Trip to Langkawi, Malaysia

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This morning we rose bright and early as we had hired a minibus to take us from Phuket down to a small town called Satun as the first leg of our journey to Langkawi, Malaysia. This part of the trip took about 7.5 hours in an air conditioned van with an older Australian couple and a Chinese family riding as well. This was actually quite the experience as there was a young Chinese girl who was literally the LOUDEST snoring person I have ever witnessed on the face of this earth. She snored so loud that she would start choking and coughing and wake herself up. Picture an older man snoring loudly and X that by like 10. It was mildly hilarious to begin with but she somehow managed to sleep the ENTIRE trip so you can imagine how annoying this ended up being. Furthermore, I had gotten sick last night from something I ate and was throwing up all night so I was mildly queasy all day and in Thailand drivers tend to like to get to where they are going fast. So basically we were flying at 120km/h through small villages and around sharp curves and huge bumps. To top it off we didn't eat breakfast and didn't stop for lunch until past 1pm and it was at a Muslim center where I decided to be adventurous and try some random chicken and rice deal which ended up being easily the hottest dish of curry that I have ever consumed in my life!!! Finally our van arrived in the city of Hanyai where our driver dropped us off at a local bus station and we then proceeded to take a three hour bus ride on a non air conditioned local bus where we were literally the only foreigners. Keep in mind we are in South Thailand so very few people speak English. It was a pretty neat experience as we saw lots of kids get out of school and board the bus in their school uniforms. There are also lots of Muslim people here so we saw many veiled Muslim women board the bus as well. Not to mention TVs that played horrible Thai music videos (all the same plot line - guy cheats on the girl and she finds out and is devastated and bawls while the guy walks away with his smug new girlfriend). FINALLY we arrived in Satun however we had not booked a hotel as we thought we would make it in time to catch the last ferry to Langkawi, however we missed it and ended up getting dumped off at the very last stop in Satun. From here we kind of just roamed a block and found a booking center where we bought our tickets for the ferry tomorrow morning. The tour people were actually super friendly and spoke broken English and they actually drove us to the hotel we wanted to stay at. The hotel was super nice and run by an English guy however they had no vacancy so the tour center guy drove us to the second nicest hotel only to find they had no vacancy either! So we tried our luck at basically the last hotel in town and they were only able to offer us a room with no A/C (it is about +40). We took what we could get, although I am slightly afraid of creepy crawlers in this hotel... For supper we had some kind of vermicelli rice bowl for like $1. Mere and I are definitely out of our comfort zones on this one! Even though I kind of complained a bit above I am glad for the experience as it gives us a better taste of real Thai culture.

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Photos

Our classy hotel room
No A/C