Nick’s world tour

So, finally, the end of the season approached and we left the island just before the last ferry made it’s journey back before the monsoon.

 Everyone headed their separate ways, and I made my way up to Kota Baru, the last main Malay town before the border. I’m spending one night here before getting an early start back into Thailand (another exclamation of “how far” when I realised quite how far I was going).

I spend most of the day here with one of my friends from the island, who I’d had breakfast with some months ago in Vientiane in Laos, and we coincidentally bumped into each other again waiting for the ferry a week ago. To make me feel like I’d been away for ages (which I have really), she’d already been home once and gone away again!

Kota Baru is a little town where foreigners are a rare oddity, a little reminiscent of some small Indian towns, but is perfectly pleasant to spend a few hours. We took care of boring stuff like shopping, and had a last “point and eat”meal in Chinatown.

Next day I started a 12 hour journey with local bus 29 to Rantau Panjong, before walking across the bridge to Sungai Kolok in Thailand. They’ve just changed the immigration rules and it’s not so easy to get extended stays anymore, so my passport gets scrutinised quite heavily…

Finally in… since last time I was here there’s been a military coup which has in fact made most of the deep south appear on the “British Foreign office’s do-not-go list”, though the rest of the country has changed little. It’s under martial law so the slightly camp looking police carry big guns, but apart from that, the king sponsored the coup and so everyone is obediently happy.

I had thought I’d go to Hat Yai and then north, skirting the “four states of emergency”, but manage to board the bus which spends a good 5 hours visiting each one. Actually it all looks quite “quaint” with lots of wooden huts and old style towns. A mind numbing 10 hours later I’m disembarking in Surat Thani, notable only as it’s the jumping off point for the Gulf of Thailand islands where I’ll be heading tomorrow. First a good nights sleep after an incredibly spicy selection of street food.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 12:01 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.