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Published: August 15th 2007
Ahhhh... Thai food at last!
A quick bowl of noodles in Hat Yai.It was with a little reluctance and general lethargy that we got round to packing up our gear (some old, some new, some blue.. and quite a lot left behind). With this second chance of repacking the bags and with the experience of what to, and more importantly, what NOT to bring, we dragged our lighter bags to the center of people transport mayhem, KL's one and only
Pudu Raya Station. Richy thinks that its grubby and rather dated but San doesn't recall it being that well-lit! We eventually located our bus parked outside thanks to the efficient ushers running around with their yabbering walkie-talkies. The bus was the epitomy of luxurious communal road travel. Ladies and gentlemen, only 28 seats, your own TV screen with navigable channels covering 4 languages and own soft downy blanket and all this for only 55 Ringgit per person - why don't you step on board with
Konsortium bus services and let us bring to your destination!
The 11pm night darkness of our mobile accommodation was eerily lighted up by the flash of moving images from the stupid boxes. Pairs of eyes were glued onto their own screens, with the exception of one person,
Pad Thai preparation....
A rapid affair.... tasted excellent! Richysam, who had the only knackered T.V. on the bus - no loss to him though as he drempt away to Heart and Pink Floyd on his treasured newly replaced iPod. Snuggled under our blankets, the familar surroundings of KL slowly changed into the unfamliar highways of the North of Malaysia, lands neither the sniff nor snore clan had ever set foot before. About 4am, fluorescent glare pierced through our glued together eyelids indicating the first of a series of disembark/embarkation points for duty free and customs. Like a transvestite putting on his face and costume to become Madam Big Love, the transformation from the Malaysia to Thailand was complete. The only tell tale sign is that you can still order a 'Kopi-O-Kosong' and the Tudung donning muslim women. This draws one to want to visit Kedah one day...
Just past 7am we got into
Hat Yai, changed some money and had enough time to roam around town and get our first taste of Southern Thai food! Kopi-O-Kosing please! Konsortium not being christianed as such without good reason, upon arrival you can arrange to connect up to any part of Thailand your heart desires and our next leg was
taken care of as easy as A-B-C. 9.30am we were shuttled across to town and boarded a minivan for our 4 hour trip to Surat Thani where we intended to take the nightboat across to
Koh Tao, the quieter of the Samui-PhangNgan-Tao chain.
True to style however, once you left the arms of transport mini mafia and her godfathers, there were bound to be some business that wasn't taken care of. On arrival in Surat Thani, we 'hung about looking ugly' (as Ted the Intelligent one would often quip) expecting to board the boat at about 10pm. By 7, after a quick gobble of our tasty economy rice by the road (rice and selected dishes), we were told that the boat was not going that night but if we insisted on leaving, we would have to pay a top-up....Hmmm. Ah, what the heck, with the way we were smelling after having slept, walked and sweated in the same clothes for about 24hours, we chose to check into a room in town and wait till the morning boat. For 400bht a night the popular
Thairungruang Hotel meant a place to sleep sweetly, get washed up and have a wander down to
the impressive night market for more nibbles. Richy got stuck into the phad thai and San satisfied herself with trying a bag of crickets and silkworms. Ahhhh.... nothing better than to tickle your tastebuds when travelling!
Early morning, our ride came to take us to the pier and after a short wait, we boarded the ferry that headed first to Koh Samui, then to PhangNgan and finally about 4 hours later, we were there! Coming into shore, Koh Tao looked like any other touristic island in South East Asia. Once onshore however, Koh Tao is like an expert fisherman who lures prey with a delicious bait and you don't even feel it when you have been snagged! We were not planning to dive when we arrived yet Richy ended up doing 3 dives and San ended up doing her Rescue Diver course and some diving too with LV Dive a small outfit run by Khun Chet. Of the few sites that we visited, we agreed hands down that
Chumporn Pinnacles is certainly the best dive site we have visited in Thailand. In this area surrounded by rocky protusions, one ascends to schools of barracuda and trevally, balls of anchovies and
Dive Zoo Koh Tao...
On a busy day there can be over 500 divers in the water at this training site called Japanese. Biggest risk is the boats! blue damsel fish, pink anenome fish and the big draw of extremely diver savy grey reef sharks. Encounters of a few meters distance from these sentinals of the seas were frequent. On the ascent, you get drawn up to the school of bat fish posing elegantly as you force yourself to leave and carry out your safety stop.
