to Visit - Beinvenue: Paris in 3 Days for Less Than 100,000 Calories! By Ruth
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Prologue:
The long weekend in Paris was a spur of the moment idea hatched by my daughter. I was initially sceptical about the cost. Summer fares to Europe are never less than extortionate.
My cousin in Paris pointed out that fares spike sharply at the end of June and remain high throughout the summer months. Armed with that information, we checked flights for the first week of June
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Twelve: Onwards and Upwards By Steve Rudd
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I don't do early mornings. At least I don't do them very well. I mean, was it 5 a.m. already? We'd had less than two hours of sleep, and it was time for my friend Evangelina to whisk me to the airport in order for me to catch my 7:50 a.m. flight with 'Mexicana' back to Los Angeles.
Having joined a bunch of Evangelina's friends for some food and drink at a cantina close to Bellas Artes in the Historical Centre of Mexico City the previous night,
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Part Eleven: Going Barmy in Barra. By Steve Rudd
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As I grew increasingly accustomed to the laid-back beach-life around which the tiny Pacific Coast town of Melaque revolves, I realised it was going to be no easy task to pull myself away from this area of Jalisco, Mexico.
The pace of life which afflicts Melaque is a world away from the hustle and bustle that comes as part and parcel of larger towns and cities
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Ten: Sun, Sand, Sea ... and a Man on a Mission. By Steve Rudd
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In terms of beaches, visitors to Mexico genuinely are spoilt for choice. World-class stretches of sand are to be found on both The Pacific Coast and The Gulf of Mexico, with old favourites in the ridiculously commercialised forms of Acapulco and Cancun still managing to draw in huge crowds with ease.
However, some of the country's lesser-known beaches are
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Nine: A Perfect Demonstration of How to Protest. By Steve Rudd
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Fans of folk who like to voice their opinions can't go wrong in Mexico. I mean, barely a day goes by without some demonstration or protest taking to the streets, and those in its favour tend to come out in such force that it's only a matter of time before the 'rally' passes you by.
You certainly don't need to make the effort to seek out such rallies
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road Part Eight: All Aboard 'The Nerve-Shredder' to Puebla! By Steve Rudd
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I really couldn't blame the lady at the ticket counter for giving me such a puzzled look. After all, I had just asked for a ticket counter instead of a ticket.
I was at the main bus station in Oaxaca City, Mexico, intent on buying a ticket north to Puebla. Having clocked numerous signs emblazoned with the world Taquiller, I wrongly assumed that such a word was the Spanish for Tickets. In truth,
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Places to Visit - Cusco, Peru - La Ultima Cena Con Cuy By Ruth
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The flight from Puerto Maldonado was uneventful. The flight attendant served coca tea, Inca Cola, and Cusqueno beer to interested passengers. The city of Cusco, the historic capital of the Inca Empire, sits in the Andes Mountains. The elevation is roughly 11,000 feet. The updrafts buffeted the plane a bit during landing.
At the airport, old women peddling bags of coca leaves crowded towards the passengers.
x
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Places to Visit - Rudd On The Road - Catching up with Steve Rudd as he hits America in style ... Part 1 By Steve Rudd
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The flight from London to LA was a long haul to say the least, yet it was made more tolerable by the company. I'd barely got settled when the guy beside me introduced himself as Jim Becket, a film director and documentary producer who lived in a place called Ojai, a little north of Los Angeles. He'd just returned from working in Athens where he'd sold the rights of his latest documentary to
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Places to Visit - Playing Chicken In Turkey Part 1 By Steve Rudd
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It wasn't the best welcome to Turkey. It was the dead of night, we'd just crossed the border, yet there I was, beside a Mancunian called Liam, being frog marched back to the tiny hut that issued visas. Upon crossing the border, us English lads had been issued the correct visa, but the official had inexplicably neglected to stamp the visas with our entry date.
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Places to Visit - Roaming Around Romania By Steve Rudd
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I was worried. It was four a.m., I was on a train bound for Bucharest, and somebody was tugging at my bed sheets from below. Coming around from a bout of deep sleep, I urged my weary eyes to focus. They were having none of it though, refusing point blank to reveal the person before me.
'Is there a problem?' I asked, hoping that a response might bowl my way in English.
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Places to Visit - Gibraltar and La Linea, Spain By Mo
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Recently I went on a week long trip to Gibraltar and La LÍnea, Spain staying with my mum and dad in their La Linea flat. My twin sister and her boyfriend were also at the flat on holiday for a week and had rented a small car booked online for only 60 quid for the week. I think that included car insurance too so a pretty good deal.
