I survived southern Thailand!

Leaving Thailand by train was an exercise in persistence and cold hard calculation. Following the mad-transit, Transit van experience getting into Bangkok from Cambodia, I have sworn off any bus travel unless forced to at gun-point. When I made my train booking to Chumphon, I also tried to book the next leg from there to Butterworth in Malaysia, but I could only get to Hat Yai (or Haad Yai depending on your spelling). Chumphon itself is known as the gateway to Southern Thailand and Hat Yai is the capital of the southern region. 


Before I started out, absolutely everyone but everyone told me "DO NOT GO TO SOUTHERN THAILAND" due to all the terrorist bombings that have happened there. So you can imagine that I was a little concerned about having to stop at Hat Yai and then find my own way out of the country from there. I worked it out so that I would go through there between Christmas and New Year. I figured that if anyone wanted to bomb anything, then either of those 2 times would be far more attractive than the Wednesday inbetween. Also, I quickly profiled the locations that have previously been targeted and just avoided those kinds of places, except for the railway station which was unavoidable obviously.


To get from Hat Yai to Butterworth, my choice was scary bus ride over hills (ummm, NO!), an even scarier minivan ride at high speed (ha-bloody-ha!) or spending a night in a town that has been plagued by terrorist bombings. I made the safest choice of course and stayed the night.


As I was wandering around the town, I was struck by how down at heel it all seemed to be. A lot of businesses were closed, it was dirty and also rather mouldy. I had flash backs to South Korea in summer time when it turns into a peninsular of reeking moulds. Even relatively new vehicles were rusting and banged around and the people, while generally friendly enough, had an equally jaded air about them. The source of all this dejectedness finally revealed itself to me when I was in a bookshop. They were selling pics of the severe flooding that happened there on 01/11/10 (note the date). With Hat Yai being to Malaysians as Pattaya is to Westerners, I'm sure business will pick up, being that it's 'wrong' kind of business, that could refocus terrorist efforts on the town again. 


I have since meet a few foreigners who travelled Southern Thailand and all seemed to agree that the south was the best part of the country with the friendliest people. Damn shame about the hot-heads.

Thailand part 2

Well I'm glad to say that things improved greatly in Chumphon. My 'down at heel' diving resort turned out to also be an eco-resort, and although not spit-polish new, was certainly a more than adequate resort. 


No water transport is allowed at the beach so no jet-skis, banana boats, para-sailing or other beach nuisances allowed. Just the way it is meant to be.

I spent Christmas here and we had a special turkey dinner on Christmas Eve and five minutes of Christmas carols between 7-7.05pm on Christmas Day. Carols were mostly sung in Thai.

I spent my days walking on the beach, reading, eating, having massages and swimming in the pool. A hardship I know, but someone had to do it. Quite literally, someone had to as I was one of the few guests for most of the time I was there. The only negative was that I came out in a rash all over my arms and shoulders. It appeared that their environmentally friendly laundry detergent was not so Aly friendly.

Being an eco-resort, there were some critters around the place including a number of these little fellas. One that hung out by the pool was very human-tolerant however this guy was very shy. This is a shot of him coming out of his underground burrow. I had to sit quietly on the path while he inched his way out. I also met my first snake in-the-wild, so to speak. It was on a wet path that I was walking along. I looked down to discover that I was straddling a 4 foot long snake, partially coiled. It looked at me and I looked at it and we both moved off in our different directions. Later when I described it to the staff, they informed me that it was most probably venomous and were amazed that I took my snake encounter in my stride, so to speak. Apparently, I was supposed to scream and jump around, and probably also get bitten.

Bangkok

"One night in Bangkok" would have been enough. I don't think I've ever instantly fallen in hate with a place like I have with BKK. I've had a few 'really don't like's, mainly big, polluted Chinese cities, but I would take one of those over this place any day. I have to say that I did not have high expectations of the place to start with and these were right on the button.


I think the worst aspect is that it's a soul-less hole. The 'land of smiles' should be renamed 'the land of lies.' Getting a smile out of anyone is like trying to get blood out of a stone and they are only happy when ripping off people. I met one poor little old German lady (budget) traveller who was constantly being targeted for rip offs. There is obviously no respect for age; no respect for anything at all. There is also a lot of man/woman-handling. They shove and pull and push people around like sacks of rice. I have a pretty strong 'don't fuck with me' face developed from years of living in Asia so I don't get this, but I see others who have the 'deer in headlights' face on the receiving end of such treatment. I will just be happy to get out of this country without a serious confrontation with some idiot who shoves me. 


I have managed to do some shopping. I had my heart set on a pair of sparkly embroidered jeans  and I got not one, but two pairs. OK, so one pair is a size too small, but I plan on fitting them within six months. The others fit well now so I'm happy. I got a few other bits and pieces and have put a stop to any more shopping until Kuala Lumpur or Singapore. 


The great disappointment has been the food. It's the one thing I did have high expectations of but unfortunately these have not been met. Seriously, they haven't got a clue what to do with a fresh vegetable. Everything is slathered in fat and sugar (even more than elsewhere in Asia), and they have the disgusting practice of double frying. Without going somewhere pricey, it's difficult to get well made food of any description, even Thai. The worst so far was a tom yum kung that had curdled. It looked like a bowl of vomit. It had been drenched in kaffir lime and had completely unbalanced flavours. I've also had extremely average to poor green curries and along with crappy food, I have parasites again so it's time for a dose.


