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Published: September 2nd 2011
by Jan Welcome to Thailand After a good night sleep on a comfortable bed on a sleeper train from Kuala Lumpur we reached the Malaysian – Thailand border. The beds on the train are comfortable enough to get a good night's sleep and for 55 RM (11£) you really can not ask for much more. We did get woken up a few times during the night by a little girl on the lower bunk as she was sick and coughed all through the night. I dislike kids as much as the next guy, but still there is no reason for the nasty
"shut up" comment aimed at this little kid by a Spanish girl sleeping a few bunks down the cart. I hope she got sick shortly after that, mean p@@a!
The border crossing was easy enough, but while we were getting our passports checked the train left the station with our luggage on it. Polona started panicking a bit and I just thought that it should be alright as we were told we can leave our backpacks on it. That was the case, the train came back about 20 minutes later with all our stuff still on
it.
Shortly after leaving the border we arrived at Hat Yai where the train terminates. Before the train even stopped a few touts jumped on and welcomed us to Thailand with
"Hello, where do you go?, trying to get customers for the mini van rides. Most people leave Hat Yai straight away, but the two of us, having enough time, decided to stay for a night and see what the city has to offer.
We booked into a budget hotel and it was the cheapest room (with our own bathroom!! 😊) we had so far. At 200 bath (4£) it was a bargain. If you had seen the room you might disagree. After that it was time for food and as we just arrived in Thailand and Tom Yam is a Thai dish I knew in advance what I will have for breakfast.
Pete: after the first few blogs you emailed me asking what food is like and because of that we started including more about it, as food is an important part of the culture. Now, in your last email you comment that we talk about food too much. Make up your bloody, sick, twisted mind! 😊..
Anyways, when we got to a small restaurant the walls were covered with bank notes from all over the world. I know what you are all asking yourselves now. The answer is
YES, they even had the Slovenian tolar (no longer valid after the EUR 😞), but even I have to admit that was not the most interesting of all the notes. It just had to be two notes from Zimbabwe. One for five billion dollars and one for One hundred trillion dollars!!! That is fourteen (14!) zeros on the note! Damn!
That was pretty much the highlight of our stay in Hat Yai. We visited the two
sights: clock tower and the water fountain (minus the water) and in the evening watched the Charity shield. Now, I am not really a betting man but I still have a good betting tip. Anytime Man U is behind at half time (the more the better) you should put a few pounds on them to win. More often than not you will get your money back with good odds!
Krabi Krabi and the surrounding areas are the place to go in Thailand if you want to rock
50 Slovenian tolars
From the good all day when you can get a cup of coffee for two of these.ow you would need five or sixclimb and take the advantage of many limestone cliffs around the city and the surrounding beaches. And even if you don't rock climb they make for some amazing scenery!
Most people choose to stay in beach towns around Krabi but we decided to stay in the actual town as we were heading to the islands after. On our first day we wanted to go visit the Tiger temple (tigers used to live in the caves below the hill the temple is on; there are no tigers there now). When we started asking around how to get there we realised hiring a taxi was really expensive and to rent a motorbike was by far a better way. Neither of us have ever ridden one but we
manned up and rented one anyways! It was a bit weird for the first couple kilometres, especially as I am not the biggest fan of speed, but I got the hang of it. The roads around Krabi are wide and in good shape and that made it a bit easier. After a few U-turns and asking for directions we finally arrived to the starting point for the Tiger Temple. The temple itself is on
14 zeros.
Wondering what you can buy for it> the top of a mountain,
1237 steps high! Some of these steps are knee high (my knee, not Polona's, that would be a normal step) and it was quite an effort getting up there. The fact that we started our climb at around 1pm, in full blown heat, didn't help. Luckily most of the way is in the shade, otherwise I have no idea how we would get up there. Once on the top, you realise its all worth it. The views are great and there is a massive Buddha statue on the top, along with a huge pagoda and smaller statues. Our legs did hurt as hell once we were back down!
After that we planned to go and visit another temple. Well, that never happened as after numerous tries we just didn't manage to find it. We saw loads of other great stuff along the way, just not the temple. In the end we decided to check out Ao Nang, a beach town about 20 kilometres away. It took us at least 40 minutes before we got there (a number of U-turns and asking for directions later) but we did get there. Here we met up with
Jane (a Synovater from KL, whom we met a few days before) who was here on a short holiday and Pacha, a local girl who we found a day before on Couchsurfing. Pacha took us all to a
private beach. The beach is hidden between two cliffs and is owned by a hotel. Its only accessible by boat or by climbing over a wooden staircase (after the 1237 steps earlier that day, this was all we needed!) used by the staff working at the hotel. Not many people know about the staircase, so we were lucky to have Pacha with us.
After a dring with the girls we made our way back to Krabi. Pacha was nice enough to show us the short-cut back. It was an amazing day, my first one driving a motorbike. I think we drove over a hundred kilometres in a whole day due to all the mix ups, but it was good practice. And now we will surely rent it again, as it makes everything so much easier and cheaper!
Our time in Krabi was full of activities (after a week of rest in KL it was about time) and on our second
day we booked a kayaking trip! We got picked up by a minivan early in the morning and it took us back to where we were driving the day before. We now realized how close it all was. We passed the beach and stopped on the river, where we got into our kayaks and paddled between limestone cliffs and a mangrove forest. Another first for us, as we have never kayaked before. It showed, as we had a bit of troubles steering the kayak in the straight line. I wish I could say that we were getting better with time passing but I don't think that was the case. Regardless, or because of it, the whole thing was really fun, made even better by our hyper-active tour guide / comedian / photographer.
For our last activity in Krabi we ended up on a boat tour cruising down the river. We didn't plan it, but it got offered to us on the pier. A guy showed us some pictures of the stuff we could see and made a compelling pitch so we decided to go for it. As we were hungry we just jumped to one of the food stalls
– I got a pancake with Nutella and hazelnuts, where I then pitched the whole thing to two German girls (as we are cheap and you pay the tour by the boat and not by person!) who went along with us.
We stopped at a cave in which we could see pre-historic wall paintings (believed to be between 3 and 5 thousand years old), skeletons (ohh yeah!) and, well the cave itself. After that we headed to the Muslim fishing village. We stopped on a fishing raft where we got a chance to see a blow-fish in action. When it gets scared it fills up with air and looks like a huge ball. We got a chance to hold it, as it can be out of the water for about 5 minutes and I was tempted to dribble with it. Don't worry, I didn't. I love animals much more than kids. I also got a chance to feed a giant turtle. Again, much more fun than feeding kids! 😊.
Ant that was it for our Krabi trip! The next morning we headed to Ko Pha-Ngan, where the full moon party was taking place in a couple of days! We
actually stayed long enough to visit the half moon party as well! All in the name of travelling!
Till next time!
Updated 03/09/2011: P.S.: the title should be country #6 as we have visited 5 countries before arriving to Thailand. Ohh well! 😊
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