A brief summary of the logistics operation in the past 48 hours: 2 hours by taxi, 20 minutes on the bike, 22 hours and 9 hours on the train on the boat. Why? Because our visas for Thailand threatened to expire and had to be replaced by new ones. And, believe it or not, the easiest way to do that is by making a return trip to Malaysia. Across the border with Thailand lies Kota Bahru, a town with one of the main attractions a Thai Consulate-General.
Our journey began on the 17th. The most luxurious boat on the island, a large catamaran, 10 chairs, mid-afternoon we went to the Thai mainland. Despite rain, wind and waves the boat whizzed almost noiselessly and roll or sway over the water. A very pleasant experience. Especially when the rain hits the windows and the outer bow waves splashed high, it is not difficult the luxury of a comfortable chair and cooling air to appreciate.
The 'real travel' (a word that ought to rhyme with knucklebones) only began on the mainland. We had a coach from the pier to Chumphon town and brought the train off. The train was just before 9 o'clock in the evening on the state and leave out everything was still light. Walking around killing time in Chumphon. The city is not very exciting, but certainly not without its comforts. Anyway, Judica wrote about our super ice cream.
The train trip to Malaysia was exciting. In a couchette Thai life but in Chinese, so we learned. We were on the Trans-Siberian train got used to beautiful coupes, this time we all slept in the hallway. At dawn, heavily armed soldiers joined in our group. The trail runs right through to Malaysia three rebellious provinces: the cutting pliers of the conductor does not impress enough.
Ngai Kolok Su-out, we could easily cross. A taxi ride of one hour, shared with neighboring French island inn keeper David pangan, put us in Kota Bahru. That city is about a few things to report. Malaysia is an Islamic country and Kota Bahru is the business card of that identity. Unveiled women allowed themselves to find a vegrootglas and on every street were texts in Arabic-Malay read. Many men in dresses well and definitely no pork on the counters of street stalls, even the toothpaste is halal. Now and then the call to prayer was heard, even inside supermarkets on the intercom. Yet a culture shock.
What we really struck me was the overwhelming friendliness of the Malay: Thai, the name, but we have more friendly faces across the border in 24 hours than seen in Thailand in a month. Very helpful and sociable. Yet it is strange to see how society is organized by the Islamic identity: in the supermarket we found bijvoorbeelod separate lines for men, women and families. At McDonalds all the ladies wore a neat uniform costume but also a uniform matching headscarf. And the burgers on the street, everything halal and the taste of a double chicken burgers is certainly not wrong.
Our hotel room we had picked out on luxury. The Malaysian Ringit 1:10 relates to the Thai Baht and we had the luxury limit of 100 Ringit for a hotel night set. That's about 25 euros. With all that traveling to a man to himself as some tickling. Anyway, we had already understood that Kota Bahru is not known for its cheap places to stay. Anyway: after some searching we found a nice hotel. The room was wonderful: very spacious and clean with a soft bed, plenty of space and seating. The bathroom was so in sharp contrast, the upcoming renovation but hopefully it solves. The water was warm as well (my last hot shower was already one month ago) and we have the luxury of coffee and tea in the room also good it tastes.
Applying for new visas went very smoothly. The application we had in Thailand, printed and filled out, so we had to do little more than the paper through the window scrolling. The next morning, after a less successful Malaysian hotel breakfast (with rice and various dishes like soup, but no sandwiches or yogurt) we got our passports with new visas again as easily pushed back by the ticket office window. Very fast. The taxi was still waiting for us and drove us an hour to fly back to the border (ie we had to take a train). Stamps, a walk on a bridge in limbo and we were back in Thailand.
The train departed obviously delayed and when we have after hours of sitting and kanenbraaien life in the compartment thoroughly Sat begun to touch (even though many vendors with all kinds of food along the wagons leurden sometimes quite amusing), we were by two friendly fellow travelers tipped off that we were almost at Surattani, where we would have plenty of time for the night boat. Our original plan was to go back to Chumphon and there after a night on the street / at the pier the morning boat to Koh Tao to take. The night boat was a better idea. Many luxury of course we did not expect: the boat was already full, but we were still a number of makeshift beds. On the night everyone sleep on narrow boat mattresses on the floor, so we were not at all. The piles of fresh eggs and prominently drawn scooters gave our bed for some shelter.
On the boat we could get some sleep. Just in time for the sun to come up to Koh Tao, we were awake. After a passage of a small 8 hours, the boat back to our familiar paradeiland. Nice to know all those places to see again, especially after the long train ride with machine guns and endless drives. Our motor bike was still waiting for us and we were relieved to see that (thanks to our watchful cockroach) in our hut everything was where it belonged.
Now we're back in bed. Our bedding is nice and clean and we enjoy the fullest sense back 'home'. Malaysia feels like a silly dream, a crazy lightning fast trip. About six weeks we go back to that mysterious country and we will hopefully reveal some more of the country's beauties.
