I suppose I should back up a little bit... I took a bus from Melaka back to Penang in one long boring day. The intent was to spend an extra day in Penang and visit the Bat cave temple and a couple of other things I didn't have time to see the first time around. However, it was the start of school holidays and the hostel I'd booked was only available for one night - rather than breaking up the day and moving across the city, I just decided to head to Langkawi - an island north of Penang. The highlight of Langkawi was a day tooling around the island on a scooter. There are a couple of geo parks, one has a gondola to the top of a mountain with beautiful views. Unfortunately, the view for me was uni-directional, the other half was socked in. predictably, I got a bit wet on the way back to the hostel on the scooter.
After just 3 nights on Langkawi I was feeling a bit anxious to get to Thailand. It was clear that the trip to Krabi had a number of connections so I opted to buy a package for 110 ringgit (about 27usd). The hostel manager took me in his vehicle to the ferry terminal, bought me a ferry ticket and handed me a brown stapled envelope with the name of a guy I was to ask for when the boat landed in Satun. I asked him if there was cash in the envelope and he said he didn't know what was in it - haha. When I got off the boat, there were the usual hucksters "where you go?" A sleazy looking guy (straight from a mexican boarder town I swear - gold tooth and all) came up and, after looking at my envelope, claimed he was "the guy" and I was to wait. After negotiating with and gathering up several of my fellow travelers, we were all loaded into the back of an old pickup truck and the driver was given my envelope (re-stapled) and extensive instructions. A 10 minute ride to a bit of a bus station followed. The pickup truck driver talked to the guys at the bus place and they wrote me a ticket to Trang. I got a bit upset arguing that I'd paid to go to Krabi (Trang is about half way of a 4 hour journey). After a bit of back and forth in broken English they managed to impart that the driver of the van to Trang would buy my ticket to Krabi. Not really knowing what else to do, I trusted it. About 15 mins into the 2 hour ride to Trang, the van driver pulled up next to a bus at a stop light, they rolled down windows and chatted then pulled over to the side of the road and I was summarily moved from the nice new air conditioned van to perhaps the oldest running bus I've ever seen and was told he would take me to Krabi. Which he did. Once at the Krabi bus station, another pickup truck ride (which I've since learned are called Songthaew) got me within 2 blocks of my hostel. Someone had told me awhile back that stuff like this happens in SE Asia but this was the first time I'd seen it in action. Multiple connections involving boats, taxi's, vans, buses and who knows what and somehow it all just works.
It's late and I'm tired so adventures in Krabi will have to wait. I'll try to add to this tomorrow.
Nov 30, 2015
Railay is an area on the mainland that is only accessible by boat and thus feels like an island. Stark limestone cliffs make it a climbers paradise. Getting there involved walking down to the river, forking over 150 baht and waiting for 9 other people to have the same inclination. Then it's maybe a 20-30 minute ride on a banana boat to a uniquely beautiful place. I spent a few hours exploring the beaches and trudging through the jungle until the storm clouds started rolling in. By the time I'd made arrangements to return, all hell broke loose and in the time it took to get from the beach down the pier to the boat I was completely drenched and a bit worried about being on the water in a little boat in such a vicious storm. On the way back I just thought if I died out there, it would be at the end of a perfect day, my life was complete.
The following day I figured out how to get a songthaew to the Tiger Paw temple. I had seen the giant Buddha on the trip into town and wondered if there was a way to get up to it. There was, by way of 1260 steps. With the heat and humidity, I didn't see anyone who didn't struggle with the climb. But man what a view from the top! The land formations that made Railey so beautiful were just as stunning from a distance. So unique.
A 12 hour bus ride has landed me in Bangkok. I really wanted to take the train from Surat Thani (a 3 hour bus ride from Krabi) but not knowing if I could get anything other than an over night 3rd class seat and not really wanting to stay overnight in Surat Thani, I wimped out and just took the bus. Overnighters seem like a waste of a good opportunity to see the country.
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