They all met me at Gibraltar airport and we walked across the border with Spain
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Places to Visit - The London, Bath and Bristol Chronicles By Steve Rudd
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I knew I should have taken the train. Being stuck behind a combine harvester is never fun in a car. In a coach, it's murder. The battalion of towering power-line supports that stoically marched across the dead level Lincolnshire landscape didn't help. From their indifferent vantage point, they simply taunted.
'Technology is overtaking everything,' said the woman in front,
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Places to Visit - Kate Langan's Travel Journal - Thailand
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Tonight we ate at a Thai Taverna, there was a baby elephant going by so Becky took my photo. We are staying in Phuket also as we have found a really nice basic room that's really cheap. It's clean and got 4 stone walls - not like the wood hut! I loved the wood hut but was bitten to death by the mozzies. No mozzies here - yey! And I'm not a huge fan of the cockroaches!
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Places to Visit - The Three Peaks Of Yorkshire Challenge 10th June 2006 By Steve Rudd
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'Good morning gentlemen - rise and shine!' As I slowly came to my senses I couldn't
help but glance at my watch. I'd been warned the previous night that we would be
woken up at 4:15am sharp, and barely a second later.
Unfortunately, that really was the case, and as exhausted as I was, there
was a mammoth 25 mile walk ahead...
It's a shame that I'd only managed
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Places to Visit - A Weekend in Amsterdam By Dave F
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Amsterdam is a city of freedom which instantly appeals on a lot of levels.
What's the point of a holiday if you don't have the freedom to go and do what you want, when you want?
If, like me, you want to wander aimlessly from coffee shop to coffee shop getting as
stoned as humanly possible whilst ogling half-naked women through dirty windows
and snacking heavily along the way,
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Places to Visit - Christmas in Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka By Dave F
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I hate Christmas for too many reasons to mention and the chance to get away from it
all this year it was an opportunity too good to pass up. Knowing someone with a
house in Sri Lanka which stands empty for 9 months every year definitely has its benefits.
I'm travelling with a mate and his daughter who've been here several times before
so I get some insight
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Places to Visit - Skiing In Bulgaria - Part Two By Steve Rudd
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Giant Christmas trees loomed as far as the eye could see below, as I marvelled
at the extraordinary engineering it must take to make a gondola a reality.
After the thirty-minute ride to the top we were immediately greeted by a
stunning panorama of the surrounding countryside which was beautiful beyond words.
So pristine and so serene.
Well, serene if you can discount the
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Places to Visit - Skiing In Bulgaria - Part One By Steve Rudd
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I could have thought of worst places to be, seeing in the New Year, as the last
second of 2005 ticked over into 2006. Happy New Year indeed.
For the best part of the past ten years myself and my friends have contented
ourselves with heading into the town centre of Driffield every December 31st
for one of the few nights of the year when it genuinely hustles and bustles.
To drink
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Places to Visit - Walking The Pembrokeshire Coastal Path - Part One By Steve Rudd
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Get out of the city and into the country, sooner rather than later.
A great many people genuinely have no idea how scenically diverse and breathtaking some
swathes of countryside are in the UK, and such a fact is a great shame,
because while they might be spending all their spare time in dirty and cramped
urban environments, there's often fresh air and inspirational
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Places to Visit - Thailand By Rich Mills
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Expressing the experience of being here in Thailand is difficult to put into words.
The sensorial experience is so mind blowing that you begin to feel overloaded.
However it is the smallest of things that grab your attention, and stick in the mind.
We are waiting for a taxi to take us down to the ferry, so that we can go
over to the small island of Koh Maak.
This is where we will get the full
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Places to Visit - Ostend Weekend By John Allbones
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I needed a break. Well, you just do sometimes don't you?
The constant day to day drudge of the nine to five erodes your spirit until a
change of scene is all you crave. Nothing fancy, just a few days will do.
Preferably abroad, it just seems more of a break when you're on foreign soil.
I managed to grab a late deal on a long weekend in Ostend.
So desperate was I to get away,
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Places to Visit - Eight Feet and Two Weeks On Crete Part 2 by Steve Rudd
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One of the best ways of exploring the huge island of Crete is by car: in your own time, at
your own speed and in your own style.
Without the stress and cost of embarking on guided tours.
Head into any of Crete's major cities such as
Hania, Rethymno or Iraklion and you'll be bombarded by rent-a-vehicle establishments, all
of which are fiercely trying to
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