Krabi, Thailand and the border to Malaysia

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Krabi seems to come to life after sunset, I think possibly because it gets so hot in the afternoon. I decided to have just one more night before making my way across the border to the island of Penang in northern Malaysia. I went for a wander around 'Walking Street', which is a night market. It turned out to be a place where I could sample loads of local food, and the best I've had so far in Thailand. It was a mixture of rice, spices, veg combos and meat. And also seafood, which seems to be pretty cheap in this area. I only had a couple of weeks in Thailand and it seems I have picked some areas geared up for holiday makers, so happy to move on quickly. However, Krabi, despite being so close to Phi Phi and Phuket, seemed quiet and pretty chilled out. Since I was going to spend the next day in an air con van (a minibus) for seven hours, I settled in on the hostels roof top bar with a couple of big beers and the Chelsea v Everton game and an early night.

Malaysian border control are a lot stricter than any of the land border controls I've been across so far on this trip. Once across, it became obvious that Malaysia is a richer country, but it soon got dark so was happy to drift off to sleep with the rumble of the vans engine and excellent smooth driving skills of our driver. Whilst Penang is an island, to the north west and can be accessed by ferry from the town of Butterworth, there is a 13km bridge (about 8 miles) linking it's capital of Georgetown to the mainland. It was built in 1985 and the following year won an American engineering award. There are plans to build another, longer bridge further south. The old part of Georgetown became a world heritage site in 2008 and is full of things to see. At the time of writing this, there is also a Japanese cruise liner berthed here, so Georgetown is also full of Japanese tourists with there cameras...

Lucky them. No pictures this time because my camera is being repaired and should hopefully be ready tomorrow! It's a hard life, I will have to stay here until it is ready for me to collect :-) More on Malaysia to follow. I'm looking forward to this, it looks like a great place...

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