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Published: March 5th 2008
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Ferry to Langkawi
Cramped in between tons of luggage... definitely the unsafest trip yet Alright... Langkawi lies behind us, we are on the boat from Langkawi (Malaysia) to Satun (Thailand). The Ferry ride was much more enjoyable than the first one. We actually had seats inside and it only took about an hour to cross the ocean. Once we set foot on Thai grounds, we got ourselves inspected by the border patrol, got our visas and booked a bus to Krabi. Satun didn't sound like an interesting spot so we decided to go straight up north. Funny as we walked out and got in the taxi... an open air type of thing with benches either side in the back that squashed about 10 people in (not the worst we've experienced though!), backpacks on the roof, strapped down with a little bit of string... and off we went to the bus terminal. The taxi driver stopped on the way at an ATM so we could get out some Bath to pay him... we got a bruddy good deal... haha. Apparently the bus costs 550 bath and we got it for 450... Surely it only costs about 150 bath for locals... Anyway. Nice pink air con bus was ready for us at the terminal and about 4
or so hours later we arrived in Krabi.
Well, as the bus terminal is about 4km out of town, we were forced to take a taxi and got totally ripped off... but at least we were aware of it. Didn't have a choice really I guess.
We got to the guest house and paid 300 bath for a tiny stinky room with smelly bathroom attached and a squeaky fan... but the best part of the place was the moon bar... amazing ambiente on top of the roof. Just mesmorizing.... haha. NOT.
A definite YES are the food stalls down by the pier. For 25 bath we got yummy Pad Thai for dinner. And "Lisa Bekery" (yes, not bakery...) had yummy coconut buns and homemade cookies. My favorite so far (even though I was later to discover poo buns too...)
The evening we spent trying to book accommodation at Railay Beach which was a mission that resulted in non-success... Unfortunately. Would have been nice. Instead we learned about an interesting little island called Ko Si Boya... And our new journey began...
The Next morning we went to the hostel "Si Boya" in Krabi Town and got on one of those
open air taxis again... not knowing where we were going we spent about... must have been an hour and more... on it, going out of town, back into bushland, over dirt roads, passed young Thais yelling 'farang' at us, down a humpty bumpty track to a pier were a long-tail awaited us with lots of goodies on board. Stuck between bags and boxes we crossed the ocean for not more than like 20 mins and hopped off in what seemed to be sort of the middle of nowhere. Interesting though. The owner of the 'Si Boya Bungalows' greeted us and trusted us to follow his pick-up truck on his motorbike... Unfortunately Paul didn't know how to drive a manual (and I have no clue anyway), so I jumped into the front of the truck and Paul hopped on the open back and was responsible for holding down the food supplies! Nice one, my love. Bruddy good job you did there!
Another 15 bumpy minutes later we arrived at the other end of nowhere where a family had established a wonderful piece of land full of bungalows, palm trees and a restaurant right next to the beach. Admittedly the beach
was nowhere near perfect, it was not white and beautiful... it was more grubby and dirty and full of nasty shells. But apart from that, it was a piece of heaven on earth and I enjoyed it very much. Another good part was that there was really nothing to do... except for sleeping, walking along the beach during low tide, going for a swim in the beautiful warm water, and eating. I have to say, out of all the food I have had so far in Thailand and Malaysia, the restaurant at Si Boya served the best food of them all. I had the spiciest meal there too... Panang Curry with Potatoes... and couldn't get myself to actually finish it. My tummy was screaming out for me to stop eating and I couldn't stand the abuse by my own organs... so I left the food on the plate.
Anyway, no electricity all day until 6.30pm meant a lot of doing NOTHING and that I enjoyed very much. After 3 days it was time to go though and we took an adventurous trip back to the mainland. First on the long-tail where I actually saw people bringing their motorbikes onto
the boat, then the taxi ride back to Krabi Town which was by far the craziest taxi ride of my life. It started out fine with about 5 people on it, backpacks on the roof... Then, the closer we got to town the more people got on until we ended up with 16 people being squashed into the back like sardines, 5 people (incl. Paul) standing on the outside step hanging on to some handrails, and another 4 people (incl. the driver) in the front... That is a total of 25 souls in one taxi!!! Massive craziness...
But again, we made it back alive and in one piece...
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