On land, the island has a Muay Thai School!
Island Muay Thai Kick Boxing School Koh Tao is headed by Khun Tuhn and is well run and well equipped. San fitted in 3 lessons there after the rescue diver course was complete and in those 3 days she got smacked on the thighs by Khun Tuhn for crouching or blocking like a girl, got to go into the ring where Khun Bang was eagerly pointing out the blood stains on the mat for before trying to encourage a punch or two out of her in her first attempt at sparing (pathetically). We had finally met up with Tom and Rachel two fellow travellers we had met briefly in South Africa and now spent time getting to know them better after our previous momentary convergence of paths. After a planned 5 days on Tao we found no better excuse
to postpone our onward journey to Bangkok than because
Choppers (Pub cum eatery) had half price Guinness on a Monday, and Richysam felt there would be no world justice if we forewent that opportunity by leaving the same morning.... the luxury of extended travel aye... what's a day hear or there? Like little kids without parent supervision, we stayed for about a week and a half from the intended 5 days making one of the cottages in
Baan Tao Bungalow (250bht per night - low season), between Mae Haad and Sairee Beach our home. One of the best places to eat for taste, value (if you can get a seat) is
Krua Restaurant at the far end of Sai Ree on the main road.
One after another postponment in meeting up with Khun Precha in Bangkok, (We are so so sorry!!!! but the Diving and the Beer and the Muay Thai in Koh Tao and and and!!!) we finally made it there on the 2nd of August. Khun Precha picked us up after work despite San's phone being let down by a communications network that was having PMS (DTAC kept dropping our roaming line) and brought us to
To-Sit Pier 92.
He sat through patiently listening to our woes on the our trouble with the apartment in Bangkok which was going through a titanic leaking period (it is now resolved with an exchange in property requiring some extra investment but hopefully Prime Mansion 31 will all be ready by Feb 2008 to earn some investment dollars for us). We had a lovely evening all in all and look forward to returning the hospitality soon.
In Bangkok, as advised by Tom and Rachel, we stayed at
Asha Guesthouse. On the map, it looked a little way out from where we wanted to be to inorder to arrange meetings regarding the apartment but as it turns out, all it was was a 10 minute walk to the Sapan Kawi BTS station and then about 20 minutes into Sukhumvit. In between working out a solution for the apartment, we visited the new Paragon Siam and indulged in a 2 hour non-stop bowling fest, nipped in a movie at the Emporium cinema and had the obligatory massages. For some reason, life was not feeling too tough at the moment. Quite a lot has changed since Richy lived there with new developments sprouting like mushrooms in
the last 2 years and for him, it was like stepping back home but with some regret like an immigrant returning to the country he once called home, could relate to but no longer one of its children.
The 5 days we were there flew by in no time and we boarded the 18.45hrs
train at
Samsen station bound for Chiang Mai on 7th of August. Staying near Chatuchak Market, this is the more convenient station to board at rather than fight the crowds and the traffic getting to the more central HuaLamphong station. The comfort was truely top-class, the staff were very professional and even set up the bed for you. Freshly cooked food in true Thai style from the kitchen car was an added luxury. We thought we had it good in India with trains, this is definitely better. There are even regular train police patrols, no hany panky here! Perhaps the only downside is that rubber times apply, we arrived about 3 hours late which was fine by us as we had a more leisurely morning getting to our senses.
Like dog hounds chasing the rabbit down, we sniffed our way straight to the bus
station sans any detour and using the well-networked Green Bus (they have a website but it is all in Thai so we'll leave out the link here), we bought our 211bht tickets and an hour later, we headed off to
Chiang Khong on the boarder of Thailand and Laos. Overall, comfortable but the seats are a tad small as they pack 5 in a row. With Welsh shoulders to thank for, Richy took up one and a half seats resulting in the wife's butt half hovering periliously in thin air! Upon arrival, we chose along with two other German backpackers to go with the only lady touting her guesthouse for 160bht a night (
Baan Rim Lating), the big selling point being free transport to her place and drop off at the jetty in the morning. A pleasant night ensued before the next phase of the adventure the next morning - Laos here we come and
Sawadi Krap bye bye, hello to
Sabai Dee!
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