With days left on our visa for Thailand it was time to make a call on whether we stay or carry on travelling. If we wanted to stay it would mean a “visa run”. As the priority for us at the mo is for the kids to learn to read the Quran, we decided to stick with Ko Lanta as they were settled in madrassa and getting on with their teacher. So, the visa run it was.
I worked out the cheapest, quickest and easiest run would be to rent a car and drive down to the Wang Prachan border with Malaysia in the deep south. As well as do the visa run it was an opportunity to see some more of south Thailand and stretch our legs a bit.
Our first night was in Krabi and the difference between the chilled vibe of Ko Lanta and this tourist hot-spot was clear; it was heaving. As well as all the people, the bright lights, lady boys, mass produced trinkets and traffic also made us realise that Ko Lanta wasn’t as bad as we had thought – after 3.5 weeks we were getting a bit fed up of the food and the same same but different days. We now realised we had actually found a little slice of heaven on the island…it is very chilled.
Top tip – when you go to a foreign country, pay a little bit of attention to their local celebrations. Although I realised it was the Buddhist New Year, I didn’t quite take the next logical step in thinking “Oh stuff might be closed.” Not great for someone who sold cultural awareness training for 10 years…hmm.
And this is what ruined our next stop – Trang. I had read about the coffee the Chinese community serve in Trang and as we are coffee-lovers it seemed a bit rude not to stop and sample the local caffeine. However, upon arrival we were met with a town completely shut down. Ooops. So we decided to press on and just go get the visa done with.
So we sped on down the very civilized Thai road system to the Malaysian border. No idea why they drive on the left, but they do. The deep south was gorgeous – jungle after jungle after palm tree after rubber plantation. Green, green and more green.
I had never done a visa run before and although I know many people have done it, I was still worried something might go wrong. It just sounds “wrong” in that it’s so blatantly obvious that you’re taking advantage of a literal loop-hole. “What if they wont let us back in?” I wondered, imagining the 5 of us sleeping on the ground in no-mans-land for the night and being eaten by wild boar or mosquitoes.
We arrived at the border which was essentially a road in the jungle with market stalls on either side; we parked up in the middle of the road and walked to the Thai-Malay border. At the desk the Chinese-Thai border guard shouted that they close at 6pm (it was 5:15) and we had no time. WTF? Luckily his colleague assured me we would. After scrambling to fill in our exit cards, a bit more shouting from the bad-mood border guard, they stamped us out and waved us away to Malaysia…all of 50m away.
At the Malaysian border, there were two windows next to each other. On the left entry – on the right exit.
“How long are you staying?”
“We’re not. We’re going back to Thailand.”
No response. Passports handed back with visa. I then stepped to my right and we were stamped out of Malaysia by her mate sat next to her. So we literally spent around 90 seconds in Malaysia before walking back to the Thai border who welcomed us with bananas and smiles this time!! Seems they really take the welcoming bit to heart…they stamped us back in and that was that. All seems a bit weird and I can’t imagine Her Majesty’s Border Force being so cool about it, but I guess they are used to it in this part of the world.
Job done – another 30 days in Thailand.
With fresh visas in hand we headed down to Thailand’s most southern city of Satun. In this part of Thailand, Islam dominates – they speak a Malay dialect and even have their signage in both Thai and Arabic script. We found an amazing boutique hotel with a salt water swimming pool and swam and ate and life was merry. To top it all off we had 2 live Premier League matches on TV that night (as well as Palace thumping Sunderland 4-1). Life was good.
And that’s where the visa run changed.
We had to leave the hotel due to it being fully booked; we couldn’t find another one – everybody booked. We ended up finding a cabin in a local national park. We spent the day exploring the jungle, being eaten by leeches, taking a dip in a waterfall and watching monkeys hanging out.,
As the sun went down, it was as though God had turned up the amp on the noise. Everything went berserk and it didn’t stop till dawn. Forget the odd cricket making some sounds – this was the animal version of a drum and bass rave – crazy sounds you’ve never heard before. With bats in our bathroom and the rave outside, it wasn’t the most restful night as we were 3 on the floor and 2 in beds.
The next morning we were awoken by a posse of bad-bwoy monkeys who raided the bin for breakfast; we took a little stroll around a lake and then jumped in the car to head back “home”.
But the car didn’t start – dead. Deader than dead. $h£t!!!! After a bit of miming with the people that worked in the park we were handed over to the Thai army who kindly got some jump leads and got us going again…until I realised we had lost the room key! The day was getting worse.
An hour later we found the key buried deep under a car seat and only 3 hours behind schedule we set off for what we hoped was going to be an amazing experience – Tesco!!!
On Ko Lanta there isn’t much choice when it comes to food shopping. Actually not much choice full-stop. So another reason for renting a car was to fill the boot with food to see us through the next month. But we left gutted – rather than seeing more variety in foods, we found there was just more variety in the normal types of food. So rather than finding 2 types of noodle, there were 15. Instead of 3 rices we could buy 30. Where was the hummus, bread, lentils, etc? Nothing we wanted was there. Thanks Tesco.
And to make our day brighter, the car didn’t start again…. I went back in and bought jump leads and then stood by the car holding them out hoping a kind stranger would realise what was happening and help us. They did but it wouldn’t start. This was getting stressful – like really stressful. Nobody spoke English – nobody – I mean not one word0 Nobloody body and all I can say in Thai is Hi and bill please. It was one of those “oh no” sinking feelings in the bottom of your stomach when you’re just completely lost in every way.
In the end we found someone who went and found a policeman, who then told me to go and find a mechanic. But it was New Year and they were all closed!
I ended up being driven by a stranger and his family for an hour, I found a mechanic who took me off the family’s hands and drove me back to Tesco to change the battery. The car was working; Nikki explained that 6 policemen turned up and jump-started it with bigger cables and they became a pop-up attraction as locals gathered round to watch.
So, we drove to the mechanics who upon arrival announced they didn’t have the right battery. There was nothing they could do. The only thing I could do was drive non-stop back to Ko Lanta so the battery would not die.
That was a long, long, long drive back. 6 hours non-stop, all the way. But oh the joy when we got on that ferry taking us back “home”.
Again, travelling proved to be quite a tiring experience. Despite the problems, it was also amazing to see simple, basic human kindness at work. With no common language other than “asalamu alaikum“, hi and bill please we still managed to get people’s help and they were ever so kind when they didn’t have to or need to be. I kept thinking, if a foreigner broke down in Tesco in Yeovil would they get the help I did? I would like to think so.
Anyway, mission accomplished. So we are back in heavenly Ko Lanta…and we are not moving for 30 days!
No Payne No Gain 