thewills'wanderings

Well, yes we did make it to Malaysia but only for about half an hour! We took the overnight train from Bangkok to Pedang Pesar, the closest border town in Malaysia. Actually the train station arrives in a kind of no man’s land with Thai and Malaysian immigration at either end of the platform. We got off our train filled out our departure cards for Thailand then officially left Thailand, walked along a bit, then filled out arrival cards for Malaysia, then filled out departure cards for Malaysia, left Malaysia, walked around the corner again and back into Thailand with another 15 days stamped in our passport! It was all very funny!
We then jumped on a train back north a bit into Thailand where we got a mini-bus to Krabi. Tim and I had been here 15 years ago, climbing when we were on a break from working in Japan. It’s a beautiful area with huge limestone cliffs and emerald green water, and when we came here before, we loved it. In those days we were able to stay in a bungalow for about $1.50 a night and eat all sorts of fruit for not much money. Well to our HUGE disappointment the world has found Krabi and it is now full of lavish resorts and totally commercialised. It was hit hard in the tsunami, but has definitely bounced back. We couldn’t find anywhere to stay under $70 a night which was a bummer. A pineapple cost $4 and it was all a bit depressing. Anyway, we had a good day there, hired climbing gear for half a day, swam in the emerald sea, did a bit of a hike where we actually saw a snake in the wild! Our first one after all our time away! It was pathetically small, actually looked more like an overgrown earthworm but it was definitely a snake, so that was quite exciting. There were also monkeys and squirrels in the trees which was fun. Because there is no road access, you have to get there by boat, so we took a long tail boat which took about 45 minutes. The sea was a bit choppy at times as it officially the monsoon season but nothing too major, although I was pleased that we were quite close to land most of the time and there were life jackets on board.
Our original plan was to stay around Krabi for a week or so before heading back to Bangkok to get our flight to London. But with the costs so high we looked at plan B, which has turned out really well. Once again I managed to find a timeshare bonus week at a ridiculously low price in Phuket. So we took the boat back to Krabi town and then a minivan to Phuket. The timeshare was not the usual resort style, but instead a villa at the Phuket marina. It has been perfect. It’s a 2 bedroom house upstairs and down with a full kitchen and our own parking space. It backs onto the lagoon so if we had own our boat we could park it right outside. We’re about 8km out of town and with a taxi or tuk-tuk costing about $15 each way we decided to hire a car for 4 days. It’s a tiny little jeep which we can only just fit into, although the girls have been going Thai style on the deck at the back a lot of the time. We’ve been blatting around the island which is way bigger than we thought. It’s been nice to have the freedom to explore different beaches and buy our own food at the supermarket and cook for ourselves.
Yesterday, we went to a surfy beach which was great. Tim hired a surfboard and the girls hired boogie boards and we all felt like we were back in Aussie! The sea is really rough and the weather not great with the monsoon season, actually yesterday was the only day it hasn’t rained, but after all our months of travelling we really don’t mind what the weather does. We’ve been so completely spoilt with great weather for almost all of our trip that we wouldn’t dare complain. We had been quite worried about how it would be travelling in South-East Asia during the rainy season. We’ve all decided that the rainy season here is about the same as a good Auckland summer! The difference here is that they have nearly half of the year with no rain at all and the other half with the odd big downpour, which is over in an hour or two. The south of Thailand has definitely been the most monsoony though.
So, what now? Well, we’re heading out to Ko Phi Phi Island tomorrow. We decided we couldn’t come to one of the top snorkelling, diving places and not get out there. Because it’s the low season prices are reduced and it’s quite affordable. It will probably be raining but the island is 48kms out and is still supposed to be clear and sheltered, so it should be a good day.
So, on Friday, we leave Phuket and at this satge it looks like we’re going to do a one-way car rental and drive ourselves back to Bangkok. It’s actually cheaper when you take into account the tuk-tuks and taxis from train and bus stations. We have to pick up a bag that we left in central Bangkok a hotel and then drive to our guesthouse which is out by the international airport, where more of our luggage awaits us! We’re not looking forward to seeing all our luggage together and trying to pack it!
So, only a few days left and Thailand and I’m started to feel sad about it. Believe it or not, it feels so familiar. Tim is really over Asia now, but I don’t feel at all desperate to leave. It’s been such a great few months, far better than we could have imagined. We’ve done and seen so much, it’s hard to process it all. The other day we tried to name every place we’ve stayed throughout the year so far, we actually managed to do it! Some of us better than others though. Don’t worry I won’t list every hotel, guesthouse, teahouse, campsite we’ve stayed in. That would be seriously boring for you.

……………..some time later after 3 days of driving from Phuket to Bangkok.

Well, yes we hired a car and drove up from Phuket to Bangkok. It all went really well, we stopped and stayed at really local non-touristy towns on the way which was a change after Phuket. Our major achievement was managing to navigate out way into central Bangkok, then to a big shopping mall then out to the outskirts of the city where our guesthouse is. There were some hairy moments where we had no idea where we were going but we made it!!
So, it’s now 6pm on Monday 7th and we fly to London in about 7 hours. Yes, that’s right our flight leaves at 12:45am. We’re just killing time at our guesthouse, swimming and organising our gear before we head to the airport at about 10pm. Charlotte’s having a huge sleep so hopefully she’ll be ok. I’m sure she’ll crash in the corner of the airport somewhere later. Sorting our gear has been a huge mission having picked up bags that we’d stored here after being in Nepal. We decided against sending some stuff back to NZ, just too expensive and we’re not overweight it’s just the hassle of lots of bags.
We arrive in London at 7am tomorrow and we’ll be catching the train to meet Anne’s parents (Anne is my very cool English friend from Titirangi, for those who don’t know) who have very kindly offered to put us up for our few days in London. It’ll be nice to see some familiar faces and check out where Anne grew up. We’ll be doing an action packed 2 days of sightseeing before we fly to Frankfurt to pick up our campervan and start exploring Europe. We can’t wait! CHEESE and WINE!!!(oh yes and the wonderful historical buildings and such things). The reason we are flying to Frankfurt is that it was way cheaper to hire a camper there and with the cheap flights it worked out well. We’ll be spending most of our time in France though, and a bit of northern Italy and maybe pop into Switzerland.
Sorry no photos yet. We haven’t had great internet plus our waterproof camera got water in it so we’ve taken a while to get another one. We promise to update photos as soon as we can.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at 5:35 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.