Tomorrow, I'm off by train to the relatively un-touristed town of Chumphon and am staying at a diving resort out of town. It's apparently a little down at heel but like Thailand used to be before the tourist boom. It also has a good beach, a 30 metre pool, boats to Koh Toa and squid fishing at night. Sounds right about my kind of place. I hold out some hopes of finishing my time in Thailand on a positive note.

Border crossing

So I managed to exit Cambodia on my cancelled passport. I also only realised as I was about to cross the border that my last entry to Cambodia was exactly on the day that my passport only had 6 months left on it, so was technically no longer valid. The Cambodian border guards really didn't know what to make of my various passports and 2 visas to cancel, so they gave up and stamped me out of the country in my new passport. I was really counting on being too difficult to be bothered with. The Thai side stamped me in in my new passport, after going through the whole old/new passport thing again. I didn't mention the fact that I no longer have a country of residence. I've struck problems with this before so now I lie. 


I found a minibus/transit van quite quickly and off we went towards Bangkok. Three minibus changes and a whole lot of rather fast driving later, I arrived in Bangkok. As I hadn't booked anything, I headed straight to a guest house recommended on one of the main websites. It was a pit but a sleepable pit so I slept.


Highlights: 1) 7eleven convenience stores - my first in about 4 years. I didn't even realise I had missed them until I was in one again, and a really big bonus; the Thai version of 7eleven has steamed buns with all sorts of yummy curry & bbq pork fillings. I particularly like the rabbit green curry ones. Ahh, it took me back to the gimbap triangle days of South Korea. 2) Surviving the road race that was the elevated expressway.


Lowlights: 1) About 50kms of elevated expressway into Bangkok. Along with heights, my other great fear is going fast in cars. Put these two together, throw in a whole pile of concrete, traffic and a driver with formula one ambitions, and you have my version of hell on earth. Once we got on the thing, my heart sank through the floor boards, and tried really hard to get back down to ground level purely through wish-power. It was an horrendous trip; 3 lanes to dodge and weave through, 140kmph minimum and teeny-tiny side barriers that don't keep in any vehicle taller than a sedan (vans do fall off and squash everyone before bursting into flames all the time). I was pretty close to bursting with fright by the time we got off the thing. 2) The manky hotel, but by comparison with the number one lowlight, it really doesn't rate high on the low scales.

I am no longer there...

...in Cambodia that is. At the moment, I'm sitting in a cafe in Bangkok nursing shopping injuries i.e. blisters, and massage injuries i.e. wrenched back muscles from when the stupid cow of a masseuse grabbed me and tried to throw me around. I specifically did not ask for a Thai style massage because I didn't want to be wrenched around and pounded like I was a big blob of sticky rice. Enough of my pain; what of my travels thus far?


Day 1
After much to-ing and fro-ing about which land border crossing to use to exit Cambodia, I chose to go the Koh Kong way. This involves a 12 hour bus trip, which can be broken into 2 stages so that's what I did. The first leg from Phnom Penh to Koh Kong includes a windy, switchbacked road across the Cardamom mountains. Given my fear of heights, I did quite well to not leap out of the bus and walk all the way. I must say the bus driver was very good, particularly for a local driver, and maintained a suitably very slow speed for all the tricky bits. Like every Asian bus driver I've ever had, he did suffer a bit from what I call 'destination fever.' This generally occurs about 50kms from the destination when the driver just wants to get to the end so he drives too fast and throws the bus around quite a bit. In Vietnam, this is also when they manage to run the highest number of motorbikes off the road for the whole trip.


The bus was full of mostly locals all enquiring about each other's weight: 'how many kilos?' seems to be the new 'hello'; and whinging about the bus ticket scams. There was also a little bit of elderly flirting and an offer of marriage, should a certain little old lady's husband die soonish. 

Koh Kong is a quaint little border town, in the border town scheme of things. I stayed at the Apex Hotel; ac, hot water and small pool for $15 a night, however the staff weren't too hot in their multiplication skills. It was very cold, about 23 degrees Celsius with a chilly breeze coming off the sea. Even the dogs were hunkered down, so I passed on a water taxi tour of the immediate coast.


Highpoints: 1) In crossing the Cardamom mountains, a protected forest it should be pointed out, someone had just chopped down a tree and the bus filled with the smell of cardamom. Unfortunately, the locals all whipped out their tiger balm and promptly overcame the gorgeous spice smell. I have no idea what that was about but I suspect something to do with funerals/death/dead bodies and thinking they will all die any moment if they don't get the offending smell away from themselves. 2) An 'elephants crossing' road sign.
Lowpoint: Aforementioned mathematic ability of receptionist. Could not calculate US$7 into Thai baht at the rate of 30 Tb to 1 USD i.e. 210b. He kept getting almost double that which of course I wasn't entertaining in the slightest, then he got very stroppy with the ensuing mathematics lesson...

I am still here...

...just been incredibly busy with the logisitics of another international move and a busy term at work. I will start posting more regularly once I hit the road. Later this week, I head to the border town of Koh Kong and overnight there to break up the 12 hour bus journey to Bangkok. The trip is all over land and over ocean with hopefully a significant amount of beach time. so I should have plenty of time to post and put up a few pics.