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Published: February 17th 2012
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So the epic journey was ahead of us, the biggest and longest so far as we totally took the easy way out when getting to Langkawi. We would have to travel about 500kms by boat and road! So we were up early and got the ferry from Kuah Town on Langkawi to Satun in Thailand. The ferry was a bit dingy inside and there was a mix of backpackers, locals and flashpackers. On arrival at Satun, we had to do the usual immigration documents; it was pretty quick (about 20mins). When you arrive by land in Thailand you only get as 15 day visa so will have to leave the country by 18
th or do a visa run if we want to stay longer. 15 days should be fine though as we have seen a bit of Thailand before!
When we finish all the official stuff we entered the main hall of the ferry terminal and were bombarded by tourist agents offering to get us to Suratthani by all means possible and for a good price. We had it in our heads that we were going to do public transport of buses or trains but when the option
of a minivan from the next big city, Hat Yai, was presented we were happy to just do it. It cost 800 baht each and would take about 6 hours so they told us! We were dubious because we heard some stories about these types of trips but sometimes you just have to put faith in people and hope for the best!
We were led to a Mitsubishi Pajero by a Thai couple and we couldn’t believe our luck! We presumed they were dropping us to the bus station to get a normal bus to Hat Yai but it was a nice treat, leather seats/aircon etc., even it was for a 10min drive. We were about 1 minute out the road and their phone rang to say that there were two others to join us. It was going to be a squeeze I thought but they had a handy we back seat for one of us to sit on. Two Australian guys joined us, Michael and Kelby. They were sound and we swopped stories of travels, life in Ireland and Australia (they were on a 3 week holiday) and endured Kelby’s love of
rockabilly music for a fairly long time. Turns out that the nice private car was to take us the whole way to Hat Yai :D Good times! So we chatted for a while, slept for a while (well I did, John had an uncomfortable seat on top of the seat belts). It was all working out handy so far!
We arrived in Hat Yai and they dropped us to the travel agent who was responsible for taking us the next leg. Well I swear it was like a scene from you’ve been framed or something, I was a bit gobsmacked. We were dropped at a rundown shop with an old lady who spoke no English whatsoever. We were told that the minivan would be there in 15mins. Again its times like these you just have to be trusting. The two Australians were chilled about it all anyway so that helped the matter. We took a look around, while the old lady started to try and tell us what time the minivan would be there writing 1/6 on a page. I was trying to figure out what it meant, maybe that we would leave at 1 and get
there at 6 but it soon became clear she meant we would be leaving at half one! So we grabbed some yummy food from the food stall next to the place and took photos/listened to more rockabilly music/watched the locals etc.
By half one, no sign of a minivan, she called them again and said it was on the way. I think it was near to 2 when it arrived, with only 2 seats for four people. I don’t know how we ended up being the ones left behind, but we did. We bid farewell to Michael and Kelby and watched them get onto a cramped minivan and my hope/trust started to fade. The bus driver said that another van would collect us in 10 mins. I could tell that John was also losing his cool slightly and we started talking about converting to our original plan, knowing that a train left Hat Yai at 2.45.
Minivan after minivan past us and the old lady was literally more help than a shoe if I’m being honest but I was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to just jump out from around the corner to tell us
that we were Punk’d. I asked the lady to call the driver again (after about half hour wait). As she did, a younger Thai woman approached the shop and said to go with her. OMG delight set in, we were going to get to Suratthani eventually and not have to pay double cos we were duped. It got better though because she brings us to this brand new Toyota and tells us we are very lucky because we have a private car the whole way – SWEET!
The 5 hour car journey wasn’t too bad and a damn sight better than the cramped minivan that Michael and Kelby got into. We hadn’t decided if we were going to stay in Suratthani that night or get the slow boat to Koh Samui overnight and we decided to go with the slow boat, sure why not!
As the journey progressed in the car, the two Thai people progressed to tell us that this was their return journey to Suratthani after coming down earlier in the day and you could tell… About 3 hours in the driver was topping up with Thai red bull every few seconds
and driving a lot slower than at first. They stopped a few times for “toilet” breaks but one time they literally just stopped to stand outside the car to keep themselves awake, I reckon. Worrying times, John nearly thought he would have to offer to drive at one point. I was watching the drivers eyes constantly at one point but had to stop cos he caught me, oops. More worrying was the roads/traffic and how the Thai’s drive. They literally use their horn to warn tuk tuks or motorcyclists to get out of the way, they make three lanes when there are only official two and they all drive at very high speed. Not so fun times for the last 2 hours but we got there safe and sound in the end.
We were dropped at the pier where the slow boat leaves from just after 7pm. The boat doesn’t leave until 11pm so we grabbed a nice wee spot and had some beers and food and chilled for the four hours. Michael and Kelby turned up after us and had heard how lucky we were from their driver. They had stopped lots along the way,
dropping people off at random spots while being squished in the van. They were pretty jealous! They were heading to Koh Phangan on the slow boat so we thought we may run into them there but probably not!
The slow boat was great, lots of little mattresses lined up with a pillow on each on the top deck. On the middle deck were the toilets, the staff sleeping quarters, caged birds and some cargo. On the lower deck were all the supplies to be taken to Koh Samui (water, fruit and veg etc.). It was surprisingly quiet so we got to have lots of space. We met some really nice people on the boat and had some beers chatting to girls from England and Argentina. When the beers were finished, we were wrecked so had a great sleep, shockingly. (I don’t know why I was expecting it to be bad)
We arrived in Koh Samui at about 6am and got a taxi to where we planned to stay. No accommodation or anything booked. We wandered around, checking out prices (lots of them too expensive) before finding a little place called Pott Guesthouse for 700baht
for an aircon room. The place was funny cos the sign for it was made out of a bed sheet and marker. Standards are seriously slipping folks….. Straight to sleep once we got settled, it was a good one!
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