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Published: November 8th 2005
Our Night Boat
We had a couple beers each to help us sleep.We hopped on to a night boat from Koh Phangan to the mainland of Thailand to start our journey down to Malaysia. What a journey this turned out to be.
The night boat was ok, we were give mattress on the floor and slept for most of the 7 hours. When we were arrived in Sarathani (on the coast) we were demanded to jump in the back of a pick up truck. We tried asking why, but received no explanations in english, just tired angry looks from some Thai guy.
We jumped in the back of this truck, and were dropped off in the middle of the town outside a travel agency. From here, we had paid for a bus to take us south to Malaysia. We knew that there was some military fighting in the south between the Muslims and Buddhists which many people warned of. We didn’t really have any other options to get to Malaysia, and figured we could only have good luck after the stick beating incident.
The lady working at the travel agency did not help our moral though! She warned us again of the people being killed where we are passing through,
Our Night Boat
The inside looked like a dorm room. and we told her it shouldn’t be a problem - we'll just stay in the bus. She raised her voice and said "no no, they kill you in bus" as she made a throat slitting hand movement. I then asked if most people are ok traveling this route, and all she could say was "I hope so, but I can't guarantee". This was our only way to Malaysia, and we had already bought plane tickets from Malaysia to our next stop, so we decided to do it.
Another truck then picked us up, drove us for another 5 mins, and then dropped us off at another place. It was about 5am, and we waited here for another 2 hours, jumped in another truck for a few hours, and then dropped off somewhere else! We waited here for an hour or so, and then a mini van finally picked us up and took us to the Malaysian border (where most of the attacks and problems have occurred).
We drove by some barricades with barbed wire fence, some guys in pick up trucks with huge guns, but thank god there were no problems!
After crossing the border, we received
Crossing Malaysian Border
This is right before it started pissing rain...I wish i didn't throw out my umbrella the night before! directions from several people on how to get to the bus station - but all the directions were different! We were walking around with no direction ( I was still limping from my Muay Thai injuries) and heavy packs after 21 hours of traveling and then the rain started to poor - like really bloody poor! This was a real test of endurance.
We finally found our bus station, but no bus came. Great. Soaking wet, we finally found a taxi which took us to a nice dry room in Malaysia.
Malaysia is very different from the rest of the places we have been. Everywhere else was Buddhist, but Malaysians are Muslims. All of the women have to wear shawls over their heads, while the men have to wear long pants and little caps. Alcohol is rarely served here. Many streets have loud speakers blasting Muslim prayer music, and we seem to be the only tourists here.
We checked out some local markets, ate nasi garadu phubaet (???), some chicken pancakes, soy/tofu/brown sugar shakes, and had some unpleasant reactions. Good times!
Tonight we are taking a bus ride over to a beach resort island called Langkawi.
A&W
This was a funny sight. All the girls working there wore shawls while they served hungry locals Mozza's and root beer shakes. We hear there is some budget accommodation and great beaches on the far side of the island, so hopefully we can find some island paradise.
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